This is where it all began. I often miss this little gem. Over the last 20 plus years I have done a lot to this little house but the core remains the same and I love it.
I have never done anything to this little house that wasn’t based on improving my experience of living here and not about what anybody else thinks.
I’m retiring and working more on my house. Yes, it still needs work and now that I’m retiring I’ll have more time to do it.
I started this blog to share ideas about doing your own design and your own building and thinking differently to solve your own specific needs. I strongly believe in not giving in to the pressure to follow the norm. Think outside the box no matter how hard that box is fighting to be a typical box.
Make up your own rules and think and experiment to figure out how to make your home really reflect who you are and specifically built for you. Make it deeply personal.
I hope you’ll stick with me on this continuing journey.
Below are excerpts from a piece I wrote about quitting my 35 year design career…. Note I started the trend …
You can read the full piece by clicking the link below :
Without a job they say: “what will you do?” or “you’ll have no purpose”
“When I tell people that I’m retired they look quite surprised. It seems like a fantasy or even a joke. People seem a little impressed too but believe me I have no financial plan. I haven’t made good investments or consistently filled up a savings account. I have no 401k or IRA. I haven’t worked my butt off or made lofty salaries – No, quite the opposite, I am lazy and the worst financial planner ever.
What is my secret? I’m good at quitting.”
“I know it’s kind of trendy now but I have always put my sanity first. Even as a kid I loved mowing lawns and painting houses but when I did it for other people, for a little cash, I got sick of it real quick. Mind you, I work hard and people want me back but I guess I’m just selfish and don’t work when I don’t need the money. I’d work very hard for short periods of time because I’d be called in when they were under the gun. I worked fast and I worked smart because I wanted to be done.”
“I’ve found work to be a lovely combination of high stress, politics and some very nice people.”
“All I’m saying is don’t believe the hype. If you don’t live to work then don’t wait until it’s over to have a life.”
It’s a sign that people are not necessarily confined to “the norm” or some idealized concept of home and also that trailers are finally getting the respect that they always deserved.
Historically if you told someone you live in a trailer it would conjure up images of dirt paved trailer parks and unruly children running wild. If you told someone you live in a van down by the river, well, that’s just a ridiculous Saturday Night Live skit. If you told someone you live in a mobile home well then you’re just asking for the question: “What are you doing with your life?”
Americans have plenty of jokes about living in your parent’s basement or garage but in some countries parents actually want their kids at home.
For some reason, right now, tiny homes and trailers are gaining respect and are even seen by many as their ultimate dream.
from medium
When I first moved in, I didn’t realize that this house was all that I would ever need.
from medium
“It’s much more important what your home looks like on the inside than what it looks like on the outside. It’s more important that you want to cook there than whether your kitchen has trendy granite and stainless steel finishes. We should not be looking at others for approval we should be looking within for insight. Don’t waste too much time looking at Pinterest and lifestyle magazines for inspiration from others and spend more time looking within to decide what is right for you.”
Please check it. I like the immediacy of it. My goal this year (in addition to the continuing work on my house) is to update my various forms of social media more often. I want to integrate everything and make all of the different forms work together and share common information. Each type of social media has its own benefits and I’m going to try and learn how to use them to create the best experience.
The exterior of my house looks done. Meanwhile the interior needs tile work and finish carpentry that I’ve been avoiding. Sometimes you have to live a bit. I know that I’ll get it done and also that it is never really done. I’ve been scheming and designing and building since I moved into this tiny house in 2000. Now it’s 2020 and I feel pretty good about what I’ve accomplished
I have an actual bedroom. Over the years I’ve gone from a 250 sq ft cottage to a 700 sq ft house. It’s been an interesting journey and I have no regrets. Throughout this process the only thing that’s constant is change. I’ve become very comfortable with chaos and the unknown. Perhaps I’m too comfortable and perhaps on the inside my life looks out of control. It’s a good metaphor for my life in general – on the outside I look kind of like I’ve got my shit together but on the inside I’m a messy work in progress.
