The Walls

Once the deck was in place and the floor plan reasonably decided upon, it was time for the walls.

Me and my really cool safety glasses. The front wall is ready to stand up and I'm about to staple the foam sill plate to the deck so that there is a seal between the deck and the bottom plate of the wall.

The first warm sunny day this spring, and the first pick-nick at the Tiny House. My mother, father, niece and nephew, and Chip the dog.

Everybody is enjoying the sunshine. Some of the chickens came to hang out with us for a bit.

The front wall standing and partially sheated.

This will be the north facing wall. The large open space is the large south window - five feet long by about three and half feet high.

The North wall is going up. Note the raised beam at the wheel well. My original plan (as noted in the post about the beam) was to just carry the beam through in one solid line, as it appeared that there would be room to get to the tires. However, after getting the beam all put together, I attempted to remove a tire to be sure. Low and behold, it wouldn't come off.
Several choice explatives later I replaced the tire, cut out the section of beam that ran along the wheel wells, made a new laminated section for each side, and put it up on blocks so that it would cross the wheel space higher up. This was all nailed together and reinforced with metal plates nailed across the joints and securing the upper beam, block, and lower beam.

This is the floor plan, more or less, taped out to see how it will fit. Since my drawing didn't have dimensions and since the trailer wasn't exactly the size of the scale drawing, there was quite a bit of figuring and improvising along the way.

Laminating the posts for the rear shear wall. As I mentioned earlier, I did buy plans from the Tumbleweed company and used them as a back-up reference, especially for construction tips. The rear shear wall is intended to provide a very solid and stable brace structure that will keep the rest of the walls from shifting or swaying when the trailer is moving around.

The Tumbleweed plans called for engineered beams. I couldn't find them, so made my own instead. These are made from 3 layers of 2 x 6 and 2 layers of 1/2 plywood all glued and thoroughly nailed together. This makes a square post 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches, which fits nicely on the 2 x 6 plates for the rear wall. This is only 2 x 6 wall. The rest are built from 2 x 4.

The rear wall is up, but the plates haven't been cut out of the bottom of the door yet. The rear windows have grown a bit.

Looking back from about the level of where the fridge will be.