Interior Walls 6

The bathroom wall boards are now up to the height where they wrap around the vent pipe.

I made a lot of progress on the east end (bed area) bumpout.

Also see:
Interior Walls 1
Interior Walls 2
Interior Walls 3
Interior Walls 4
Interior Walls 5
Interior Walls 7
Interior Walls 8
Interior Walls 9
Interior Walls 10
Interior Walls 11
Interior Walls 12
Interior Walls 13
Interior Walls 14
Interior Walls 15


Irises on the hillside behind the JayBee.

On one of my many trips between the JayBee and my saws to cut boards, I spotted these two deer. (I know--kind of looks like only one deer. The fact that there were more than four legs was a clue.) They froze, staring at me, and I froze staring at them. I had my phone in my hand, so I was able to snap this shot before they darted away. (And, yes, there were two.)

More Wall Progress (Interior Walls 5)

I took a few vacation days off of work so, even with the long weekend merry-making, I have made a little more progress on the JayBee.

After adding some more boards in the bathroom...

... I spent a lot of time pondering this vent pipe.

The top of it needs to be framed in so the wall boards can cover the outside of it. On the bottom part, the wall boards need to run behind the vent pipe because water pipes will run along the wall behind the toilet and around the corner behind the vent pipe to the bathroom sink in the bumpout. After those water pipes are installed, I will construct a narrow counter-height cabinet that covers the water pipes and the vent.

After much futzing, I installed this framing around the upper part of the vent pipe.

And I installed more boards on the bottom of the wall.

In the living room, I installed more rows of boards.

Before I installed this next board in the back end of the closet, I realized there was a problem.

That board really should run the whole length of the east outside wall--over the top of the bedroom wall framing.

Which means I need to install some wall boards on the east wall (including in the east end bumpout) up to the height of the boards on the north wall. Unfortunately, the east end bumpout has been full of tools for years.

I have said many times that I spend 80% of my construction time moving things around and reorganizing. I've been told this is the case with all construction projects but I think it must be even more so when working on a tiny house. Space is so limited!

After moving the tools to the base of this finished wall...

... I now have room to work on the east end.

Also see:
Interior Walls 1
Interior Walls 2
Interior Walls 3
Interior Walls 4
Interior Walls 6
Interior Walls 7
Interior Walls 8
Interior Walls 9
Interior Walls 10
Interior Walls 11
Interior Walls 12
Interior Walls 13
Interior Walls 14
Interior Walls 15


I have some lupines again this year! For many years, I had a whole hillside of them. Then, last year, not one. It's nice to have them back.

I have some trimming to do on my front hillside. When I stand on the lawn, this is my blocked view of the river.

Standing up on the deck is not much better. Not only have I been focused on housebuilding rather than this... In the past, I have ended up with a bad case of poison ivy after trimming this hillside. That is definitely a huge disincentive!

Bed Area 3

We have now had a few days without new snowfall! This gives me real hours of the day to work on things, rather than simply moving snow around all day.

I think it would be nice if more of my projects went smoothly, start to finish. Unfortunately, this rarely happens. This morning was a case in point. I went out to the JayBee this morning thinking I was going to quickly finish driving screws into the walls around the bed area. While I was trying to figure out why the two walls at the head of the bed just were not coming together as they should, it suddenly became clear. I had drawn one of my guidelines on the floor in the wrong place! This one line affected both walls. I sat for a moment, discouraged, and pondering whether I could make do with things as they were. In the end, I decided the mistake would not do; I had to start over. That one line being off by almost a half an inch on one end was affecting lots of things related to those walls, the bed, and the closet. Thankfully, I hadn't fully installed those two walls yet. I unscrewed them from the floor and set the small wall aside. I had to shorten the longer wall by almost half an inch, and reposition a couple of the studs. This did not take as long as I feared. Before noon I had the walls rebuilt and the whole bed area framed in.

Then, I sat on a stool like I was laying down on the bed, and I looked out the windows.

::: contented sigh :::

On to staining more shingles. Fun, fun.

