Dollar Stretcher "Silly Questions" thread

**MaggieTru** · 11-22-2020, 02:59 PM

yep. I like that. I don't dare collect yet. They are freely available at the recycling center and I picked up a glass bottle cutter at thrift last year (or this year??....before now).
Big kombucha bottles also seem usable. I have a few of those to cut try. They are thick glass and a good size. A quart and a half or so.

I had to pump up a truck tire today (the one "good vehicle" isn't all that "good") and had time to watch cars on the highway while I stomped on the foot pump. EVERYONE looks at the house. I would too but still...

Yesterday I sat up in the loft on a lawn chair for a while and I think I won't be able to see the highway from up there while seated. I see the hill across the highway and other more interesting things.

**Spirit Deer** · 11-22-2020, 07:26 PM

We looked into cordwood but ended up finding out our climate would probably be too wet. Looked into straw bale, too. In the end we went with conventional construction. I still have the books on nontraditional construction. Fascinating reading. We looked into dome homes and sometimes regret not going that route.

**MaggieTru** · 11-23-2020, 07:03 PM

We'll see if it's too wet. The cob bit is from wales so that should be fine. Traditional construction here uses cedar so that's what I'm cordwooding with.

**Spirit Deer** · 11-24-2020, 12:49 AM

It'll be fun to watch your build as it progresses.

**MaggieTru** · 12-03-2020, 05:46 PM

I don't have pictures but thought I'd throw in an update:
the builder made boxes the size of the rough openings for the windows I want in the 2nd story. That's the part that is framed so best to get them in now even if I can't get the windows in yet. SO, he also kept adjusting where the porch roof would hit the wall. He told me to assume 30 or 32" above the loft floor level. So i drew up sketches of where the windows should be to account for the structural elements, stove pipe and some engineering restrictions. The sketches gave the window sizes (4' by 6' tall, 2' by 6' tall, and some clerestories). Then I put things like "as low as possible" and "as high as possible"....well, he adjusted the porch roof down to 12" above the loft floor and left 6" between that and the window sill. That puts the lower windows 18" above the loft floor. GREAT for the view and the feel of space and for the light BUT...also lower than code allows. I can put a guard across the window or restrict the opening. OR I could buy windows 6" shorter than the hole and put them in the top part of the hole with support below. I'm a few years out from windows but geez! Way to be literal, dude. Still, I think it will look fantastic and it allowed the max size of clerestory window which is key to passive ventilation (or so I hope). He got those clerestory windows up under the roof overhang so they can be open in rain as long as it isn't TOOO windy. That's excellent. I love a breeze through the house in the rain.

Yesterday I toured the Tribe's (where I work) tiny house internship program. It's in a giant warehouse with the doors open. Nice space. We were all masked up and spaced out. The interns are mostly very recent high school graduates. They are building real tiny houses on trailers! The teacher was in construction for 40years and is SUPER nice and funny. He said he sees them make errors sometimes and lets them finish a process before he corrects them. They undo what they did and redo it. He said by doing that, no one makes the mistake twice. I invited them down to see my wee shed and the current build. My builder likes to hire people going through college in his town and let them work their way through school. A lawyer for the tribe here made his way through law school by working for the builder.

**MaggieTru** · 12-03-2020, 06:52 PM

HA!!! I was right. The windows were too low. The builder just called and said he forgot the 6" flashing between window framing and the porch roofing. He moved them up 7.5" so now they meet code. Easier for everyone and he still had room for the upper windows. It's rare that I'm right about anything spatial or 3D so this is a real coup for me. I bet his crew is glad I asked about it when ONE window box needed to be moved rather than all 6 that would be at that height. Very nice to have them high enough not to need guards or anything. And still a great view.

**MaggieTru** · 12-05-2020, 01:21 AM

I have sheeting and window holes. Big crew today!i think there were 7 total

**bookwormpeg** · 12-06-2020, 01:40 AM

I red page 10 and decided I needed to start at page 1 so that is what I have been doing this evening....exciting to see it all come together.....How big is it? Is that the road in the background? It is going to be beautiful....can't wait till you get it finished....

