Things to Throw Away

This post was shared through FB by one of my friends:
http://embracinghomemaking.net/2015/04/200-things-to-throw-away/

Living in a tiny house demanded I "throw away" or in my case mostly "give away" a lot of "Things" so naturally I was curious about what was on this list.

I browsed through it and found that surprise, surprise I had gotten rid of most of the 200 things she lists.  

At least a 1/4 of the things she lists I never owned to start with (maybe that made it easier for me to downsize??) and no offense meant to anyone but if you really have all 200 of these extra's lying around your house somewhere you just might be a hoarder.  

Also, 

if you're having trouble getting rid of more than 25 of these you might consider having a friend (or counselor!) come over and help you declutter!

I've said for a while now: 

"If you have the space for it why get rid of it?"

I think the real problems start when we don't have the space anymore.  This is when we start to place value on "Things".  The things start to take up our time: cleaning them, moving them, organizing them.  The things start to take up our money:  buying storage tubs to keep things in, buying storage bags to keep things in, buying storage shelves to keep things on, buying storage racks to hang things on, buying storage hooks to hang things from, etc, etc, etc.  I'm sure you can come up with others ways "things" take up our time and money.

When you have the space for things, why get rid of them?  

Personally I don't think there is any reason to get rid of things if you have the space for them.  As people we tend toward valuing things: memorabilia, art, comfort items, etc.  In fact, even living in a tiny house, I value things such as my washer/dryer combo, my tupperware, my glass storage jars, my blankets, kids hammocks, legos, bakeware, mugs and tea.

"Getting rid of things shifts our values." 

 (credit: husband)

The most frequently asked questions about tiny house living is about stuff.  Shifting our values to other things has really helped us not to miss the things that we "threw away".  The kids are close, cleaning takes less time, we are spending more time on our hobbies (which right now happens to include woodworking, but also tennis, racquetball, and reading), we had more time than usual to spend with family over the Christmas holiday, I had an opportunity to help clean someone else's house before Christmas, we have time to help out around the church and when friends come to call we have plenty of time to visit.  

I think each person has to assess their values introspectively with "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness" as a guide.  When our values are centered on seeking first His Kingdom, we can't go wrong.

I'm sure I'll revisit this topic of "things" again, tiny living in our society certainly brings "things" to the forefront, but for now I'll leave you with one by-law that has helped me purge:

If I have a question about keeping a "thing" 

and I can replace it for under $50, 

out it goes.

A bit crowded...

I'm feeling a bit crowded this week.

With Christmas presents coming in and trying to get everything out of our storage room, I'm having to do a bit more downsizing.

• I have canned maybe once a year for the last couple years: my steam canner is going to the white elephant gift exchange.
• Two plates (1 large, 1 small) per person is plenty: a stack of plates is headed to the thrift store.
• My American Girl books are going to my daughter...yes, this was hard for me!!  My daughter does not have a history of taking care of things and I treasured those books for years.
• Who really needs two pairs of hiking sandals??  My kids don't for sure: two pairs headed out.
• Awesome Cuisinart ice cream maker that was used once a year:  also headed to the white elephant exhange!
• Oh, and plenty of odds and ends papers that were put aside in case I needed them but I never did.

Awww...much better!

Sweet gift from my mother-in-law :)

Christmas in the (unfinished) tiny house

There isn't much room to decorate right now due to our living area being also a work area but I was able to do a little decorating.

I had thought about getting a tiny tree for our tiny house but with all the construction stuff in the way right now it would be hard to work around.  I fully intend to make room for one next year!

Side note:  if you've never used this "What God wants for Christmas" action/learning game I highly suggest it :)

I've tried to make sure the Christmas albums and pictures are available for the kids to look at.  The move has gone pretty well considering but the kids seem to do better emotionally if the past isn't "forgotten" due to the move.

Two challenges of living in a tiny house:

1. The unfinishedness of it (yes, I know that's not a word).

2.  The pitch of the roof is more than we wanted.  I saw how they made the pitch on tiny house nation and asked for the absolute LEAST amount of pitch while still having a pitch so its not flat.  I think the pitch could have been another 8-12 inches higher - not sure if I'm saying that right - and this would have given us enough space to change on both sides of the loft.  I should have been more specific about what I wanted, it's really my own fault, but it does make moving around in the loft more difficult.

Currently this is the only way to cook food:

It's working out ok, though noodles are turning out to be a challenge I am seeking to overcome!