One of the things I follow a lot on instagram is the “tiny house movement.” Although, I think “movement” is an overstatement. People are not protesting in the streets for tiny houses but some laws are changing regarding in-law units and housing density and even what the minimal legal size of a house is. For instance, my house is considered “sub-standard.” The fact that law regulates what size your house can be is ridiculous. I’m happy for all of us that both laws and thinking are changing. We need to think outside the box. We need to fight the norms. We need to imagine new ways of building and of living
The idea of house and home has become too standardized. It’s standard to the point where people believe their house isn’t enough unless it matches some societal norm or some idealistic picture in a magazine. Of course there are construction standards and furniture standards that help to make sure things work but there can be huge variation within those guidelines. If you’re working with a contractor don’t blindly accept their word.
I know my house doesn’t look that radical. It’s just a product of all the parameters that the lot and the codes allowed. There were a lot of ways to fit within those parameters. This is just what I chose to do but it wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t based on a lot of preconceptions about home.
I’m rejecting the norms and preconceptions. I’m rejecting the status quo and the magazine ideals. For me, this is an experiment. It’s deeply personal. It’s intimately connected to who I am and what I do and how I want to spend my time.
One of the reasons that I’ve been taking a break is that I want to enjoy the process. I’m actually not fixated on the end product. I want to enjoy my life even while changing it and building it. I’m not static and I don’t demand that of my house either. I’m having fun over-thinking and designing myself into a corner.
I’m sure some people see my lack of progress as a weakness or an inability to get a job done but maybe I’m not waiting for anything to be finished. I’m enjoying life right now. My life has chaos and messiness and unknowns and I’m enjoying all of it.
The Living Room ...still in process
I’m thinking about seating :
Here is my present thinking regarding how to make this small space work well and feel open. Also see below there are some references to illustrate my thinking.
This is a product that Patricia Urquiola developed for Gan. I like the way that it blurs the line between the seating and the floor. It’s very low and really invites lounging and offers many different positions including using the floor as a seat with the cushions being a back.
gan rugs / sofa patricia urquiola
gan rugs / sofa patricia urquiola
gan rugs / sofa patricia urquiola
Gandia Blasco
Here is an earlier version that I’ve seen but I don’t think this has any connection to Patricia Urquiola. Maybe this was an earlier version of the idea. This is an older image I have but I believe it was credited to Ganda Blasco
A sofa I recently saw by Minotti
Menotti Sofa "White"
Menotti Sofa "White"
More visuals to come as the concept gets more developed… oh…and I also have a lot of plaster and electrical and plumbing work to do but that’s a whole other story.
-dirk
dividing equasetum
Obviously I still have a lot of work to do. I just got the stair treads in and I still have a lot of electrical and plumbing to do but one of the benefits of working on your house yourself is you get to choose the priorities.
I ‘ve been thinking that the terrace needed a little love so I was wondering about what kind of plants to put there. I wanted something tall and skinny so that it wouldn’t take up much room and would manage to grab as much sunlight as possible.
I bought one tall pot without knowing what was going to go in it. I’ve learned that if you see a pot that you like, buy it. I don’t often find a nice pot at a reasonable price so, when I do, I buy it. I even went back and got another one because that one pot looked kind of lonely on my terrace. Just today I figured out what to put in those pots.
bamboo from bamboogarden.com
I’ve always loved bamboo and I thought about it when I thought “tall and skinny” but there are more types of bamboo than you could possibly imagine.
You’re right, that image at the top of the page is not bamboo and I wasn’t sure if I could grow bamboo in a pot or not. The image to the left here is a special variety of bamboo that I found at bamboogarden.com near Portland, Oregon. On their website I found that there are smaller varieties of bamboo and that some of them will do well in a pot.
They told me that bamboo needs a wider pot rather than a deep one so those pots that I already bought were not necessarily the best. The variety of bamboo that I chose wasn’t the cheapest either so I had better take good care of it. I went and bought another pot…..
waiting for bamboo
So here is my terrace with 2 tall pots of equasedum from Home Depot and a new pot waiting for my “special” bamboo from Oregon.
