Talk about a journey. I got home from my April long, Texas eclipse trip on April 30th. As I pulled up to the house, there was a surprise in my driveway. Not totally unexpected, I encouraged the young lady working on it to use my driveway, and my tools, and my nuts and bolts and screws and whatever else she would need to build a "tiny house" on a motorhome chassis. And there it was. Like this....
I met Ashlynne at church one Sunday in the middle of March. I normally don't do coffee hour but this day, I poured a half cup and looked at a safe place to sit down. I saw a young lady sitting by herself so I walked over and asked if I could sit with her. During our brief introductions, I learned she was a friend of Nicole's, who had just announced her engagement (which was no surprise to anyone) and that she was a second degree student in Wildlife Biology.
And that she had a job this summer and fall season with the Forest Service in Afton, WY, in the far western Star Valley.
And that she was in the process of building a small house on a motorhome frame that she would live in during this time. I've also thought of building a travel trailer to my own specs, so my ears popped up and we continued to talk, for the next two hours. Not only is she a student building a house, but also...
A full time EMT who works three 12's a week, one shift in Cheyenne on Friday's and two shifts in Lander (about four hours away) on Saturdays and Sundays.
And that her lease is up at the end of April,
And that she has a corded drill and a hammer she bought at a thrift shop.
And that the motorhome she has been living in since 2020 has holes in the roof large enough that she kept a swimming pool inside to catch the rain and snow water,
And that she is in the process of tearing the house apart and is putting bits and pieces to the trash can and in the city landfill.
This is a gutsy dame. Incredible work ethic, huge determination, but poor scheduler. Just because two months named April and May are located in the Spring time somewhere doesn't mean that it holds true in Laramie. Those are traditionally our two snowiest months, and if its not snowy, it's windy, like really Cold and Windy.
So I offered the driveway, the garage and the Edgar Inn downstairs for the project. Except I was going to be gone the entire month of April. But have at it!
I drove by her apartment March 31st (Easter and the day I left for Texas) where she was demolishing the motorhome on the curb. It was pretty much gutted on the inside, but walls were still up with the windows gone. She had a lot to do.
She was building a kit from Arched Cabins located in Cypress, TX, about 20 miles south of Conroe! It is an 8 foot wide model, 14 feet long with a 2 foot overhang. The motorhome platform is 21 feet long, so there is a 7 foot long patio/deck on the back. In order to give her a little more space, it is 18 inches taller than a standard model. The kit consists of steel arches on approximately 22 inch centers, one layer of aluminum backed foam insulation and the the steel paneling on the outside. And lots of screws to hold everything together. We thought.
Her plan was to drive down to Cypress on April 7 after work, pick up the kit on a trailer on the morning of April 8 and drive it back that night. When I heard that, I reminded her that April 8th was the solar eclipse and the roads through central Texas were going to be packed during the time she would be driving through. She wisely decided after I left to have the kit delivered to Rancho Retirement, my house.
All the interior wood was purchased either at Menard's in Cheyenne or at Blodorn Lumber in Laramie and was delivered. Thank goodness. Unfortunately, everything except for the insulation and Tyvek wrapping was stored outside, on the driveway, on the rocks and on the lawn. I had my travel trailer and my pickup parked on the curb in front of the driveway and the yard to minimize the visual impact of a rough construction site.
Soooo..... when I got there on April 30, she and friends had set the baseplates, the steel ribs and the first two widths of the insulation on both sides. The top 3 feet were open on both sides. With the wind and rain, it created an effect like blowing across the top of a pop bottle. The pressure variations inside worked hard against the tape that was holding the insulation to the ribs. My first goal was to close that gap. They had also framed in the front and back walls, including the door. Sadly, my pictures of that stage didn't show up for some reason.
My first day, we worked primarily to put the top layers of insulation in place. Three of them (Ashlynne, the afore mentioned Nicole and her fiancé Damian) had worked has high as they could with two 6-foot step ladders. I had just purchased an expanding extension ladder for the trailer, so we used that to get up higher. This picture shows Ashlynne inside taping the insulation layer from the south side to the ribs on the north side.
Once we got both sides taped down (which was tricky because they overlapped by about a foot on each side), we covered the ends with Tyvek, a moisture barrier made of a really tough plastic sheet. The interior was now rain proof and mostly wind proof. We could work on the inside now whenever the wind was too great to put up the steel siding. At this point, the inside looked like this.