I LOVE getting packages in the mail and I'm pretty sure this is the Biggest package I've ever received:

 

Not sure what this little sticker means but my food is cold :)

I am so happy with the way my shelves, tupperware, fridge and freezer are turning out!

Oh, and this is the promised picture of my daughter's steps.  Wall/rope climbing makes for great tiny house exercise!

Improvements are planned for visual effect
but we needed to get something up
so we didn't have to keep moving the utility ladder around our little house.

AND here's our seating/work/tool/whatever we need it to be right now Area:

It looks a lot neater when Chris is working on something, right now everything was shuffled around to make room for moving the fridge and freezer in.

Currently I'm at the library getting some much needed internet time ;).  

We're headed out here in a few minutes to get dinner, maybe frozen pizza's that will fit in my toaster oven???  Whatever the case, we can now keep ice cream on hand so we're set!!

Blessing of Friends

God is so good to provide friends.  

My son and I were at his homeschool co-op Christmas party and one of my friends there heard that I don't have internet or running water (there is certainly a toss up as to which of these is more important!).  My sweet friends instantly started trying to figure out who could help get the internet issue resolved.  After talking to several people, she found one of the dad's who could help get the right parts so Comcast will come out (if you didn't see my other post: Comcast won't do the initial install...cause we're on wheels...).  

Now we have the parts and a little bit more knowledge to put the initial install (or whatever it's called) in so we can call Comcast out to hook up our internet (and yes, we could probably go with some else but I REALLY can't handle slow internet right now).

Thank you God for friends!!

Running water and paneling

Right now the biggest inconvenience of living in our house is the lack of running water.

• We got a membership at the local gym for showering; this has also forced us to get exercise because it seems like a waste to go to the gym and NOT work out. 
• A three gallon water holder with a pump works for drinking and sort of for cleaning water.
• Thankfully I can wash my dishes in the other building on the property with a sink.
• And "wet ones" work great for washing hands.

I am glad this inconvenience isn't a tiny house problem and hopefully water can be hooked up soon!

As for paneling, we have cleared out all the 1/4inch maple sanded plywood from Lowes and Home Depot.  I am doing an accent wall down stairs with the pallet boards but the side walls will be paneling, which needs to go on before the pallet boards, which are now unavailable.

Living in our small space is still an adventure but not an unpleasant one.  Well, besides right now: my kids can hear my husband watching YouTube and so are not going to sleep.  I'm hearing a lot of questioning, complaining and commenting about why parents get to stay up late.  I think we will go on a long run tomorrow ;).

Adventures in our tiny space

I haven't had a chance to post pictures of our great loft spaces!

Here's some pictures of the cool net my husband put up for our son.  It still needs to be secured at each cross section but for now it provides safety for our sleep walking son :)  

We're also using that hole there in the corner as our access to the loft.  My son gets in and out like a monkey but my husband and I use a nice step stool to assist our ascent and descent.

Oh, and my son uses those vertical ropes to traverse across the loft area from the outside of the loft.

I actually love my loft space.  My clothes are in nice organized piles on the other side of the bed from the loft access.  Chris's clothes are in a bin in the far right corner.  It's working out quite well so far!

My daughter loves to be in her space, but mainly her hammock.  She swings and swings!  My husband got her steps put up yesterday.  I'll have to post more pictures later; she needs to be picked up from school now.

The Living Begins

We're officially moved into our tiny house.  

We moved in yesterday.

There's a lot mixed feelings involved in the move but the most prevalent among all of us is excitement.  We are excited to be in the space we have been working on for months.  We are excited to use our lofts and new beds.  We are excited to organize our space and use toys and things that have been packed away: I forgot how comfy my slippers are!   And I'm especially excited to finally get (most) of my baking things out of storage!

The kids were up bright and early swinging away in their hammocks, chattering like a flock of early birds.  
My son was all adventure when I was trying to come up with breakfast: "oh corn tortilla's and jam!  And we have peanut butter.  I can make a sandwich!"
He did just that. :)

We're still waiting on a few things, especially internet so I can post pictures on here!  But we also kind of need something besides a utility ladder to get into the lofts, the refridgerator and freezer (it'll be a week late because of the flooding, very frustrating but what can I do?), water piped to the house, a counter, a sink and of course a seating area in the living area (pretty low on the list right now!)

