Our Tiny House Has Arrived!

More work is needed, but delivery and installation are complete!

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Amanda sits at the window seat. Custom cushions are currently being made and shipped to us!

Our tiny house on wheels arrived safely on Thursday, July 19, 2018! The driver, Linh, and his assistant, Stephanie, carefully maneuvered the house onto the gravel pad. They were awesome to work with! The initial installation by Backcountry Tiny Homes happened July 21-24. The installer, Luke, was hard-working and really fun. The tiny house itself went above and beyond our expectations – you should see the gorgeous woodworking and custom furniture items, like the window seat with storage drawers, bed loft shelving, stairs with cubbies and closet, and kitchen / work table! The balcony and “hobbit” door open a world of experiencing the farm from above, with soaring raptors, bats, clouds and stars. Some people may disagree but our teenie-tiny bathroom and lofted bed are perfect for us! We have so much kitchen cabinet storage compared to what we’ve had in various standard-size apartments during the past five years, so this is an upgrade. Little things like a nice mirrored medicine cabinet really stand out when we’ve lived without one for so long. Lo and behold, we discovered the joys of dimmer switches, who knew? Thought they’d be unnecessary but oh, the delight of lighting control! The house is warm, welcoming and smooth in its design and layout.

Ryan poses by the (wrong, but workable) electric stove, anticipating cooking tasty meals!

So are we moved in completely yet? Nope. Naturally, not everything can work properly from the get-go. Life’s not like that. Although I admit I was still surprised by these things. Naïveté. I’ll try and keep descriptions simple, since the problems are complex. On day one, the brand-new UV light filter started beeping and telling us not to drink the water. So we don’t. We continue to haul it. The toilet’s urine diverter can’t be used until our greywater garden is planted, which can’t happen until the bathtub’s industrial gunk is cleaned off or it’ll kill the expensive native plants that will eventually filter all the water that comes out of the house. The gutters do funnel some, but not most, of our recent rainfall into the cistern (the gutters aren’t sloped properly, leak from various points, and there are other issues with them and the cistern as well). The solar power system, which was sized for our appliances and lifestyle, doesn’t seem to be working right (the array’s rated at 1830W, but, max on a cloudless day at midday, has only yielded about 1100W thus far; the inverter might also be in danger of overheating). There are a few minor things, to name some of them: one outlet isn’t working (which we don’t really need to use anyway), they installed the wrong stove which we decided to keep and make do (it might actually work better upon further thought), and a window was broken during transport (it’s being replaced by the driver – yay!). What really matters to us is having working water and solar-power systems, and getting that tub situation resolved so we can begin using the toilet. We’ve reached out to Backcountry Tiny Homes for troubleshooting, and will keep y’all updated with the solutions that emerge. A pile of problems is just a lot of solutions that haven’t been born yet. Naïveté again, maybe, LOL. Regardless, we really love our new house!