Fred & Glenda Lackey

Again Glenda saved the day. Dreaming up this “jewelry box” raised floor concept was the easy part. Finishing it off was the tedious aspect of this one.

Each bay is approximately 8′ long, almost 15″ wide and over 14″ tall. There are seven in the front and three in the rear.

Each is finished with banded, stained, poly’ed wood with green felt. And, of course, we added switched LED lights to all of the bays so we can see what’s in there.

All of the windows for the tiny house are ordered and paid for. We lost count on how many measurements we recorded. However, these windows need to be perfect. We went with Andreson 400 Series double-pain casement windows everywhere (awning windows for the loft, of course). They are Energy Star rated, double-pain, and have a special Low-E coating to help with energy efficiency in both warm and cold climates.

It’s May? Already!?!? Man, do we need to pick up the pace!
Not much to see with this one. The Kerdi board is installed and taping is complete using thinset and the special Kerdi Band waterproofing tape.

Now time to get the tiles on the wall!

Quick pause to pressure test the plumbing and PEX. Life would be quite unpleasant if we closed in all of the walls, taped, and tiled, only to find out that our shower leaked.

We have successfully tested to 100 lbs PSI!

The design of our bathroom is simple but comfortable. We plan on using waterproof tiles on the walls to, again, maximize every inch of space. Many houses these days use pre-fabbed fiberglass shower enclosures. However, these consume several inches on three sides of the shower and look quite ugly. Our bathroom will be one complete wet area.

To the walls we went with the good stuff… Schluter Kerdi board. This is essentially extruded polystyrene board with a waterproof fiber membrane sealed onto either side.

Each board is affixed to the framing with special screws and washers. This creates an incredibly solid backing for virtually any tile you can think of.

We also plan on using tiles throughout the entire bathroom to create a more polished look.

Now that the insulation is complete, it is time to start closing in the floor. Glenda did most of the cutting using the coolest handheld CNC machine on the planet: the Shaper Origin!

We envision a set of portholes in the floor. Each 8′ bay will have its own. This should allow ample storage under the floor for virtually anything we will ever need or want to take with us.

We are sooo glad that is over! Spray foam is, by far, the messiest and unpleasant job in the whole build. And, yes, we know it’s also quite costly.

Each bay had to be OVER-filled to achieve a perfect and complete fill. Since we only have 3.5″ of depth to work with, every inch counts. This meant filling each bay beyond that depth, shaving off the excess, and then repeating the process for any low spots.

Oh, and breathing this stuff in!?!? Wow! By the end of the process, we were using completely sealed face masks just to be able to see what we were doing. And, even with those, it still took several days for us to be able to breathe properly.

In the end, it was worth it. We achieved the highest possible R-rating for this space and basically created a Yeti cooler on wheels.

Oh… my… gosh! This part never ends!

For those of you thinking about tackling spray foam yourself, you may want to think it through a bit. While it is not a difficult task, it does consume a ton of time to do it properly… or even half-properly, like we’re doing.

For starters, this stuff is messy and hot. The spray goes everywhere so you need to decide between wearing a Tyvek bunny suit or spending an hour in the shower scraping the spatter from your skin and hair before you throw away the clothing you’ll ruin (I chose the latter option this evening).

The heat itself isn’t bad. While this stuff is expanding and curing, it gives off a good deal of heat. If you’re working in a confined space you will feel like a pot roast waiting to be carved. Add the bunny suit and respirator to this mix and it’s rather unpleasant for long periods of time. It takes us about 45 minutes to properly apply the contents of one 650 kit.

Note: We went with the 650 kits as they are the largest size fire-rated closed-cell kits available to consumers.

Speaking of time, we ended up dealing with the insulation in sessions. Each kit retails for around $750 and, since we haven’t really budgeted for any of this, we end up buying a couple of kits each week or so. Then the weather is a factor. For best results you want to install spray foam while it’s in the mid-70’s. Also, it should remain at that temperature for the 24 hours immediately preceding its use. Factor in more time to ventilate the area and our “sessions” end up being spread apart with about a week or so in between.

To date we have installed five sets of tanks (the bathroom is complete and behind me in that pic). Accounting for us slightly overfilling each cavity and I estimate we will need another 1.5 … which equates to buying two. Once the last coat is applied, it will be time to shave down the walls and install the interior walls.

Stopped by the loft area of the shop last night for an updated pic of the tiny house. I must say, it’s looking great from here. The flashing is complete and came out great. If you look closely, you can even see the shaving of the excess foam insulation (more pics on that coming soon).