At this moment I am blogging from my small phone in my loft, my son is playing with Legos in his loft and my daughter is in her loft in her hammock swinging, swinging, swinging...and my industrious husband is at Lowes getting more paneling for the walls.

Right now I am thankful that we each have our own space but are only a few feet from each other and can easily converse.

Yay for vertical space!!

I installed these shelves today and was very happy with the way they turned out :)

Watching Tiny House Nation Again

It's been quite a while since I watched Tiny House Nation.

This show really inspired me to try living in a tiny house but for a while I just couldn't watch it.

When I watched it I would get really frustrated about how slow our tiny house is coming along.  C. also discouraged me from watching it because he felt he couldn't meet the expectations for excellence the show was setting.

Well things are moving along and I decided to watch the show again.

AND I AM FREAKING OUT ABOUT HOW MUCH STUFF I STILL HAVE!

Deep breath...it'll all iron out...deep breath...just because the living area is full of tools and memorabilia doesn't mean it won't all work out...deep breath...we're going to come up with some awesome storage solutions...well, we are!

OK so maybe my 9-tray Excalibur dehydrator won't fit.

But, hey! maybe C. can build me a special storage box on the outside of the tiny house for my dehydrator!

It might be good for me to wait to mention it till he's done with the cargo net for the middle loft, and the walls, oh and the kitchen sink and counter, hmm and maybe the table, seating area and shelves.

Just maybe ;)

Floors and Walls!

Well there it is: our flooring.  Isn't it pretty??  Yes, that's about all you can see of it.  The rest is covered in drop cloths and cardboard to prevent scratching and such. 

 I can't really say I like it.  

I haven't really seen it.  

But I'm trusting that it looks amazing!

In other news:  A. finished painting her bedroom walls, I almost finished my first "large" pallet wall, and C. is working on the paneling in our loft.

She picked out all the colors and painted everything herself.  I think she did a pretty good job for never painting a room before.

I like the way my pallet board wall is turning out. 

C. is going to trim the boards around the window when we frame them.
He has a tool that will make it really easy ....
Once the paneling is up in our loft I will finish this wall.

The following picture shows the panels we are putting up in our loft.  C. is finishing them tonight.    Hopefully I can get them Varethaned tomorrow. 

Banned from the Tiny House

Yep, my husband has banned me from my home...


...at least until the floorings done ;)

He worked Saturday getting the house ready, Sunday he finished preparing the floor and started laying the flooring and he's been working till past 11pm the last three night to get the flooring laid.  His "big plan" is to get it done by this Saturday evening.

Meanwhile its been a nice break for the kids and I not to to have the house to work on.

We walked the lake, spent time at the library, spent time with friends and went shopping.  I'm looking forward to the house being done and we can do more of these things!

Tiny Living Tip #...

Just because it's cute, pretty, stylish, nifty or straight up amazing 

AND available to me 

DOES NOT mean I need to have it.

My First Pallet Wall

The lighting is kind of hard to get right but here's my first pallet wall!

View from the inside of my daughter's loft looking across the house

The wall inside my daughter's room.  That wall is TOUGH.

And looking across from my loft to my pallet wall.


Next step: bamboo flooring.

And we have insulation!

We went with the spray foam insulation. Our good friend from Tacoma came down and helped my husband spray it on.

This insulation tends to get a little poofy.

I spent yesterday cutting off the excess.

We did have to move just about everything back out of our house though.  What is left is in the center of the house.  I keep reminding myself that we are getting closer to moving in...even though it feels like we moved out.  

Really the guys didn't do to bad considering this was their first experience using spray foam insulation!  We're very thankful for friends who help!  The house is warmer and quieter and all around cozier.

My husband is now working on walls in the upstairs loft.  We getting closer and closer...but not close enough.

I'm trying to be patient. 

Remembering Switchbacks

Switchback #4:  The New Job Didn't Work Out

So there I was in the middle of relocating: holding down the fort while my husband worked out of town, researching how to rent our home to single moms, selling things, packing things, still working part time and carrying on all the regular life things of homeschooling, sports, etc.

And I get the call from my husband: the new job didn't work out.

I about had a mental breakdown.  My husband was calm as a cucumber and fully trusting God had a plan.  My husband doesn't have a job.  We have bills, a mortgage and life to pay for.

I feel like there were two choices: take complete control back or move forward and trust God.

I chose to move forward and trust.

I'm very glad I did.


Switchback #5: Our Housing Plan Changes

It's kind of hard to use a house as a ministry if you can't cover the mortgage.