The lower half of the opening on the far wall (behind the ladder) goes into the motorhome cab. The upper half was still open. Because there is a room over the cab in the motorhome, there is a large opening on the roof of the cab. Ashlynne had framed in a base around the opening, but it didn't get closed off until the last two days.
Knowing the weather she was going to be living in, Ashlynne had ordered the extra insulation package. It gave you enough insulation to fit in between the ribs and inside the outer insulation which was on the outside of the ribs. This gives twice as much insulation. Cool. I made up a jig to cut the 50 inch wide insulation into two 21 inch widths.
In the right hand picture, the insulation in the first and third openings is the horizontal outside insulation. The middle piece is the cut second layer. I got the entire second layer completed in about four hours.
The next step was to put in horizontal 1x4 inch furring strips in which to attach the interior wood panels. We tried three different types of screws to self-tap into the steel ribs. After I found one that worked, we were able to put up the horizontal furring strips. Then, we were able to install the 4x8 foot wooden panels. Every panel required some form of trimming to put up. But, finally we got most of them up and the interior started to look like a room.
At this point, I mentioned to Ashlynne there was still another roll of insulation in the garage. When her kit was being delivered, there was also another kit going somewhere west. Apparently, we ended up with an extra roll of insulation. While there was still space at the top, we were able to slide another layer of insulation down between the ribs. With the two layers of insulation, the company gives the walls an R-Rating of over 50. With the third layer, it should be well over 60. (I don't really believe those numbers, but there is a heck of a lot of R there no matter what.)
Remember during all of this, Ashlynne in working three 12 hour shifts, four hours away and finishing up her semester. And I'm trying to act like I'm 34 instead of 74. My back is really starting to bother me.
But the next step is the steel siding. The siding is 16 feet long and 39 inches tall. There is 3 inches of overlap between sheets so they are effetely 36 inches tall. We get the bottom sheet placed and start screwing in the screws provided with the kit. But we can't get them to screw into the ribs. After phone calls and some expletives deleted, we finally realize that there is not one uniform layer of outer insulation to screw through, in some places there may be two or three layers where the extra layers of insulation went outside of the space between the ribs. We were finally able to get the screws to grab after exerting a LOT of force on the impact drill. I mean, pushing the ladder off the sheet because you are pushing so hard. But they did finally take. (When we could find the ribs.) There are 32 screws on each sheet.
We were able to place the bottom two sheets that day (plus some other stuff). It was a great day....except.....
we realized they had shorted us four sheets. There should have been four green and four tan sheets. Instead, we had five green sheets and no tans. This was Thursday when Ashlynne called the company and they delivered four tan sheets and an extra white one on Sunday, May 12th.
Weather didn't cooperate, so we didn't work effectively outside, but we got the two green sheets and one tan sheet up on the north side. We didn't put the tan sheets up on the south side because we had to figure out a way to install two windows up 7 inches below the top ridge line. I had scheduled a short trip to Phoenix to visit Bob and Loraine Marlow and I left on the 17th and got back on Monday the 20th. When I got back, Ashlynne had installed the windows by herself and Damian had helped cut and install the upper tan sheets. I sure couldn't have done it, maybe not even when I Was 34. She is incredible.
We are now down to one week before she has to leave on Memorial Day. At this point, the exterior was largely completed, the interior walls were up and we were down to the details. She installed the vynal flooring. Ashlynne wanted to make cabinets and shelves for the kitchen and bathroom and bookshelves by the door.
She had gotten a really neat piece of pine slab with the bark on it for the kitchen counter and gotten a very nice brass sink. She made cabinet doors from a piece of hickory paneling and surrounded them with some 3/4 x 2 inch slats. And she had found drawer pulls of copper lions heads.
By Saturday (she worked Wednesday and Thursday this week), she had built her bed (6 feet long because she is 5'6") over her rowing machine and her bicycle.
She is not going to have running water so she has a composting toilet on the other side from the kitchen and has an 18" long clothes rod in between. She'll have a container above the sink with water from the Forest Service building. And a bucket below.
She doesn't have electricity, but she did install an electric cord by the door in case she is close to a power source and needs it.
