Hot WATER!

I came back from an amazing Christmas vacation to HOT WATER!  Hot RUNNING water!

My hard working husband has installed the new hot water heater and it is working!!  There are still some small things he needs to finish up but I am so thankful he worked hard to make sure I had hot water when I came home.

He even turned on the Christmas lights for me so the house would feel cheery :)

Shortest post ever for a VERY BIG BLESSING! :)

Happy New Year!

These are the Best Things

You CAN make 2 different kinds of fudge and Chex mix, create gift baskets of fruit, wrap presents with children, cut up and dry eight trays of pineapple while hosting 2-8 kids for the afternoon WITHOUT hot water.  In fact, you can do it without RUNNING water.

I don't suggest you set out just to accomplish the feat BUT it can be done!

I feel like I need one of those "feeling accomplished" or "on an adventure" options right now.  These Tiny House construction issues were not factored in when I set out on this adventure.  Yet, how many of us anticipate all the twists and turns to come our way in this adventure called life?

I think back to my post from just the other day and I can't help but be thankful for the "best" things in my life.

Yesterday my son and I were able to "sneak" a fruit basket to the neighbors.  We used 2-way radios and had a blast!

Two of the neighbor kids joined us when we took gifts to another family and sang a carol (well I sang a carol and the kids laughed at me but it was fun).

We heard of 3 kids who wouldn't see their parents or have Christmas presents from them on Christmas; we have a tiny house with no mortgage...we went shopping and wrapped presents!

Eight neighbor kids descended on our tiny house.  They played on the swing and cargo net, wrapped presents, helped me make Chex mix and prep pineapple to dehydrate, delivered goodie packages and just sat around and visited.

I made two trays of fudge - chocolate pecan and coconut and chocolate mint.  I like fudge.

Tackled the laundry chore at the laundromat.  Check.

These are the "best" things in life.  

These experiences are the things that don't depend on hot water or running water.

These "best" things bring joy and peace to our hearts through tough times and easy times.

Join me in thanking God for the "best" things through this Christmas season and into the next year!

Sanity in Question

My dad recently told us, "I thank God for showers and hot running water every time I take a shower."

Friends, I encourage you to do the same.

Hot water is a privilege.  I don't know the number but I know there are a lot of people around the world who do not have hot water pouring out of a faucet in their home.  Humans can survive without hot water running water.  I know we have.  I boil water with my electric water boiler for "showers", washing dishes, you name it.  The electric water boiler has been my lifeline to sanity.  I'm having a hard time imagining life without electricity, but, hey, most people don't go 6 months without hot running water either!

Long story short with our hot water heater:

• Rinnai sent a replacement unit to the service company and paid to have it replaced. 
• Tri-tech (service company) replaced the unit but charged extra and then tried to overcharge the extra charge (Tri-Tech had the worse customer service I have ever experienced).
• The new Rinnai unit works great - it's the "best" tankless propane hot water heater out there!
• I didn't want to use it because we want to sell it and, frankly, I had anxiety every time I took a shower (I kept thinking it was going to code again - ok, ok, so maybe I get a small form of PTSD over strange things!).
• We bought a unit much more adequate for our Tiny House (5 Gallon Per Minute- instead of 9 GPM).
• We have listed the Rinnai unit on CL and Ebay.
• My husband is installing the new Bosch tankless propane hot water heater.

I still don't have hot water.  

I actually don't even have running water now.

It is 3 days before Christmas and I don't have running water.

I am beginning to lose my sanity.

As with everything in building our own Tiny House, when my husband is working his day job the work on our house just takes longer to get done.

I really wish I could blame someone else (part of losing my sanity!) but right now I can only blame myself for not doing more research on hot water heaters last year.  But then "you don't know what you don't know" and I didn't know there was more research to be done.  I really don't "blame" myself either.  I didn't know what I didn't know and now I know more.  I know a 9 GPM tankless hot water heater would be "great" for a house with 3-4 bathrooms (very different from our house...just clarifying...).

