11 weeks later...

We started building our tiny house in mid-October.

Friday night we slept in it for the first time! Okay, so we technically missed the Jan. 1 move-in date but it was worth it!

We celebrated with a bottle of local-ish wine we bought this summer at the Moscow Co-op, some German chocolate cake, and a game of Scrabble on the bed. No, really, Scrabble.

Holy Cow Merlot is delicious!

The flooring looks great, the wood stove works like a champ (there's a bit of a learning curve, sure), and it's just really great to have our own space. Our mattress we brought from Portland (nicknamed The Slab) is providing great rest so far and everything is really cozy. We hung up some makeshift curtains for privacy and the whole interior is a bit rough, but that will change over the winter as we scratch projects off our list.

Wouldn't you like to see the inside? Of course you would!

We put up a few sheets of plywood behind the bed so we're not dealing with the visqueen. It will be painted next spring...the color we're discussing now is a pale, PALE orange. Something to accentuate the natural light.

We had a few pieces of flooring left over so we decided (Keith's idea!) to wrap it around the bed frame. It looks great and makes a more seamless transition for the tiny space.

view from the bed

The wood stove is great, but difficult to master. A small firebox means small, hot fires that need almost-constant attention. Yesterday if was over 100º in the house! And we Keith has to stoke the fire a couple of times a night. Still, it does the job and we'll eventually figure out how to regulate the output.

Notice the chickens!

The thermometer on the front of the stove appears to work, but we're not sure how accurate it is. Definitely warm enough to cook our favorite meal (nachos) but until we learn how to even out the heat a bit I don't think we'll be cooking anything too delicate in there.

The dogs are a little confused. Especially since we're still spending some time over at my parents' for meals and bathing, etc. But they're getting used to it. We're trying to break them of sleeping on the bed, but at some point in the night the fire dies down and it gets colder and we let them jump up and get under covers with us. Most of the time they're on their dog beds by the stove or by the window.

There's a lot to see!

Firewood storage is still an issue, but we found this great old milk crate to store some of it.

So we're working on a list and estimating materials of various future projects to finish the inside. The window wall between the stove and the bed is probably the next one--Keith says we need the heat blocked (that's his side of the bed right now).

But it just feels great to finally be inside the house we've been dreaming of for months... some people may say it's too small, but for us it's just right. And it's custom. What more could you want?

view from the road

(tiny house on the left)