ADU, Travel, Community
Lina Menard
Maui, Hawaii

After A Week Long Send Off, My Round the World Trip kicked off with eight days in Maui visiting my sister Sarah who has split her time between Hawaii and Alaska for many years. What an epic way to start this adventure! There was mist falling when my sister greeted me at the Kahului airport on Maui a week ago, so she teased me about bringing the rain from the mainland. We headed straight for Paia where she presented me with a young coconut and a lei, accompanied by the chant for the gifting-of-a-lei.

Maui, Hawaii
Tiny House, Travel, Planning
Lina Menard
Lucky Penny Moves to Walla Walla

A number of circumstances collided recently to compel me to move the Lucky Penny to my property in Walla Walla where I have a ground bound small house called Valencia Cottage. So on Tuesday trusted tiny house movers Linh and Stephanie Pham helped me move the Lucky Penny safely from Portland to my place in Walla Walla.

Lucky Penny Moves to Walla Walla
Minimalism, Workshop
Lina Menard
Downsizing Tune Up

As I packed up recently in preparation to travel cross country in my Honda Fit, I did some downsizing… It was harder than it had been during my last couple of moves because this time I had more stuff. I’d been living in a bigger space…My apartment was a studio, but it was still about 6 times bigger than the Lucky Penny! I talked with several people about the experience and a handful of them said “oh my goodness, I need to do more of that!” So I’ve decided to offer a 6-week Downsizing Tune Up…

Downsizing Tune Up

cedar shingles

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Tiny House Shingles

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Front Shingles It was another gorgeous August weekend in Portland. Perfect for working on my tiny house. I spent it running errands, helping with a work party at Simply Home Community, and playing with siding and shingles for The Lucky Penny.

On Saturday Ashley Lane was my right hand woman. In the morning she helped me pick up my tansu, a beautiful Japanese storage cabinet that I'll use in my little house. And in the afternoon we hung shingles on the front of my house. I met Ashley Lane in a PAD Tiny House Basics workshop and then got to know much better when she took the Tiny House Design-Build class at Yestermorrow this summer. Next summer she and her partner plan to build their own little house (inspired by the Minim House at Boneyard Studios). On Sunday Hanah came to lend me a hand. She and her sister are both interested in building their own tiny houses, so it was fun to hear about her tiny house dreams.

It's been fun to work alongside so many Tiny House Helpers this summer who have either built their own wee homes or plan to. It was also nice to work solo for part of the weekend. I've hosted so many work parties that it was nice to have a few hours all to myself to figure out next steps and savor the sensations of building at Green Anchors on a beautiful summer day.

door over the tongue, before porch

When I worked on my Tiny House Trim & Siding back in June I put up my first row of half rounds and arrows to make circles with my shingles. I was thinking about doing this the whole way up, but I decided it would be overkill. So instead I decided to make the rounds an accent by alternating them with rows of raked shingles. I think the effect is quite lovely!

Now that My Flip-Up Front Porch is done, we were able to position the ladders right on it for shingle hanging. How convenient! Hanging shingles (especially when you're jigging out for A Beautiful Arched Door and My Arched Rafters) takes some puzzling. And I do enjoy puzzle piecing it together. I like the way I can feel that part of my brain working hard. But it's sure nice to be on the straights and just slip into the meditative practice of staining and hanging shingles!  (By the way, we're staining all six sides of each shingles before installing them because they will be less likely to cup and warp and they should hold up much longer this way. It takes forever, but hopefully they'll last forever, too!)

We didn't quite finish the shingles on the front of the house and, of course, there are three more sides of the house to shingle. But let me assure you, it's really rewarding to see my house begin to look like I've envisioned it!

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Sidestepping with Siding

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Chris sanding sill plates Where did the weekend go?!

Last weekend I got in three good building days. On Saturday we worked on Plan F. Sunday was Plan F: Take 2. And on Monday we were Insulating My Vardo Roof. I was looking forward to another four-day weekend of building so I could get my house dried in (finally!) I haven't been sleeping well because I'm anxious about the rain.

