Roof Sheathing Going On

June 16, 2013 – Last weekend we started putting up the roof sheathing. We continued this weekend and have all the sheathing up except for the dormers. Not much else to add; enjoy the pictures!

Work Continues on the Dormers

May 25, 2013 – My mom was in town for a few days to visit and pick up a friend from the airport; which worked out great for us as she was a big help today (thanks mom). My mom used to be quite the woodworker and builder tackling roofing projects and building cabinets and other furniture items for the home. Growing up, whenever I asked my mom for something she would say, “oh honey, we can make that”. It was annoying at the time because I didn’t get what I wanted and more times than not, we didn’t make it. But it did teach me that you don’t always have to buy what you want, sometimes you can tackle it yourself. Hmmm, a tiny house comes to mind.

We got back to work putting up the other dormer wall and putting up the rafters. Like I mentioned before, the dormers were not in our building plans and we were making it up as we went along. We consulted YouTube, other tiny house blogs, and builder friends, and hoped for the best. One thing we had to figure out was the angle to cut the rafters that would sit on the dormer walls. When you know the pitch of your roof, it’s easy to figure out the angle you need to cut. However, when you don’t know what the pitch is, it’s a little more complicated. Of course there is always math to help you figure it out. Using the Pythagorean theorem and taking the Sin, Cosine, etc. will eventually give you the number you need. At one time I spent a while figuring this all out, but of course didn’t keep my notes and rather than give myself a headache again, we decided to go with the trial and error method. After a few cuts, we settled in on an eight degree angle for the portion of the rafter that attaches to the ridge beam. Knowing this, I was able to find a calculator online that informed me we had a 1.68/12 pitch roof. Definitely not very steep, but it should shed rain and gives us maximum head room in the loft. In the winter we might have to rake the snow off the dormer roof section, but it’s such a small section of roof that it will probably be just fine.

While Pete and I measured and cut the rafters, my mom chiseled out the wall sheathing that was in the way of the rafters. By then we had all the rafters ready to be nailed/screwed in place. The rafters that flank the dormer walls are doubled up with 1/2 inch plywood in between. This gives us extra strength in addition to making it easier to frame in the side walls. By quitting time (6pm cow milking time) we had the dormers up and all rafters in place.

It’s amazing how much more we accomplished with a pair of extra hands! Pete said my mom should come over every weekend. 🙂

My mom chiseling away the sheathing.

We used long construction grade srews to secure the rafters to the dormer walls.

Dormer Walls Going Up

May 19, 2013 – We started putting up the dormer walls today. Because this was not part of our original plan, we first had to tear down the rafters that were already in place. Every time we take apart a piece of the house it makes me that much more confident that this tiny house will travel well; it is difficult to take it apart.

Once the existing rafters were removed we made a few new rafters that were two 2×4’s thick with 1/2 inch plywood as a spacer; this is what will hold the side walls of the dormers. We only got one of the dormer walls in place with the doubled up rafters on either side of it before we called it a day; we had a late start as usual and stormy weather was approaching.

It feels good to be back to work on the tiny house. We had gone through a period where we lost confidence in our building abilities, but once we had hammers in hand the confidence returned and we will be living in our self built tiny house in no time…more likely a year from now, but who’s keeping track.

This will clear up once we get the roof on and windows in.

Storing all our building supplies in the tiny house.