**MaggieTru** · 12-07-2020, 01:48 AM

Thanks Peg.
The size: About 800sq feet inside including the loft and nearly that much porch will go on outside.

That's a highway in the background. 25 miles north on it to work

**marthamfi** · 12-08-2020, 01:14 AM

thanks for sharing you must be getting so excited

**MaggieTru** · 12-08-2020, 02:50 PM

Excited and broke! The subaru died. The 1999 chevy pickup is now the "good car" and my daily driver. I sold some vacation time back to my employer and got 2000$ toward a new used car...BUT the truck's brakes are bad, even the calipers are broken on the back. So that's a 650$ repair. The starter is bad. Another 300+$. there goes half the car money. Oh well. I think I can scrabble together 5000$ and hopefully get a sedan with enough clearance to get in my driveway. GLAD I have 2 vehicles or I'd be in crisis.

It's SO COOL to drive home and see my house coming together. It's not entirely how I pictured it but I doubt anything is ever how I picture it.
HEre's the "before and after" shot I took saturday or sunday. It's my current wee shed and the new house. The wee shed will be moved (it's on skids).
Yes, there is junk everywhere but I generally get aoround to using it eventually. The boards leaning up on the raised bed, off to the right, are nearly used up making scrap wood bins now.

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**marthamfi** · 12-08-2020, 03:04 PM

ugh cars yes either one or the other repairs or new isn't it. you have such beautiful views!

**MaggieTru** · 12-14-2020, 04:07 PM

yes. I like my views a lot. A friend has a lead on a 2500$ 1999 subaru...risky but cheap. Her husband is kind of a mechanic.
I just used my vacation time pay out (sold 80 hours to the employer...we can do that once a financial year) to buy the clerestory windows! They should get in on Dec 23. That means the builder can put them in before he puts in the diagonal bracing that will make it really hard to get to them. Also will block part of their opening range but whatever. EXCELLENT venting.

2 guys worked saturday putting up board and batten siding. Super cool lookin. Here is the north and east walls. North is the short wall. The east siding will come down to the level of the north wall siding. The porch roof attaches at the bottom of the current east siding.. Separate siding below that where the black is. The picture will probably be rotated...don't know how to deal with that.

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And the west wall. They are covering the windows with plastic, the ones I can't afford to fill with actual windows now. It will make it easier to put in the real windows and will give me some light while I'm in there sanding over the winter and spring.

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Here are some of the latest silly questions:
From a friend who IS smart.... "I saw your place from the highway. What goes in below the house"....uh....the first floor. She forgot that I am doing the 1st story walls and though I had some sort of hovering house on stilts. In her defense, her husband is from Samoa where houses are sometimes on stilts to cool them off and keep them dry.

My elderly uncle who is "on the spectrum" as they say and is a retired programmer for IBM. He is one of my FAVORITE humans because of his genius and unique view of the world:
"now, in the pictures, there is a large slanted structure...what is that" "That's the roof Uncle J" OK, and below that, the roof, there are vertical structures...what are those?" "Those are walls Uncle J". "So that's how that works" (yes...houses generally have the roofs above the walls. He is a genius for real, but so disconnected from the physical world) Trust me, the question is not an issue of dementia. It is classic Uncle J.

**MaggieTru** · 12-16-2020, 08:26 PM

Bit more done! The boys really like working in the rain apparently. And the snow.

I swear the house isn't sideways...just my camera. The east side just needs the porch framed out. Then they are done with that.

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**MaggieTru** · 12-24-2020, 11:15 PM

More progress!! Porch roof framed up. Some roof metal went up today on a the front over hang. I brought the guys Christmas treats yesterday.

They are really working but seem proud of the job. My game camera taking time lapse photos was killed in a tragic gusty wind incident. Oh well. Things happen.

I love how it is coming along.