Stairway to Heaven - The Saga Continues

Over the weekend, I got the stairs put in. Mostly. The hard parts, anyway. I now owe my sister and brother-in-law the equivalent of 143.7 years worth of babysitting duty for their assistance - which they will never let me repay, of course, because they are FREAKIN' AWESOME.



Second Floor Landing

Thank God for Joel and his instinctive knowledge of how things are supposed to be assembled and his innate Type-A need for everything to be perfect (which in most people is a trait that makes me inexplecably want to punch them in the head), otherwise I would be living my entire life on the first floor and trying to bathe out of a tiny sink in the downstairs bathroom. I helped out with the assembly where I could - tightened bolts, held posts, measured and assembled the spindles, general step and fetch, etc. - but these stairs were a multiple person project. Did I mention that I owe everyone who helped (including my 6 year old nephew who  kept me amused by dashing in and out of the house wearing various tools and cardboard boxes on his head and yelling "Come on! Let's go play!") a debt that can never be repaid?

Now all that needs to be done is installation of the handrail and the metal barrier upstairs that will keep me from falling off the landing in the middle of the night (see: photo above) and the oak landing and treads. NO MORE LADDER! Which decreases by 50% the likelihood that I become one of the statistics of people who are killed in household accidents.




Vertigo Much?



Don't worry, the stairs aren't crooked. It's my camera angle.

The last big project on the list is the kitchen. I ordered my cabinets on Sunday and they should be ready for installation on Jan. 10th-ish. I'm almost there! Soon my tiny Tumbleweed house and I will be united and remain together forever. And I do mean FOR. EH. VER. After everything I've been through to build this house over the last year and a half, when I die I have requested in my will that the house be burned down around me, a-la Viking funeral pyre.

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, where I purchased my plans, specializes in very small (microhomes by American standards), very efficient houses. They run from the XS at 65sq. ft., up to the B-53, which is the house plan I purchased, at 874 sq. ft. Once the customizations that I wanted were in place, my house is just barely over 1,000 sq. ft. I probably would've gone smaller and built the Harbinger instead if there had been enough room for all my books. If you're interested in your own Tumbleweed home, check out their website here.