Also see:
Bed Area 1
Bed Area 2

Bed Area 2

Here is the first bed area wall installed. This wall helps define the southwest corner at the foot of the bed.

The second wall is at the head of the bed. It also defines the very narrow closet that will be behind the head of the bed. The closet will hold my table and chairs. Since the back end of the closet would be inaccessible from the closet door end, I have other plans for the space. Part of the wall is purposely short so I will be able to install bookshelves up between the loft joists and over the head of the bed. I will leave the lower part of the back end of the closet accessible from under the bed.

I was working on the third and final bed area wall when I had to quit early. My drill/driver's battery completely died. I've ordered some new batteries, and I hope to finish up the third wall over the weekend.

Also see:
Bed Area 1
Bed Area 3

Bed Area 1

The apparent simplicity of these drawings of the walls around the bed area in the JayBee belie the amount of thinking and re-thinking that has gone into them.

Every fraction of an inch around the bed area of the JayBee is vital and, since the walls around that area are not load bearing, I have decided that I should build them out of 2x3s instead of 2x4s. I have an old stash of 2x3s that I can use for this but, wouldn't you know, they are stored out in the garage. Have any brilliant ideas how I can get to them?

I ended up wading through the thigh-deep snow up around the west end of the JayBee and then behind the huge snowbank. From the garage, I threw 2x3s up over the snowbank.

I crawled through the snow back to the driveway. From there, I retrieved the 2x3s, wiped them down, and moved them into the JayBee. Exhausting!

I thought I might start building walls today but, surprise, surprise, I was greeted by more snow this morning. Snow moving comes first!

Also see:
Bed Area 2
Bed Area 3

Don't Worry; I'm Fine

When I don't post to this blog for a few days, I start to get phone calls. "You haven't posted. Are you okay?" Even though it is not beyond the realm of possibility that I could be stuck in a snowbank somewhere, I am not. I am fine. Everything here is fine. Buried under snow, yes. More snow on the way, yes. But fine.

I continue to spend part of every day moving snow around. I was shocked to find this fresh snow when I stepped outside yesterday. By sundown the previous day, the plow guy and I had cleared out all of the snowfall from the prior storm. If more snow had been forecast to fall overnight, I had missed hearing about it.

I have cleared the snow off the roof of the JayBee a few times. With my new, lightweight roof rake, I can stand on the hillside to the north of the JayBee (see the stomped-down path in the foreground below) and clear the entire north side of the JayBee's roof.

I know I have thoroughly documented the tall snowbanks this winter.

When I was up on a ladder the other day, I decided to capture a different perspective. The banks still stand six to seven feet tall, but I have been regularly knocking the tops of each snowbank back over the back side. The result is that these snowbanks are ten to twelve feet thick from front to back. Quite a stunning amount of snow.

I have been thinking a lot about this line from the song Joy Parade: "I will live what this life's about, with or without." I feel like it has become my mantra.

Most of my JayBee-building time has been spent staining siding shingles. No pictures, though. After awhile, a pile of stained shingles looks the same as any other pile of stained shingles.

Since I plan to install trim boards on the outside corners of the JayBee, I began working on them. The tricky part will be cutting the tops of the boards to fit around the roof rafters that support the corners of the eaves--like this one, for example.

I decided to experiment with scraps of trim first. It's a good thing, because these first two pieces I cut...

are not right. At least I didn't ruin two nice 10-foot pieces of trim in the process. Back to the drawing board.

I also decided to begin framing the bed area in the JayBee. Even with moving out and staining eight or more bundles of shingles, the bed area in the JayBee was still crowded with shingles.

Until today, that is. I moved the shingles from the bed area to the kitchen area.

Now I have some maneuvering/constructing room.

Other odds and ends...

Even though it has been exceptionally cold and windy for an extended period of time, the birds have been singing a lot. And the robins are positively fat.

More tracks heading to and from the JayBee, even though I see no sign of critters inside the JayBee.

More Kennebec River winter shots...