It’s the little things in life that make it worthwhile, and it’s the details in the tiny house that are worth every effort. In the last two months we spent a lot of time doing exactly this – working on all the different aspects of our home, which, in the end, form the big picture. It takes a lot of patience and imagination to see through all the mess and to acknowledge the process. We stained, painted, measured, cut, glued, welded, nailed down and screwed up.

Here’s what we accomplished so far.

Stairway to Heaven

This is how our stairway looked when we first installed it.

We didn’t know what kind of stairway we wanted for a looong time. Were actual stairs with drawers the most reasonable option, or was a simple ladder going to be enough? Since we couldn’t decide, we opted for a hybrid – a mix between those two possibilities. And just like this, it incorporates a little bit of everything: 1. It does not clog our space like heavy steps with drawers would do. 2. Sophie can, with a little bit of practice, walk up and down on her own. 3. We still have plenty of space underneath for storage.

By now we have welded a pretty railing, added storage underneath (our side-by-side refrigerator fits quite well), painted the ceiling with Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint, and finally found a suitable kitchen counter (birch plywood).

Chamber of Secrets

Our tiny bathroom now offers privacy.

Our beautiful barn door was built with hardware from Better Barns, a local company here in Connecticut that makes high quality products for personal and professional construction projects. Tiny house builders get a discount, just ask for Penny: 888-266-1960 or penny@betterbarns.com. We can’t wait to see how everything will look when our trim, shelves and kitchen counter are completed.

We stained our kitchen counter so that it matches the colors of our reclaimed wood.

Holes in the Wall

I don’t know what looks nicer: Our nautical bulkhead wall light from Barn Light Electric (left), or the copper cover for the Lunos e2, our heat recovery ventilation system (right).

If I think of all the openings that our home will have, I get dizzy. At least four appliances need to be vented – the wood stove, bathroom ventilation fan, water heater and washer/dryer combo. Our heat recovery ventilation system consists of two pipes that also have to sit in the wall. For that we drilled two 6” holes, the first one next to the entry door and the other one in the back, above the couch. On the outside, they are protected with beautiful copper covers.

This is what we got when we drilled the holes. It’s quite interesting to see how thick our spray foam actually is.

That’s just the big holes… We also drilled some little ones for the outside light and outdoor outlet. Two more are planned for an outdoor faucet and for outside LED lights. Sometimes I wonder if we’re not overdoing it a little bit, but then again, there’s a purpose behind everything.

Now we don’t have to run an extension cord through a window or the door if we need to plug something in outside!

A Maze of Wires

If you guessed right away that this is our electrical panel, then you probably know more than me.

Thankfully we have a good friend who generously offered to help us out with our electrical installation. Still, getting our house wired is quite the adventure. I don’t remember how often we had to run another cable or change a switch, not to mention all those junction boxes that are now hanging outside of our walls. It seems we need just one more day and we will be able to light up our house… or burn it down.

Anyway, the end is near, we can feel it. Time to get excited!