I now know and have experienced first hand: "the best out there" doesn't mean it's the "best out there" for us.

My loss of sanity now leads me to philosophize about how this applies to Christmas.  There is so much "best" around us!  Everywhere surrounding us is stuff, stuff, stuff and more stuff - the "best" stuff money (or our credit) can buy!  I might notice the stuff more now but I'm sure I'm not the only one to be overwhelmed by the vast amount of "best" stuff!  I have felt myself slipping down the slippery slope of stockpiling stuff.  There are so many good deals on the "best" stuff!

It might be "best" for someone but "the best out there" doesn't mean it's the "best out there" for me - or you!  

Hang in there friend and "just say no" to stuff, even if it's the "best"!!

Then....I encourage you...go take a nice, long, hot shower/bath and be thankful, not just for family, friends and food, but for hot running water.

I must say though, I AM very thankful for family who we can stay with over Christmas.  We are leaving in less than two days and can't wait because I love my in-laws!  They are fun, loving, giving, accepting, compassionate, gracious, hilarious, hopeful, joyous and they have hot running water!!!!!!!  

Today there was no school due to the snow.

I don't like no-school-snow-days in our Tiny House.

Thankfully we have neighbors who came over and helped entertain my daughter (she tends to need constant entertaining).  Two neighbor girls came over this morning and played in the snow for a couple hours with my daughter.  Not long after they left, two other neighbor girls came over and spent the afternoon and evening with us.

The day actually wasn't so bad.

I did the dishes this morning while the kids played outside.  After that we did our traditional advent calendar (new Christmas socks today!), read Christmas books, ate cheese sandwiches and drank hot cocoa for lunch, went Christmas shopping, took snow pictures, made stew for dinner and made no-bake cookies for dessert.

My daughter had A LOT of energy but having lots of incentives in the form of friends, cookies and Christmas shopping helped keep the day positive :)

On the Attack

Imagine: 

We cozy up on our big pillows in our nice, neat, clean seating area.

We are ready for some great conversation, books, games, a project or a movie.

Almost instantly our gazes are caught by this sight stationed not six feet in front of our seating area: 

Lovely, isn't it? 

And this was after I put the large pile of dirty clothes (usually piled up next to the machine by the vinegar) into the washing machine.

 Oh, the joys of finishing a "room" in a tiny house: 

you can still see all the other "rooms" that aren't finished.

My husband "went on the attack" this weekend and began plotting, planning and preparing this area for shelves and "cupboard" doors.  I never can tell what something will look like ahead of time; I just listen to him talk and tell him if I have any preferences.

My only preferences for this area is shelves that fit my kitchen aid and other appliances and doors.

It's the doors that are going to give him the most trouble but I think it will make the place feel less crowded.  I like the "open cupboard" concept but only when things within can look uniform: plates, cups, bowls, serving dishes, etc.  

Just looking at the wood crates we're using now drives me crazy.  The space holds way to much variety: cans, fruit, potatoes, bread, box foods, appliances, pots, coffee...way to much variety in one space in a tiny house!

Fortunately, the attack has been halted by the Tiny House Queen.

When the holidays are over, when hot water runs freely, when school begins again, when the Tiny House General/King is not needed (mentally or physically) at holiday functions, we will launch they attack again! 

After all, I DO want that area finished! 

But, meanwhile, I am happy to have an understanding and considerate husband who can join me mentally and physically at holiday functions and who will postpone his attack till a more convenient time. 

Stay tuned :)

Have a Seat!

I pulled all the containers out of our storage container.  

I was bound and determined to make all of this fit into our storage seating.

 

I did get rid of about half of one of these rubbermaid container of stuff: old baseball glove, books I love but will probably never read again, and actually I don't remember what else.  If I don't remember what I got rid of I probably never needed it in the first place!

There are some books, files, papers and memorablia that I just can't part with and I was really hoping it would all fit into the storage seating.  