I spent way more time and money than I had any intention of doing but this gives me a lot more satisfaction than crawling around underneath my house adding new conduit and pulling wires.
stair tread alignment jig
This is a jig that I made to align the stair treads during the assembly process. The steel frame intentionally has a lot of room for adjustment to allow for irregularities in the floor and the walls and any variation in all the parts involved. These treads are screwed into the steel plate from below. See the steel plates here and to see the steel frame going in go here.
the stairwell
The entrance looked large without the stairs. Now its filled up. I didn’t skimp on the scale of the stairs. I didn’t want to compromise on the ease of getting up and down. These stairs will get a lot of use.
Something like a spiral staircase just wouldn’t be useful for frequent trips up and down. A “fireman’s pole” might be helpful for trips down though.
There is still plenty of work involved in attaching the hand rail posts and fabricating a new hand rail for the stairs but, for now, I rather like it just like this.
Here is an update. I posted this on facebook but I realize that not everyone uses facebook. This is the finished railing. Did some painting since this picture. Its raining today and I will work on some rough electrical.
Yup its raining in june…Just like it rained in July when my roof was opened up…
applying clear coat finish to the treds
That is “finishing” as in applying a finish, not to imply that they are finished yet.
Since I don’t have much space inside I wait for nice weather to do finishing of the stair treads on my quiet dead-end street.
I hose off the street a bit to keep dust at a minimum. The finish is applied by a painting pad instead of a traditional brush. Its impossible to leave any brush strokes when you are using a pad and a roller can create texture and bubbles.
Here is the previous post with information on the stair tread material.
tile area for the wood stove
I’ve actually bought the wood stove seen in my earlier post and it sits in the middle of my entry waiting for the stairs as the method for getting it’s 300 pounds of cast iron up to the second floor.
This image shows the tile work that is going to be underneath and behind the wood stove. In the foreground is a small piece of the oak flooring that will meet the tile floor.
deck view from the inside
I have finished enclosing the deck area with wood and glass. The wood railing design is very much as described earlier.
A rendering of my concept
I talked about this design in my earlier post entitled : “Details, details”
This new railing relates somewhat to the garden fence below. I used the same design techniques outlined in the process of creating that fence here : fence design
deck view from the street
The deck enclosure uses three different materials which may be considered taboo by some architectural aficionados. While I’ll be the first to admit that I tend to over think this stuff, there are practical reasons here. The stucco is a “fire wall” required by code due to the close distance to the property line.
The glass area was created to maintain the view that I was enjoying from the unfinished railing and the angled wood was a response to watching the sun set.
aluminum and rubber design
I wasn’t able to find any “off-the-shelf” solutions to capture the tempered glass railing. I found the parts that I needed from two different sources.
I added rubber strip material to an aluminum “U” extrusion to create a way to capture the glass.
Aluminum is a beautiful material and can be worked with standard woodworking tools.
cutting aluminum
drilling and countersinking
extrusion attachment
The only difference working aluminum is that the sawdust sparkles.
aluminum sawdust
I was looking for registers in a previous post about “Life in the crawl space.” The register is the final frosting on the cake for all that nasty work down below. I found these bronze fixtures at a fairly reasonable price. The bigger they get, of course, the more they cost so I went with a less expensive register for my 12″ x 12″ Floor Return. I have to save money somewhere.
