I'm not going to pretend like I didn't see this coming. I work slowly, constantly shifting around between designer, engineer, researcher, laborer, and resources manager, so it takes a long time for me to produce enough to merit a blog post. This will probably not stop happening, and I'll probably post again in another couple of months. I'm sorry, that's just the way it's going to be.
Moving on, I believe I have plenty of things to show for this blog post. First off, during this time, we built a tiny garage for the tiny house...
Things are looking up for 10302 1/2 Brown Rd.
Okay, it's a shed, but it's nice to have dry tools and a place to think.
The first thing I undertook on the house this time was the porch. Both the ceiling over the porch and the deck itself are common redwood. I insulated the ceiling using rigid foam and sealed it with T&G redwood. I really like redwood for these purposes because not only is it stronger and lighter than pine, but it has very distinct and interesting color variations in the wood. I tried to match those up to create a nice effect. Finally, I put in a porch light that I think is really pretty sweet. This was an item that took a lot of looking around to find. Roll film:
Eventually I will hook that light up to 12v DC and I'll get to have a really nice picture of the porch. Then, after building a tiny rocking chair, I can squeeze some lemonade into a tiny glass and rock back and forth on the porch on a warm summer night. Or I could sit on my stoop...
Stoop Kid's afraid to leave his stoop!
Andy brought home a demolished gazebo and I salvaged some of the wood to make this remarkably sturdy set of stairs.
Now we come to the axle... I knew I had to buy a new axle because the previous one wouldn't handle the new weight I was putting on. So I went to a parts distributer in East Phoenix (45 minutes, one way, easily) and grabbed myself a 7000K 4" drop axle. I get home, Andy shows me how to put it together, we slide it under the frame and... it's too short.
Turns out the guy there measured it wrong. There and back again. Get correctly measured new axle, run it home, assemble it, slide it under the frame aaaaaannnnnd... it's too short.
Take three: Well, this time we all find out, including the people at the parts store, that going from 3,500 and 7,000 decreases the amount of space available to attach the axle to the frame... but only in 4" drop models. Discovering that basically meant these were my options: Get a straight axle, which raises the house up and potentially makes it too tall to legally drive OR get a longer drop axle and be definitely be too wide to legally drive OR choose option C (the nuclear option of these choices) and change the pitch of the roof to make the house shorter. I chose the first option, got home, assembled the axle...
By the way, "assembled the axle" includes hand packing bearings with grease that smells as if McDonalds made a dirty gym sock sandwich.
...slid it under the house AND...... it fit perfectly and only raised the house to 13'1", almost half a foot under the legal limit.
*Ah shit...*
Folks, that sound means we're about to talk about that one time that Nick thought it would be a good idea to replace the window in the back of his house.
"Oh boy! Installing a window! This is going to be a breeze!" - Me before spending two weeks making the window work. "I am not a smart man." - Me afterwards
So that window I was talking about in the previous post? I ended up seeing it again, in the clearance rack at Lowes for nearly $200 less than what I had paid for it. Sweet deal. So, a month later it's take two on the octagon window. To make that window fit in the rough opening, I had to block out an octagon from a square, reflash it, mount the window, change the hinges from casement to a MacGuyvered chest hinge, paint it, create and install trim, fur out the walls, cut and install T&G wood, install louvers, and caulk it all up. For the most part, it sucked and was a very exacting process of being repeatedly inhibited by the tiniest problems. But, I did it. I have no pictures of the process at all because I was too busy figuring out how the hell to make the window work. After screwing up each part multiple times and not being confident if I would go through the process at all again, and using the fact that it is the window in the back of the house, I have channeled Lame Pun Raccoon and have dubbed it "The Window of Hindsight." Here are pictures of the finished product.
Detail
View from up in the loft.
Finally, the last and most recent occurrence with the house has been needing to attach new angle iron to the frame so that we can move the bolts and hurricane ties that hold the house to the frame into the walls. I bought a 13' piece of 3"x5" angle iron and we used a cutoff wheel to chop it into four 3' sections. One of those has to be bolted and welded into each corner of the frame. This requires drilling through the angle iron (I have to put the drill in the freezer 3 to 4 times for each hole so that it doesn't overheat) and grinding of globs of weld from when the trailer was assembled.
Doing so looks like this.
In the end, it should look all nice and bolted up like this.
After I finish that, I have to take it to a welder to get it professionally welded on (as well as welding the new axle together) and I should have a permanent attachment for the house set up and ready to go.
Well, that's it for this season's edition. I'll see you all in February. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. 
