Its been a whole year since my sister and I started a go fund me page for our mom’s tiny house. We didn’t really know where to start, so that seemed like a good idea at the time. When some of our family members donated (right before Christmas!) it was the confirmation and boost we needed to know we were moving in the right direction, and that we would not be alone.
Today we are very close to getting it done! The outside is completely buttoned up, and the inside walls and ceiling on the inside are up.
I wanted to share where we are on the build and give an update on expenses. My husband and I had a lot of decisions about things to do with the house since it would be on our property. We also knew the expenses would soon start becoming our own once the money from moms RV sale ran out. Today the expenses that are left to be paid are the $5k for the trailer, and another $7K for the last couple months supplies. At this point I would guesstimate that the tiny house has ended up costing about $20K.
We hired our good friend (and most excellent contractor) Matt Mullaney to help us complete the tiny house properly. We had many conversations about the skylight that still had to be flashed and ultimately decided to take it out. The labor to flash it was going to be a bit more than to just take it out, and we really didn’t want to have any problems with it down the road. We also decided to not use the beautiful wood stove that we just bought for the house. It has a small crack that needs welding, the glass door is broken, and it is really much too big of a stove for that tiny space. Those 2 decisions were kind of disappointing, but in the end the tiny house going to be a very energy efficient, easy to maintain living space for a senior citizen.
What’s left to do:
Casing and trim around the windows and walls
Painting
Electrical outlet boxes installed
Sink/countertop purchase and install
Bathroom door hang
Linoleum floor
Appliances connected
Run a gas line
The original house I had in my mind and the actual tiny house are not even close! Here is the actual magazine cover and article that inspired me over a year ago.
Wow, what a summer! Our family came through is such big ways to get mom’s tiny house here, and we are still pushing on. We are super close to putting the final touches on and getting her moved in! At this time we are in need of expertise help and we have stretched our resources to the limit.
From the beginning there has always been a wave of support from family, friends, even strangers! Thank you all for your support.
This day we started from scratch with the trailer. William used the bobcat to level the trailer ground as best he could. Getting the trailer level was pretty time consuming, and another thing we were hoping to have done before everyone came, but it just could not happen. It was this day we knew we needed to purchase and install some jacks to help make the trailer even more stable. We spent $200 and got 6 jacks a couple weeks later. The back end of the trailer is about 2-3′ off the ground, the front only about 1′. Thankfully the smaller jacks came in a pair for about the same as the larger jacks~$45
That night the family enjoyed company with one another. It was great to have dinner at the old Samoa Cookhouse with relatives in from all over. My uncle Brian and wife Renete (San Diego) their son Brian jr (North Carolina) daughter Simone and son Kane (Eureka) my auntie Joyce (Chicago) uncle Teddy (Chicago) uncle Brett (Chicago) uncle Darrell and wife Donna (Idaho) my cousin Tim and daughters Caitlin & Kira (Minnesota)!
While it was a great feast, we were anticipating the arrival of Tim’s wife and son and my sister-who was supposed to fly all the way into Humboldt county but got held up in San Fran. As fate and divine intervention would have it, my husband was in town to see the Cubbies play the Giants, (yes he ditched us all and our tiny house project for the CUBS!) and he was going to be driving Tim’s wife & son up the next day anyway. So it all worked out, my sister actually ended up having a blast of coarse. She got to go down to the “Cruz” visit with William’s brothers Matt & Paul, and cousin Perry, and even got to check out the boardwalk a little too. The next day Amy and Devon would fly into San Fran, and they would altogether do the 5 hour drive north into the redwood curtain.
Prevent and treat UTI’s (urinary track infection) with D-Mannose. If you’ve ever had a uti you know that it is the kind of pain that cannot wait! I’ve had a few urinary track infections, and for decades I did not know how I could help prevent them, or even cure them without going to the Dr. ever. But I do now. I was getting my hair done one day when a caring person told me about D-mannose and how it will wipe out a UTI. I couldn’t believe it would really work. It really does! These 2 products below have different concentrations.
The UT vibrance is highly concentrated. You use it immediately when you know you have a UTI coming on. It runs about $30 and I can only find them at health food stores where I live, but amazon carries it too.
