A Porch of My Own

A Porch of My Own

Sunday, September 16, 2012

A Soft Rain's A-Gonna Fall

There's a soft female rain falling outside and the temp is holding steady at 60 degrees. It's been a long time since we had a weekend like this and boy, are we enjoying it! It's nice to have any kind of rain, but especially nice to have one that is not accompanied by lightning.

The bunkhouse project is moving along and in about 3 weeks it will be complete except for the outside skirting,a deck on the front, and a crushed granite path to the cabin. We may not get to those until after the first of the year. From now until then is one of the busiest times of the year for us, so we'll see on those outside things.

Last weekend Rickie worked on some electrical stuff while I worked on insulating the walls. Then we both installed the ceiling insulation. After he left to go to work, I finished the wall insulation and crammed insulation into the little cavities around the windows and door. 

We sprinkled boric acid powder along the base of the wall cavities before we insulated them. This has no odor and is a natural product from the Mojave desert. It is supposed to help keep us bug-free. 

I also wrapped the plumbing pipes with foam insulation before splitting the wall insulation around them. It's probably not necessary but we did it anyway. We have the Pex pipes and they are more resistant to freezing and breaking. Also the plumber installed the pipes with a hose bib at the cutoff so we can drain the pipes when we are worried about freezing. We have the Pex piping in the cabin and it has been great with no problems so far after over 8 years.

A couple of weeks ago John and Lexi and Zac came out for a visit and to check out the bunkhouse. We were on hold waiting on contractors so we didn't get to do any work on it. We did get to discuss college football in Texas.
The electrician finished his part and the plumber did everything on his end except for installing the fixtures. He is waiting on us to finish the walls and floor before he can do that. Rickie will install the light fixtures once we get the wallboard up. He's already installed the front porch light, although it's not in the photo below. 

I painted the front door yellow. It's a favorite color of most of the girls in our family and Rickie and I both like the color we used. All the warm colors are my favorites although I also like turquoise.

We picked out a self-stick floor tile and purchased it already. It was actually the least favorite of the tiles I brought home to try out. But we put 8 different tiles down and tried them out for a couple of weeks and this one "took a licking" the best. When I cleaned the tiles the darker ones didn't look so great after some use. Seemed to have a haze on them. I've had dark floors before and have never liked the upkeep on them even though they are my favorite as far as looks go. This holds for vinyl and wood floors; I've had them both. So we chose a lighter one that has a slate texture. It goes with the neutral wall and trim colors we chose.

I'm going to clear-coat the ceiling and paint the walls and trim. Rickie and I got the wall and ceiling beaded board plywood sheets and the underlayment plywood for the floor this weekend. I tell you what, don't go to one of the big home improvement store without taking help with you. We had to move about a dozen sheets of the beaded board plywood to get to some that weren't damaged. Then load 20 sheets of that on two carts and move the dozen back to the pile. Then we needed 5 of the underlayment sheets. Then we loaded them into the pickup and tied them down. And unloaded at home inside the bunkhouse.

Next weekend we'll install them and then I'll paint and put the tile down. We have purchased all the supplies for the inside of the bunkhouse except some trim boards and a ceiling fan. We also purchased a couple of tools I have been wanting. One is a Dremel Saw Max I've been drooling over. We're going to try that out on the cutouts on the wall boards and I'm going to use it on a headboard I'm making. We also got a pocket hole jig I've been wanting. Rickie has commissioned me to make a ground deer blind frame for him and I'm going to see if it helps with that. If I can figure out how to use it! Ha!

(Photo - little mini coffee maker for the bunkhouse)

For those of you considering a tiny house or guest house, I told you I would keep you updated on costs and the total so far, including the bunkhouse shell, comes to around $8000. We haven't received the bill from the plumber yet and we have about $200-$300 still needed on supplies. So it is possible to build a tiny house spending a relatively tiny amount of money. I don't know if you can even buy a car these days for that amount of money. Other than the shell, we have hired only the electrical rough-in and the plumbing and are doing the rest of the work ourselves. The parts we are doing are not complicated but some do require two people and some basic tools. 

This morning when I went to throw some hay out for the longhorns, a cottontail was hanging around. As he hopped this way and that way to get away from my path, he discovered a pile of cracked corn on the ground. I was mixing up some birdseed yesterday and discovered as I picked up the bag of cracked corn that it had a hole in the bottom. I left him there with his breakfast. There's no crying over spilled feed in the country!