The tiny has landed in its forever home. It has a lovely view of a burgeoning garden and chicken coop to the front, and it's soulmate tiny house in the woods to the back.
above above: a short video of the move I thought best expressed in this painting by an artist that I can't accurately cite - my apologies artist. I love it!
We began the tiny house move with some difficulty last Friday, but completed it peacefully and quickly Sunday morning. We - me, my dad, my soon-to-be husband Cory and his always-entertaining son Jacob pulled a full day Friday - 12 hours of straight work with a small break to eat dinner and a refresher swim after a surprise thunderstorm (during which we moved steel roof panels around - yes, smart). At first the rain was more than welcome - the first half of the day was so hot and humid, I couldn't drink enough water to replace what I was losing. After dinner however, it became disastrous as we attempted for several hours to pull the trailer out of its suddenly very soggy resting spot, succeeding only after a collision with the garage and many narrow escape attempts thereafter. The aftermath suggests that I owe my parents a new gutter on the garage (really sorry dad), but amazingly no harm came to the tiny. Must be solidly built. Ahem.
I stopped working on the house at the end of winter, exactly when I thought I would seriously dive in. I thought this because it was also the time I stopped working full-time in favor of starting my own practice, so time was now of my own making. Since then, however, everything major in life that could take place has - CeDAR (my new architecture practice) was born, Cory (my co-tiny house conspirator and brilliant and beautiful life-collaborator) and I got engaged, and - here's the big whammy - we soon learned that a baby was on the way. A real baby, like the kind that might make me look at the tiny house and then at my expanding belly and wonder if perhaps a new game plan is in order...that kind of a baby. The kind where I say oh wait I never thought of having to store onesies and bottles and let alone a crib...that kind of baby. Still, it's an excellent challenge, a life changing challenge, and one we are both game for. We already happily inhabit his tiny house and its surrounding wooded acreage - what's one more? And now we have two little houses...The more the merrier!
Getting back into it the other weekend felt good, but truthfully not much has been accomplished on the actual build, except perhaps the electrical and building the loft. I had some guidance from my dad and Cory, and Cory got the panel installed with several of the circuit breakers, but after that I was on my own, armed with YouTube videos and a Black & Decker guide to electrical wiring. That was this winter's major project, and it still hasn't been tested to ensure nothing is going to short out or explode, but hey. I've now wired a house. I know what it takes to complete a circuit, and that back means hot and you know what hot means, and that house framing has lots of holes cut into it for this stuff.
I still love this project, even with the half year sabbatical. I love the course of events life has taken, and I'm pretty sure now that I can't even guess where it will go from here....
Lillu finally made it out of her construction site after a rather dramatic and stormy Friday night...she sat here until Cory pulled up with the UHaul on Sunday morning to make the final move.
Three more miles to go! Once here we were met by an entourage of cars - the final three miles are marked by narrow and sometimes gravel streets, and we had to be sure to warn oncoming cars of what they were up against...
This balloon randomly showed up on our property a few weeks ago...maybe nature was hosting a baby shower? At any rate it got it right, and we're pleased to have the built-in announcement!