Last Monday we tarpped my house after we'd finished Insulating My Vardo Roof. When I arrived at Green Anchors on Thursday evening for PAD's Tiny House Mixer I was loving the chance to mix and mingle and show off my house. And then I noticed that the rain that had fallen mid-week was pooling in my roof. So I spent the last bit of the event up on my roof - in my dress, mind you - hacking a temporary fix. Fortunately Kol Peterson of Caravan - The Tiny House Hotel, Ben Campbell of Ben Builds a Tiny House, and Benn Kovko who built the Kangablue were all there. In about 10 minutes they helped me get one of the pieces of sheathing up in a critical location so that the tarp can't sag and leak a pool of water into my roof there. That one piece of sheathing went up really quickly. Now if we could just do that six times over...

my getaround rental truck and my cedar siding and trim

On Friday it rained buckets. (I'm starting to notice a trend here: it's rained the past three Fridays!) And the roof is definitely the next step. But I just couldn't work on it because of the rain. On the other hand, I didn't want to stall out. So instead I worked in the morning and then decided to sidestep my unfinished roofing project by sourcing my siding. I spent my afternoon at Building Material Resources to hunt for cedar siding and trim for my exterior. I rented a truck through Getaround, one of Portland's wonderful car sharing programs. (Stay tuned for my forthcoming flow chart about how to decide which car access system to use if you're not a car owner!)

such beautiful variation in the siding!

I may have had a little too much fun at Building Material Resources. I'd been fantasizing about tongue and groove (T & G) cedar siding for the lower portion of my exterior walls, but didn't think I'd find it at a price I could afford. I'd found a good price on pre-primed T & G somewhere else, but that would mean I'd have to paint it and I really wanted stain-grade. So I was on the look out for cedar fence boards, figuring I could replace the siding in a couple years to what I really want. And then I had a stroke of good luck, just as I did the day I found My Kitchen Windows. I found a pallet of the T & G cedar in varied lengths. Most of it was too short and some of it was too beat up to use. So I sorted out the pieces that would be long enough and ended up taking everything that was salvagable. Building Material Resources also had 5/4 cedar boards which I snagged for my trim. And, as I was checking out, I also discovered that they sell round-tipped cedar shingles at half the retail price of other suppliers, so I bought a box of those, too. On my way out of Sherwood, I stopped at Lakeside Lumber on a tip from tiny house builder extraordinare Katy Anderson to pick up Deco Corner - curved corner trim boards. My house is going to come together even more beautifully than I'd hoped!

Chris painting trim

Saturday the weather was iffy again so my friend Chris helped me paint the trim and prep the sill plates for My Kitchen Windows. We painted the backs of all the boards with white paint because it's cheap and easy. Then we painted the visible sides with the same beautiful burgundy I'd picked for my door jamb. I'm in love with this paint color!

I also sorted out my tool cabinet, which had become fairly disorganized after a month of weekend work parties. I hauled out everything I no longer needed and made a trip to the hardware store to return it. I hate being one of those people returning a cart full of stuff, but really I'd rather have more than enough and return it than have to make a fourth trip to the hardware store to pick up more. Besides, I had a truck and it was a great time to return the insulation sheets I wasn't going to be able to use after Insulating My Vardo Roof. I ended up returning over $400 worth of materials. Yay! More money for the next steps!

Today was lovely, but my Tiny House Helpers were all otherwise occupied. Sheathing My Curved Roof is definitely not a one-woman-show for me (though if you want to be really impressed with a do-it-herselfer, check out this post from NajHaus where Kate describes doing most of her sheathing solo!) So I decided to switch gears and help my build buddy Laura with her siding. Afterwards she treated me and her other helper Nicole to a Maibock at Occidental.

Tomorrow my friend Kenny of TinyHomes.com will be coming out to help and a couple of my co-workers might be able to join me, too, so we're going to get this roof sheathed, darn it!

I've been doing a rain dance backward all weekend for good weather tomorrow. Wish us luck!