Tiny House 4: End Walls

I put up the end walls over the last few days, so the framing is done:

I laid out the end walls on the floor. They’re made from two layers of 2x4s screwed together. Then I lifted them into place and fastened them to the bents using tie plates. Here are the hand-scribbled design notes for the end walls:

The far (north) end wall has an opening for a 36x54 window, and the near (south) end wall has an opening for a 30x80 door. There will be two more 36x54 windows on the left (west) side wall, and one on the right (east) side wall. That’s a lot of windows for a tiny house, but it will provide good natural light. (The house won’t have electricity although I will probably use battery-powered lanterns.)

One nice thing about a post and beam structure is that you have a lot of freedom with the placement of windows and doors. That’s because you don’t have the problem of cutting into the load-bearing parts of the structure, as you would with a stud frame house with studs 16 inches apart.

In the picture above you can see the ratchet strap that I used the keep an end wall from flopping over while I lifted it into place. Ratchet straps are your best friend when working alone.

The framing for the three windows in the side walls was very simple. The posts on either side of the window are the load-bearing structure, so there’s no need for a heavy header above the window.

The next step is to nail 1x6 tongue and groove sheathing over the outside of the frame. This will provide the needed stability and rigidity, and will also provide an attractive interior wall surface without the need for drywall. (I hate drywall with a passion: the stuff is heavy, structurally weak, difficult to install, and falls apart if it gets wet.)

It looks like we’re going to get rain and/or snow this weekend, so I need to cover the entire structure with tarps. I really don’t want the wood to get wet, especially the nice tongue and groove pine floor. When M. and I built our house in Vermont, we were constantly dealing with the rain and tarps (unlike California, it rains in Vermont in the summer). On such a large house, the tarps were very difficult to use, never worked perfectly, and always leaked a little. I’m hoping that I won’t have those problems with such a tiny structure.