the EM & EM tiny house

Interior & Window Trim

May 8, 2017

This is just a quick picture-post update. Because there is already an extensive post of outside trim, I didn’t think it was necessary to write too much about the interior trim. I’ll include a few extra details in the picture captions, if you’re interested in reading.

It’s a bit strange, but for quite a while it seemed like no matter how much we worked, the house seemed to look exactly the same. Of course it changed, but it always felt like a box under construction. Just in the last few weeks, though, it feels like we’ve finally broken through. Things are feeling more polished. Of course we still have a lot of work to do, but our projects seem to be making a bigger and bigger impact each step of the way. How exciting! Continue Reading…

Our Tiny, Tiny Kitchen – Part One

April 11, 2017

If you know me, you know one of my favorite hobbies is eating. So, imagine my delight when we started working on the best part of the house: the kitchen! I think everyone agrees that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and even if our kitchen is small, it doesn’t mean that it can’t make a big impact.

We had some big decisions to make, not only about how we would lay everything out and look, but also about how our kitchen would function for us. A tiny house kitchen requires a bit of adjusting of how storage/prep work/cooking happens in the space. Even more so than in other spaces in a tiny house, the kitchen has an extremely delicate balance of what is required to be a functioning space and what can be given up to allow for extra room. Defining this space for our use was the first step in moving forward.

The kitchen is coming together now!

Light It Up – Tiny House Lighting

March 19, 2017

Ok, let’s just skip the same intro to every post I write about how it’s been too long since I’ve updated the blog and am terrible at keep this thing current. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on with this quick little update about our tiny house lighting. It’s probably not going to be a groundbreaking post, but try to enjoy yourself.

Lighting was one of the first things we tackled when planning the house, and we actually bought our light fixtures pretty early on. We just couldn’t install them until we gotten to a certain point in our building process. We got our main lighting up a while ago once the ceiling was installed and painted, including the dimmable light in the sleeping loft. You might remember reading about how we struggled with the brightness and whiteness of LED lights here. But, overall the installation of the ceiling lights was fairly straight forward and easy.

The LED lights for the ceiling.

Building Walls – A Non-Political Post About Our Tiny Walls

December 23, 2016

Don’t worry- no politicking here! Just fun building updates!

The exterior walls were up and filled with the plumbing tubes, electrical wires, and spray foam, so it was time to close them up! One of the most exciting parts of building the house so far came when we started putting up the inside walls. I never would have expected to be so thrilled about this, but the further we got on this project, the more excited I got. As each wall panel went up, the house changed from a complete construction zone to a decent looking building. Not being able to see the bones and insulation of the house really was a nice change.

We probably dragged this out way longer than it needed to take, but sometimes we just don’t feel like working! And, now that everything needs to look nice, Eric really feels the pressure from me to get it right. So, I can’t really blame him when he says he needs a vacation from the house (and his bossy wife…hey wait, that’s me.) But we finally got it done!

Splish Splash – The Shower Floor

November 2, 2016

Now that the majority of major construction is finished, it seems the rest of the work is smaller, more localized projects such as building the shower, building the kitchen cabinets, building the stairs, building the couch, etc. None of those projects are as major as, you know, framing, but just because they address a smaller section of the house doesn’t mean they aren’t still hard work. In fact, Eric would argue that these jobs are more of a headache because from here on out, everything has to have function and form. Sure, we wanted the siding to look perfect, but no one is really going to look at every seam of it to see if the boards line up just right. So, if some are off (which some are) then oh well. But, if the stairs are crooked, or if the cabinets won’t shut, or if the couch is uncomfortable…people will notice that. And, more importantly, I will notice it. Once the spray foam went into the house, it signaled a shift from just making sure things work, to making sure things work and look really nice.

This includes the shower floor, which was the first project we tackled after the spray foam was installed. This project was definitely a learning experience for us. Eric decided to make our shower floor out of sandcrete, which is a kind of concrete. We debated getting a traditional shower pan, but we could never find the correct size, and why buy it when we can build it?! So, many youtube tutorials later, we started on the shower floor. PS: I’ll probably say the word “concrete” in this post, but just remember what I’m really talking about is sandcrete, which is basically a type of concrete, so never mind, just don’t worry about it, it’s all the same thing.

The shower floor liner.

Time to Cool Off – Installing the AC & Heater

October 7, 2016

Who can believe it’s already October?? I love the cold weather, so I look forward to the changing seasons each year with more and more anticipation. I also look forward to having this house finished with more and more anticipation each passing week! We seem so close to the finish line, and yet there is still so much to do. One thing we can finally cross off our to-do list is installing the AC and heat unit.

Where should the AC go? Probably in this big hole.

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