Lee's Community Build in D.C. - Part 1
Lee Pera and a group of tiny house builders attended a Tumbleweed workshop last year. This year, they broke ground on their tiny house community in Washington, D.C. Below is an update from Lee who will be guest blogging her tiny house community adventure with us regularly. If you're interested in starting a group build in your community, drop us an email and we'll work with you to connect with other tiny house enthusiasts, builders, and suppliers in your area.
We’ve been doing preparatory work this week meeting with other tiny house builders, scoping out materials and prices, looking at designs we like, and helping Brian out on the lot and garden beds. Making decisions usually stresses me out, and all the decisions that go into a tiny house have been overwhelming me, so it felt good to already decide on a couple things while looking at materials. For instance, I love the look of the interior of the Protohaus and have decided to go with bead board rather than the knotty pine that the Fencl tiny house plans call for (saving a significant amount of money as well). I have also decided I really like the look of cork flooring and many of its benefits and will most likely go with that for my flooring – whew…two decisions made effortlessly!
The biggest news this week is that I may end up downsizing even more. Originally I planned on building on a 22 ft-long x 8 ft-wide trailer, extending the Fencl out by 4 feet in length and one foot in width. But this week we were out for beers with our new tiny house friends Margaret and Zach – who are building an amazing tiny house in South Carolina – and Zach told us about an ad he had seen for a tiny house shell. It’s a fabulous deal, but the main issue I had with it is that, while built on an 18-ft trailer, the shell is just 16 feet long and 7 feet 10 inches wide. Could I really lose 6 feet of interior space? That’s a lot of room in a tiny house. Still, the price is less than what my trailer itself will cost, and the seller was excited that we even knew about tiny houses. Tony talked with the builder/seller and he seems to have done solid work, and Zach checked it out in person for us. It looks like I’ll be buying the shell all built out! We will finish the roofing, siding and interior starting in June.
Next, Tony and I went to spend some time hanging out in the Fencl (18 ft long x 7 ft wide). After spending about an hour, moving about in the rooms, hanging out in the loft, scoping out storage, I think I can make a smaller unit work. It will require getting creative about storing my stuff (or getting rid of more), but I’m excited about the challenge. I like to think I adapt easily to wherever I live and the size will be fine, but if it’s too small I can design and build a larger one over time. It will be useful to spend some time in one first to get an idea for what I really want and need in size and design. I’ll post more photos of the shell soon.