Regular D-mannose is perfect for daily maintenance.
Azo can help numb the pain of a UTI, but you would not want to use it if you are not treating it because a UTI can get worse and go into your kidneys. Azo will mask the symptom, but will do nothing to treat the problem.
I hope this helps someone. I am forever grateful to Seila for telling me about it.
On day two, the 7th of August, the largest group of my family arrived. My uncle Teddy traveled with a 39′ all the way to my front door! In it he brought another uncle, Brett, and my auntie Joyce.
My cousin Timmy who has been helping me from Day 1, had planned his whole family’s vacation around this project. He hitched up the Uhaul, and settled in for a long journey with his 2 daughters from Minnesota, hauling the trailer full of goods. They planned and did meet up with the RV gang along the way, arriving at the same time. Tim’s wife Amy and their son flew out later, and you’ll see that arrival in another blog.
from Minnesota with love
They did a rough and tough detour through the beautiful mountains of hwy 36. By the time they got here, everybody’s nerves were shot! Good thing we had each other and the peaceful mountain to forget about all that. When they arrived that day, my uncle Brian and his wife Renete of 50 yrs were already up on the hill, along with my cousin Simone and her son. Brian jr, my cousin Gen, and her husband came out in support later too. It was a non stop family fun (and work) time, till the last minute!
The first thing that happened was my uncle Darrell and his wife of 45 years showed up. My uncle could barely sit still the entire time he was here! He got to work up here and never stopped. He even worked on his anniversary! His wife and he built themselves a beautiful mountain cabin in Idaho.
The costs are not final yet, but I wanted to share what my beautiful sister so carefully put together. We estimate at this point the tiny house to have cost about 12k so far. There are just a few materials left to purchase. I would say another 2-3k for the walls, insulation, ceiling, final floor covering. Not bad for having the house wrapped, roofed, windows, and all the exterior walls. The house will be ready for winter in just a few more hours of labor. We need to get a shower enclosure asap so we can put the sliding glass door in.
It’s hard to believe it’s been only 21 days since my family first arrived and began building a tiny house for my mom. The last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind, almost like a dream. They were filled with laughter, blood, sweat, tears, memories, fun, frustration, hope and love. Since they have all gone home I am constantly sure that I haven’t thanked each person enough for all they sacrificed.
There is still plenty to be done with the house, but my family gave us the most incredible start!
I want to say thank you to all my family, friends, and community that helped support this labor of love-thank you, thank you, thank you!
So all of a sudden the countdown has gotten so close! My cousin Timmy jr. (& his wife Amy) have been working tirelessly on this project, maybe even more than me!
This time last year (July 2016) I was back in the Midwest for a family reunion in July. That was the place I told everyone I was going to build my mom a tiny house, and wondered if any of my family would be interested? Many of my aunts and uncles had been out before, and I just knew that they needed a good excuse to come on out and have something to do. They have answered the call! Have I mentioned lately how awesome my family is? They really are!
Of coarse my sister was on board immediately, and then my cousin Timmy really got the ball rolling when he shared moms story with his local (Minnesota) window company, Apex, and generous Joe Trombley approved and gave him 4 top of the line, brand new windows. It was one simple phone call, but what he was able to get his hands on was confirmation to all of us hopefuls to begin moving forward. I didn’t have everything, but I had alot of hope that I would see God’s goodness through my family, friends, and community, and we really are!
So far we have only spent 5k on a new 7×24 trailer, purchased from Dennis at RMI in Eureka. What we have already in possession is the trailer, the spot with electricity, water, plumbing ready to go, 4 awesome windows, 1 sliding glass door, 2×4 skylight, toilet, bathroom door, ceiling fan, some roofing, some lumber, some hardware. My cousin’s wife Amy scored us a new fridge, and stove w/oven from their local A-1 appliance store in Minnesota. Our trailer size we were renting for the windows grows by the day with the loot! I am so proud that our family ancestry goes as far back as the 1700’s in Minnesota because those are some fine people over, right??
Most recently my cousin Timmy has given me a full plan for the tiny house-materials, and cut list too! He has requested that I get the floor insulated and ready before he arrives with the caravan of family on August 7th so that we can begin framing right away. So, this week, I will be picking up materials for that project, and I will begin building the insulated floor of the trailer. All by myself, unless anyone wants to come help? Oh wait, mom says she will be helping too, schlepping water.