We decided to sell our home.

We had already talked to Edd Laville about buying the other home and possibly selling or renting ours.  We called him again and asked what to do to get our house on the market.

Because my husband wasn't working he was able to put all his time into getting our house ready to sell.  This meant the spot on our ceiling in the entry way, that had been void of sheet rock and covered with a black tarp since the year we moved in, was now fixed!  I had ceiling! :)

My husband worked from early morning till long past dark every day trying to get the house ready.  We had agreed it would be best for him not to look for another job until the house was ready.  It made sense due to the amount of work the house needed done.

I had already been downsizing slowly as I packed and selling things I didn't want to move.

This all led into a more gradual switchback....

Switchback #6: TINY HOUSE

Somehow during the process of getting our house up for sale and the downsizing and watching Tiny House shows (thanks to my friend for encouraging me to watch them!), I agreed to try to live my husbands dream of living in a tiny house.

Very gradually living in a tiny house became my dream as well.

I like to see things before I go for them.  Watching "Tiny House Nation" made a huge impact on my decision to try Tiny Living.  I saw how it could work and I loved the idea.

My husband spied a 24' trailer for a great deal and we bought it.  After that purchase there was no turning back.

The plan was then to sell the house and my husband would build the tiny house with the money.  Because we were already headed to the town where my parents lived AND it happened to be the best place to build a tiny house, we continued forward with our plans to relocate to our new city.




As usual, plans change, and from this point they continue less shocking and disruptive and more exciting and fun :)

"Quick" Update

An electrician friend of ours came out last Saturday and helped C. finish up the wiring and breakers.  We had a great visit with him and his wife over some Thai food; we were thankful for the help and also the fun time catching up.  C. just wants to double check the connections (or something like that) before we screw in the outlets and head on to insulation.

Another friend of ours is a plumber and has been trying to make it over for the last couple weeks.  We needed to have the water hooked up to the hot water heater and the washer/dryer unit connected to the water lines.  Our plumber friend was able to make it over last Tuesday and get those two things hooked up.  

Moving forward...but slowly...it seems...like our....big plans....are.....taking.....a......really.......long.......time........

Meanwhile in other news:  I got locked out of our tiny house...with my purse inside.

I had my keys but see, well, the door knob on the back door broke so that wasn't going to work.  Our front door has been out of commission since the first rain because the trim swelled up with the water. I was kind of out of options at this point.

We were planning on sanding down the trim on the front door and repainting it with an oil based paint it anyway: I guess there's no time like the present.  

I sent my son in search of a tool to scrape with and he came up with a tool from his toolbox for fixing brick work?  Whatever it is, it is metal and thin and worked great.  I scrapped away at the trim on the front door and my wonderful husband came over on his lunch to help me muscle the door open.

Unfortunately once it was open, I couldn't close it to lock it until I worked on it.  I headed to Lowe's and purchased a new handle for the back door and figured, "Why not pick up a tester color for the door" (we want to repaint them).  Thankfully, I also remembered while I was at Lowes that we have a oil-based white paint already so I didn't pick that up.

Back at the tiny house I sanded the trim down and painted it with the oil based white paint.  Then I painted the whole front door with the tester color I bought.  

THEN I realized, "wait I can't shut the door if the trim is still wet"  and "I never did check to see if the door would shut BEFORE I painted it".  BIG mistake.  Even if the paint wasn't wet (which it still was 5 hours after I painted it), we realized that the door would not shut. 

The trim had swollen to much.

It was dark by the time I used paint thinner to remove the paint; sand down the trim; sand down the edge of the door that had gummy trim residue on it; carve out more space for metal door lock plate thing; sand down the trim again - it took awhile; and finally shut and lock my door.

Don't mess with a woman carving her house with a knife.

The area we live in is not incorporated by the city and we're pretty sure that is because the city police do not want to be called multiple times a night.  I was switching from sanding to carving when some stranger guy from the road asks me when our house is going to be finished.  

As I attacked my house with a large knife I replied, "It'll be done a lot sooner if this knife would cut better."

The stranger didn't stay around.

Oh and the new door color??  Not good.  I may or may not post a picture its that bad.  

In Lieu of posting pictures of more electrical wires (we're almost done but they get boring to look at), I decided to share a few more pictures of the beautiful flowers that I purchased to brighten my corner.