 

The scrapbooks are completely non-negotiable; in fact, the storage seating bookshelf was made to fit them.  I lined them up and my husband created the shelves and seating to store all of them.

  

Here's the in-progress testing for fit and workability.  This is pre-sanded and pre-varethaned.     

These next pictures show some of the stuff we pushed off to the side to get the shelves in.  The edges of this entire area of the house was about knee-deep in our stuff before we put the seating in.

 And here is the ALMOST DONE seating area....

just waiting on the lids!!

 

Close up of the storage seating on the right:

 Close up of the corner storage seating...with the lid!!!  This is my husbands box, his space...only his space...he reminds me often...I am not to use this space.  Thankfully he gave me three times more space so I'm totally fine leaving his space alone!

THE FINISHED SEATING AREA!!!

CHECK OUT 

this PERFECT end cap for our homeschool supplies!!

Brief break from seating area pictures for my adorable little "Moosetivity". 

 Little did I know on my honeymoon 11 1/2 years ago when I bought this little tiny nativity that I would live in a little tiny house!

Not only do we have a "Tiny" nativity 

but we also have a "Tiny" Christmas tree!

The seating area has the perfect corner for our tiny tree!

Everything we wanted to store in this area is stored!  This area makes me SO happy!  I love the storage, I love the seating, I love the neat clean look, I love my homeschool and scrapbook spaces and I love that I have a Christmas tree!

  

Eventually we will get cushions of some sort but for now we're using a couple old pillowcases stuffed 

with a sleeping bags and some old pillows, oh, and a round exercise disc which is so far our favorite! My chair still fits too, although it has been moved over to the place in front of the tree.

Come on over, have a seat, drink some cocoa/coffee/tea and stay awhile, after all we have somewhere for you to sit now!

Not Hot

I stopped counting how many weeks it's been since we've had hot water; I'm counting in months now.

I have also come to a realization: a broken hot water heater is NOT the most inconvenient circumstance I have dealt with since moving into our tiny house.

The reward for most inconvenient goes to a broken washer/dryer...or maybe no running water...I don't know, it may be a tie between those two.

Either way, these circumstances are probably part of the reason I'm still dealing and still living in our house despite the lack of on-demand hot water.  I do have one of those boiling water electric pitcher/pot things and a hot plate to heat water when needed.  I don't have to leave my house to get hot water (like when the washer/dryer broke and I had to use the laundromat).  I just feel slightly like I am camping every time I take a "shower" or wash dishes.

Meanwhile, the service company (Tri-Tech - worst customer service ever in case you were wondering) and the hot water heater manufacturer (Rinnai - poor communication pre-sale but better customer service overall) have been going back and forth with the age-old desire humans have to avoid responsibility if at all possible.  We are finally at the point where Rinnai will replace the unit and pay for 2/3 of the service for Tri-Tech to install the new unit.

Through trials of all sorts I try to find a lesson I can learn; this trial is no different.

Here are some things I have learned:

• If you live in a smaller town, call local service companies before buying fancy appliances, heaters, etc. to make sure they will service the unit.  If the local service company will not service it, be prepared to pay travel expenses to a service company that will service your unit.
• Despite hours of research on appliances, etc., you can still miss details that create issues later on down the road.
• Just because a unit has the best reviews, the best history and seems to be the best product, does not mean it is the best for everyone in any given situation.
• What could be great for a 1700 sq foot house is not necessarily great for a Tiny House, even if it does "fit".
• I could survive in a third world country without running hot water, or even running water!  Who knew? 

In the midst of heating water with a water boiling pot-pitcher thing, I am EXTREMELY thankful that we have a warm, dry comfortable house to call our own and I will not take hot water for granted again!

Bring on the Pressure ... Cookin'!

I was feeling very accomplished the other day.  

I've been cooking with a toaster oven for almost a year now, with the addition of a hot plate 6 months ago.