"onto" by duravit
But not the tub I originally wanted. My goal was to have a deep soaking tub that also functioned well as a shower. I thought I found that when I wrote the post about the Duravit “Seadream.” By the time I was ready to order it was out of production. The “Onto” is a beautiful and deep tub but it doesn’t have as much standing space as the other one did.
duravit installation guide
sanding the beams before cutting to size
“Parallam” is an engineered structural beam material. Its designed to be very strong and very straight and consistent. I’m using it for my stair treds. I like the look and the fact that its a sustainable material. I like the balance of the machismo of the steel stair structure in combination with the softness of the wood. This wood material reminds me of a bundle of sticks or grass. I think it relates well to my bamboo floor and my bamboo shade that is the “door” to my stacking washer/dryer room.
rough placement of the treds pre-install
Here you can see the rough placement of the treds before final trimming to size. I have to admit I was a bit concerned about the scale of these hunks of wood in the small space but, happily, my estimates seem to be okay. There will need to be a railing of course but I do like the way that it looks without any railing. I’m working on sanding and final finish before I get them in place.
tolomeo wall light
I need to get all of the outlets and light fixture electrical boxes in place. Since I want as clean an installation as possible it seems necessary to determine the type of fixture before I can decide on the exact location of the electrical box.
At this point I am imagining an adjustable light fixture on each side of my new bed. I would like the fixture to mount to the wall without any cord, therefore I need to know what kind of light fixture as well as how wide the bed is going to be and how the fixture attaches to the wall.
Of course there are many options here just like all the other types of fixtures. So more research to do here too. I do want something that has some softness to it and doesn’t seem overly technical. Some of these get very technical very fast. It would be nice if there was some warmth to the light too like this one with a fabric shade. As always cost is a major deciding factor and some of these are too expensive.
ledino wall light
philips swing arm
ledino wall light
Available in many different sizes but the price goes up accordingly
In an earlier post I was deep in a search for the perfect pendant light fixture. I called this my “fanciful pursuit.” I seem to labor over these fanciful decisions even more than the labor that I put into the fundamental infrastructure of the new abode.
The search never stopped and I have looked at many different sizes and configurations, none of which seemed to be just right. After creating the big entry space in my mind and now a reality, I guess I put a lot of pressure on myself to make it something special.
Lately I’ve been watching the sunset like a movie projected onto my upper story.
the sunset projects onto the new wall
The new sliding glass door creates a nicely framed image of the sunset. I find myself watching this image as it moves and changes color. It draws me upstairs to see it in person. I realize now that a pendant light fixture would block this view and I’m not sure if I want to let that happen. I was already thinking that the new fixture should somehow represent the sun or natural light so that, even on foggy days, there is a reminder that the sun is up there somewhere.
Now I’m looking at ceiling mounted fixtures and I’ve found some interesting images that intrigue me. I’m even thinking of putting recessed lighting in the ceiling and then hanging my own custom shade that hangs slightly below the ceiling hiding the fixtures and providing a glow as though there is a skylight in the ceiling. In all my research there is an obvious correlation between size and price. I know that is a “no brainer” but prices jump dramatically as soon as the diffuser gets bigger than 20 inches. I can make my own diffuser as big as I want for much less.
found on ylighting website
This fixture is the “Quadra Ice Flat Ceiling Light” by Proli Diffusion Studio. Made in Spain by Vibia.
Its just shy of 24″ Square and I like the quality of the light shown in this image.
I’m not sure how this would work on a slanted ceiling. I think I want the diffuser to be level and I might be able to do that by adjusting the attachment point.
also found on ylighting
This is the fixture that inspired me with the idea of a large skylight. I like the quality of light in this image but I think it will take some experimentation in the actual space see what is possible.
This fixture is called “Big Ceiling Light” appropriately enough. The design is by Lievore, Altherr and Molina. Made in Spain by Vibia. It’s available in two sizes: 39.5″ and 47.25″ Diameter. I would guess this is the bigger one in the image.
There is a lot of finesse that goes into the design of these consumer items and I’m sure that is what makes them worth so much.
Here is a detail of the fixture above. You can see that its a high quality light that is probably worth it’s price of over $3,000.
I’m wondering, however, if I can create my own diffuser that I just hang from the ceiling underneath a few recessed fixtures. Well, that is the latest exploration that I intend to do. It may take some experimentation to achieve the quality of light that I am seeing in these photographs.
verb2 