It’s for our Mom. She needs one and my sister and I want to give that to her. The cool thing is, we are not alone.
10 years ago my Mom moved out to California to be with me and my family. She bought a 33′ RV trailer when she first arrived, and over the years it has since deteriorated. She bops back and forth from here to Chicago where my sister, and all the rest of our BIG family mostly reside. The idea of building her a tiny house came when I took a good, hard look at her (our) options for her living situation.
A few years back I had got a quote for a metal carport to protect her vulnerable roof top (even though I was worried that our hurricane strength winds would certainly carry it away!) It was going to run about $5000 to cover a 33’ long (I forget how tall, but really tall RV! I was not prepared for it to cost that kind of money, and my Mom (and we) simply didn’t have that laying around. But what I did think I had, was a tiny house laying around in storage! I realized that I had a decent amount of lumber leftover, some roofing…some real building supplies….enough for a good start on a tiny house.By this time the realization of the condition of my Mom’s RV had set in. I knew that it could not take any more winters up here, without a heavy-duty tarp over the entire top. Which by the way, is not a great look, nor is it healthy for ventilation. Because it spent 9 miles up fickle hill exposed openly to harsh rain, wind, and snow, the ceiling, the walls, and the floors were saturated constantly, tarp or no tarp. The RV’s fate was inevitable, sell it while it still has some life, or watch it become trash. I hated my Mom living in it, and I wanted her to move into our house, but she is a woman who cherishes her own space, and refused. I knew I had to something.
Over the years we have remodeled many different things with our house. It had once upon a time been a duplex, and we turned it into our home. I had/have windows, doors, a toilet, a sliding glass door, stove pipes, a propane heater, lumber, wiring, supplies all over the property. I was imagining a tiny house in my head from all the supplies I had in my storage, wishing and hoping I could put it all together for her some way? I saw an article in a magazine that said, “build this small hunters cabin for about $4000.” It said on the cover too, “Anyone with basic carpentry skills can build this!” Well, that was it! I decided right then and there, I was going to just build my Mom a tiny little cabin. The problem with that my friends is that, even if you have acres of land in California, the state, and the banks do not want another structure on our land, or we would decrease the value of it. So, in lieu of that, the answer to my prayer for my Mother and her situation, was that I would buy a trailer, and build her a tiny house on that. That decision was in last October (2016)
Everything I have done since that date has been leading me to this moment.
The build will begin the 2nd week of August, 2017, when my biggest supporter, confidant, and cousin Timmy Bottger will be here with his daughters (and they will all be refreshed and ready from their backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps.) He (and his wife Amy) have been my biggest supporters because they were the first ones who took me seriously. And they acted, on my behalf. It meant SO MUCH!
He started working on plans right away and then thought to ask his local window dealer in Minnesota (that he had purchased some windows for his own house in the past) if they might have some leftovers they pulled from a house, to replace with their fine, triple paned, crank out windows? Their response? 4 beautiful windows for my Mom’s house!
My cousin Timmy came up with the final plans for my Mom’s house. He is a hard working self-employed engineer (Genesis Tek), busy family man, but has also been working diligently (pro-bono, aka FREE) for this project for my Mom and myself because he loves us, because we are family. I don’t know that he can possibly know how much his support has meant? But he knows I’ll die trying!
I have to shout out and thank people who donated to the Go Fund Me for my Mom’s tiny house. My generous Uncle David, who was within seconds to help his sister, my wonderful cousins Juliet, Leah, and their Mom, their awesome Dad, my Uncle Brett, Tracey and Kathy, you know you girls rock! Aunt Toni and June, you ladies haven’t been “official” family member for years and yet you are still part of the family, and truly so special to us! Your support for my mom in her time of need means so much! Talk about generosity-you guys gave at Christmastime of all times! Without that, Mom wouldn’t have a deposit down payment for the trailer, but more than that, I could have lost hope and heart without your early support. My cup overflows!
I will post weekly updates. Thank you for your interest in our project. We are beyond excited to get ‘er done!