• Spaghetti NOODLES took an hour to cook...and that was after the hot plate entered the home.
• Beans from scratch...I tried...once.
• Soup...nope (except the 4 times I bought canned soup).
• Lentils...forget it.
• Rice...a little crunchy at times.

My family still had food to eat.

Yes, I do feel I have accomplished a hard task on this adventure we are on!

However,

Feeling accomplished does not erase the INTENSE desire to speed things up!

Several people suggested a crock pot, but again, I was looking to speed things up.  For several years now I have been thinking about getting a pressure cooker.  As Summer turned into Fall, I began thinking of all the money we would save by making soups and how nice it is to eat soup through the winter.  I'm a bit of a soup snob and I really don't like the preservatives often found in canned soups.  I again broached the subject of a pressure cooker with my husband and on our date night class 

Costco's Pressure cookers are EXTRA LARGE                    but we got one anyway; after all what's one more LARGE item in a TINY HOUSE??!

See that space where I'm storing towels under the counter?  The pressure cooker actually fits perfectly there once I moved some things around.

 

Now that it is out of the box it doesn't look quite so intimidating.  

Not to mention I made a Cheesy Broccoli Potato casserole this afternoon in under an hour!!!!!!!!!

Hidden Ants: Hidden Treasure

In the process of preparing to transport our male goat to my friends house, I pulled a large tarp out of my outdoor storage (where I stash all the gardening odds and ends/extra goat tethers, etc.).  It's huge so I semi-shook it out and covered the back of my car with it partially folded.

My son brought Brownie out to the car but wasn't putting him in so I huffed over to help out.

"Um, mom, there are ants EVERYWHERE."

Crawling all over the tarp, marching all over the carpet, creeping into all the cracks...DISGUSTING!!!

I rip the tarp out and an ANT HILL had started IN THE FOLD OF THE TARP!

My son jumps in the car and starts stomping and then runs to the house for the shop vac.  I feverishly start vacuuming as fast as possible, rip the carpeting out and vacuum every crack and crevice I can see.  

Here's the carpet
(there wasn't any of that other stuff when we did this,
but I wanted to show you some pics of the space).

Ripping out the carpet leaves this in the corners

I scour the now uncarpeted floor for any little escape artists, lifting the cubby hole on the left side of the car and sucking up the escapees.  

Then I turn my attention to the cubby hole on the right side of the car, lift the lid and 

NECKLACE!!!!!!!!!!

My long sought after "Lost in the Tiny House" (http://tinylivingbigplans.blogspot.com/2016/10/lost-in-tiny-house.html) necklace was in THIS cubby hole.

As I gasp in joy, grab the necklace and jump back to my vacuuming, I remember WHY ON EARTH I put my necklace in the cubby hole of my car OF ALL PLACES:

I was somewhere my car was likely to get broken into.
I knew the glove box would be the first place a thief would look.
I didn't want it lost under the seat (but also a thief likely place).
I knew wallets and purses are desirable to thieves.
I didn't want to wear the necklace (it probably didn't match my outfit!).
I knew this cubby hole was well hidden.

Evidently well hidden enough that if it wasn't for a very disgusting ant catastrophe I probably wouldn't have found it for months.  However, it WAS in a safe place!

Oh, and I haven't seen any ants in my car since the catastrophe: another HUGE blessing!

Keeping the Spice in Your Tiny House

Literally.

Really, this is a problem or could be a problem if we don't figure it out.

I like to use a lot of different spices in my cooking and baking and I buy them in bulk.  During the transition of the last year most of my spices were packed away in a rubbermaid tub and lack of easy access prevented me from using them.  When I began unpacking them I realized we may have a problem here.

They take up half my counter space!!

Speaking of counter space, I love what my husband did to give me more of it!  First, he put up the shelves that have been down since we Varethaned; my tupperware is now on the walls NOT on the counter. 

Then he brought in the counter top that had come with the house and reorganized the fridge and freezer to make it all work.  This is a temporary solution since we plan to put our range where the toaster over is but I'm so much happier working in a kitchen with counter space!