And she doesn't have heat. She is purchasing a small (tiny) wood stove for heat and indoor cooking. She recieved a very nice grill from her work (10 year award) for cooking outside.
By Sunday, the interior looked like this.
She plans to paint (as in painting) the walls as she will have plenty of time between June 1 and December 31.
While she was doing the interior, I was in charge of building storage room over the cab. I built a frame onto which I screwed in the plywood roof. I then cut and fitted the sides. Then Nicole and I put a layer of insulation and Tyvek around it.
Nicole nailing the insulation in place The finished roof including the green sheet trimmed to match the curve of the roof.
We made that section as wide as the opening on the cab roof. We also wanted to make it has high as possible, so when I cut the white sheet and tried to fit it in place, we realized I had to trim the top corners. Kind of by guess and by golly, it got trimmed just right to slide into place. The front piece to that was even more interesting. The roof is arched, being about two inches higher in the middle. To make that curve, we held the sheet up in place and then holding a marker in my fist, ran across the roof. After I cleaned the sketch, I cut it using a grinder (as we used to cut all the steel sheeting) and it never deviated more than a 1/4" from the roof. Yep, I'm proud of that detail.
Screwing the sheets to the wood was a challenge also. First, we wanted the screw pattern to be uniform and consistent. I made marks where every screw should be located. Second, because it was over the hood of the truck, we couldn't just put a ladder up and work from that. Instead, I stood on the hood and leaned over so I could most of the screws in except the two at the top middle. And because it was easier to get to, Ashlynne did the screws along the edges. And with that, all the steel siding was completed. She is still not sure how she is going to cover the Tyvek either over the cab or on the back wall, but has thought of shake shingles or vinyl siding.
Ashlynne's dog friend, Liesel (?) Cute dog, very alert, barks at everything that moves, but is also very affectionate.
Brenda, Ashlynne and me. Brenda varnished all the cabinetry doors and fronts, the countertop, etc. And then, when time got short on Monday (Memorial Day), Brenda drove to Cheyenne to get the tow dolly from U-Haul so Ashlynne could tow her car to Lander and then to Afton.
This is how the house looked after transferring all her worldly possessions from my basement to the house. It was an incredible packing job.
Pulling off the driveway at 8:02 pm on Memorial Day to drive to Lander so she could start work at 8:00am. Job completed, almost. Brenda noticed that her tires looked a little flat. They were at 40 psi when they should have been 65 psi in the front and 80 psi in the back. We were finally able to fill the outer tires to the correct pressure, but we couldn't get to the inner tires on the back axle, so I told her she had to drive slowly to keep the tires from overheating. Luckily, she had purchased new tires in 2020 when she bought the motorhome.
She got to Lander safely and built a fence for Liesel on the rear deck. She still has to build some steps. Note the taillights on the fancy brackets. It took several hours to figure out the lights, including replacing three of the four bulbs. It was the last major piece that I did on that afternoon.
At one point, I decided that the house looked like a cathedral. When I suggested it as a name to Ashlynne, she said, "No, its name is Spare Oom." Oh yeah, that made a lot of sense to me. "No," she said," It's from 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.'" It was her favorite book from her childhood (and her adulthood!). So, I looked it up.
This is from the blog, "The Spare Room"
When Lucy Pevensie first arrives in Narnia, and meets the faun Mr Tumnus. “This is the land of Narnia,” he tells her, “where we are now; all that lies between the lamp post and the great castle of Cair Paraval on the eastern ocean,” the faun said. “And you—you have come from the wild woods of the west?”
Lucy replies saying, “I—I got through the wardrobe in the spare room.” (Now this is when it gets funny!)
Tumnus says, “Ah!” in a rather melancholy voice, “If only I worked harder in geography when I was a little faun, I should no doubt know all about those strange countries. It is too late now.”
“But they aren’t countries at all,” said Lucy, almost laughing. “It’s only just back there—at least—I’m not sure. It is summer there.”
“Meanwhile,” said Mr Tumnus, “it is winter in Narnia, and has been for ever so long, and we shall both catch cold if we stand here talking in the snow. Daughter of Eve from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would it be if you came and have tea with me?”
So Ashlynne is now living in her Spare Oom. I'm really happy for her. It's been crazy, but I'd do it all again...when the Spring finally hits in June and July, when the wind has died down some, when there isn't quite as much pressure to get it done.... you know, then......
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