Add caption

Flowers and Legos

I really missed my Dahlia's so I was pretty happy when I found a nicely blooming one at Fred Meyer on clearance. 

I have lots of "big plans" for where I'm going to plant Dahlia tubers next year but for now this will do :)

I picked up a couple other smaller plants and added my Rosemary plant that moved with us.

My house feels so much better with the color around it!






















As for Legos...I found this really cool "Swoops" bag on CL: it is essentially a play mat with a ledge that is also a drawstring bag.  

Little man can store his lego's in the bag and take it anywhere without the legos leaving the play mat.  It's great for tiny house/outdoor living!

I don't want to see tiny houses

I realized we are at a point in our build where I really don't want to see any more tiny houses.  Make no mistake, I LOVE my tiny house.  I think being content and trusting God right now means I have to not look at all the cool things my house could or will have.  I have a great tiny house and we have some big plans for it, but right now I just need to be in the moment.

Not-So-Tiny Washer/Dryer Combo

A washer/dryer combo machine was/is my first choice for doing laundry while living in a tiny house. These machines wash the clothes and then dry the clothes in the same machine: put them in dirty and they come out clean and dry!  These machines tend to run about $1500 brand new for a good quality one.  This is a lot of money in our books.  

I tried looking on craigslist but only saw a cheap brand in a city about 3 hours away.  Every couple weeks I would look again and finally I found one not far away for only $500.  I didn't stop to ask dimensions.  We just drove down, picked it up and brought it "home".  I didn't have our tiny house yet so we put it in the storage shed.  I started looking at it more closely and thinking, "hmmm...it's kind of big" then, "uh oh, I think its going to be to big" and, "what on earth did I do by buying this without measuring first??".  

Then we got the tiny house and I really thought, "What did I do?!".  

I started looking for smaller units on CL but they just aren't there.  This means in order to get a smaller machine we would be forking out over $1000.  My husband convinced me that "a bird in hand is better than 2 in the bush" and since we have it we might as well use it.  We figured and figured about where to place it and I think we've come up with a spot. One of the young men at church helped Chris move the washer/dryer into the tiny house and it's actually not so bad.  It's going to double as kitchen counter but I think its going to work. 

Then there's this amazing space under the hot water heater and next to the shower.  So much space!! :)

And then there's this complicated mess of wires that I have no clue about and yet we are waiting on the completion of the electrical to move forward with insulation, walls, and living in the tiny house!  

I am thankful for my hard working husband who is at the end of a 40 hour week, still facing a day of work and coaching tomorrow, but still working on electrical wiring at 8:30pm on a Friday.

Back to Chaos

In order to have the propane lines installed where we wanted them we needed to move the kitchen cabinets.  This meant we needed to move all of the things in my kitchen NOT in cabinets, all of the things that were in the "living room", take off the counter top and in general just create a big mess!  With all that done our propane lines are installed.  We were very thankful the men at Twin City Service who installed the propane lines also turned our shower stall.  The shower stall needed to be rotated because originally we had wanted it facing the back of the house.  Unfortunately my not-very-tiny on-demand hot water heater blocked the shower entrance so we had to have it rotated to the position you see it in the pictures below.

C. is currently working on electrical wiring.  He's only working about 40 hours this week at his job (different than the 60-70 he worked per week for 2 of the weeks in September). This means he's been able to work in the afternoons, evenings and weekends (pretty much anytime he's not coaching soccer, in church or sleeping).  He just told me he has one more big wire. That's good!  Next will be the wiring of plug-ins and light switches, which my dad started upstairs already. My awesome dad did some research on how to install the three-way light switch that didn't have good directions included.  This is very good, that switch is a bit of a puzzle.  With this news maybe we'll have the electrical done by this weekend??? I never have claimed I have accurately timed plans, just "big plans" ;).

Tonight we had a great dinner of avocado, tomato, pepper salad, sardines, seaweed paper and trail mix.  We're making it work and actually having a good time! :)

The chaos created from moving everything around to install propane lines.

It's really hard to get a good picture in the bathroom...it's kind of small :)

Our dinner "table" although we didn't have jam with our seaweed paper and sardines...we're crazy but not THAT crazy yet.
And yes, that is my toilet between my cabinets in the kitchen, yes, it's clean right now, no, we didn't put food on it!!
OH, and on the far left is my not-so-tiny washer/dryer combo.  It fits but we'll need to hire a plumber to figure out how to hook it up.  I'll try to post more pictures of that later.