This expanse of space must have encouraged me to unpack my spices.  Silly me.  

Now I have hardly any counter space again!  

But, Oh, did the curried chicken breast and rice taste good!

I really don't want to downsize my spices to much (I'm already downsizing from 20oz jars to 15oz and keeping the smaller sizes of the spices I don't use as often).

So, here's the plan.  

A very specifically made spice rack made to fit on the wall in between these windows 

and made to fit each of my spices 

OR a rack made to fit in the beams on the ceiling.

If they're on the wall they're going to stick out from the wall a good 6 inches because they will have to lie flat on shelves.  If they're in between the beams, I'm not sure of how convenient it will be to get them down or how much of the ceiling space they would have to take up.

There's also the option of having some on the wall and some on the ceiling.

Not sure what we're going to do yet.

The problem of my spices has yet to be solved.

My husband is busy planning and preparing to create a sitting area so the spices will be hanging out on the counter for the time being, unless I think of a better temporary place for them!

Lost in the Tiny House

I've accomplished the unlikely: I have lost something in the Tiny House.

I have looked and looked and looked some more and it is NO WHERE to be found!

I have two necklaces I treasure.  They were gifts from my husband and they are really special to me.  When we moved I put them in my wallet zipper pouch where they stayed for months while we transitioned here and there.  One of them I took out and began wearing, especially once we were "settled" into the Tiny House, but I would always put it in a separate place from my other necklaces.

This summer when we started moving everything around again I didn't want to lose my necklace.  I also didn't want to put it in my wallet again.  I figured that if my wallet was stolen I would never get the necklace back.  I thought of a safe place to put the necklace and stored it there.

Exactly.

The location of THERE, the "safe" place for my necklace, has COMPLETELY slipped my mind.  I looked through every possible location my brain even hinted at remembering and I still can't find the necklace.

Honestly, I was so desperate I thought maybe I stored it in a tupperware container with food.  I quickly told myself how ridiculous the idea was; I wasn't crazy when I stored it, I'm just crazy trying to remember where I stored it.

It's got to be here somewhere; there just aren't very many places in this house for a necklace to be stored!

I'll probably find it in 20 years.  Don't worry though, I'll be sure to post when I find it!

Storage Stairs are BACK!

And they're better than EVER!!

My husband sanded them until they were soft and smooth.

He stained them 4 different colors.

Then triple coated them with Varethane.

I'm REALLY happy to have a place to hang my coats

and store my shoes again!  Not to mention, this looks SO MUCH NICER than the ladder and mess we've had in it's place since we started Varethaning the inside of the house!

This, This is Why I Live In a Tiny House

Vacuuming and more vacuuming...hours and hours of vacuuming...my life wasting away as I move the vacuum back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

Then there's sweeping, sweeping, sweeping and more sweeping.  Our old house had hardwood and laminate flooring throughout and I NEVER seemed to be caught up on the sweeping.  I was often faced with two choices: embrace the dirty floor or give up my life to sweeping.  I often lost the battle and decided I'd embrace the dirt...not that I liked the dirt because no, I did not, but I did like doing other things with my life besides sweeping!

Cleaning was/is a major factor in why I live in a tiny house.  I vacuumed and swept my entire floor in 15 minutes yesterday.  My house is clean right now and I love it!

Big plans for traveling was/is another VERY motivating factor in why I agreed to (and continue to) live in a tiny house.  Neither my husband or I work in professions that provide much more than we need.  Going on trips AND having a mortgage just wasn't possible.  

Now, big plans are not only possible they are happening!  

Our first adventure landed us on the beautiful island of Maui.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but one note first: There are pros and cons to living in a tiny house; vacationing is certainly a pro!

One other little side note: I really had no idea this color blue occurred quite naturally in nature.  

It was breathtaking.

There you have it friends...in a little nutshell of pictures is the reason why I live in a tiny house!  

Aloha!