The Tale of Tiny House Living
As we continue to work on the interior of the house (primarily the radiant heat for the upstairs), I thought it might be fun to tell you a few stories about tiny house living…with a 30 pound cat! We’ve had many funny adventures already and we’re only a bit over 2 months in, with roughly 230sqft of space…
Let me begin by saying this trailer is too small for jumbo cat Hobbs! After the initial shock of downsizing, ripping down the window screens, climbing the window treatments and spreading kitty litter all around, Hobbs has at last settled in. I’m quite certain at least that he’s explored every nook and cranny of the trailer. Hobbs daily routine starts bright and early, like around 3am on average!! I often awake to hear mischievous paws knocking things over in the living room (usually Kris’ work papers, keyboard, mouse, pens, etc…). Many early mornings I lay in bed trying to figure out if he’s into something that can tolerate being knocked around, or something I need to crawl out of bed to take away from him! He’s also discovered how to turn on the radio, so some mornings I awake to him sitting on top of my stereo blaring the music! The latest hilarious antic has been the discovery of the push button light in the bedroom staircase. Let’s just say that a sudden light in your face in the middle of the night is very unpleasant, though it’s somewhat adorable to see Hobbs sitting by the light looking at us as if to say, “look at us all waking up at the same time!!” Ha! After multiple nights though, it wasn’t adorable, and I decided to take the light down. He was quite perplexed when he reached down to hit the light and it was gone! Don’t worry though, the radio is still an effective alarm clock.
The workdays are when Kris has to babysit our 30-pound fur baby. It’s challenging enough to set up his workstation every day at the dining table, but extra challenging when Hobbs gets bored and decides to reach under the computer monitor to grab a pen, paper, occasional snack… One day, he decided to send a random email when Kris stepped away from his computer! Try explaining THAT email to a coworker…umm…my cat sent it! The keyboard is now locked any time he steps away!
When evening rolls around, the “zoomies” kick in. Time to play! I just love to crawl around the trailer floor with toys, flinging them back and forth so Hobbs can get as much exercise as possible! I cannot wait for the day he has more room to run, and I don’t have to be the constant source of exercise. Maybe I’ll get to sleep in til 3:30am??? Ugh!!
Outside of Hobbs craziness, trailer life has posed many challenges…one giant challenge…winter! The cold of January came in with a fury!! We just barely winterized before the cold set in. First, we put up skirting around the bottom of the trailer. This was quite a task! We had to install special snaps to the outside of the trailer and then hang massively heavy vinyl all around the base. The ravine side was extra special, so I let Kris precariously balance on the edge and hang that section! At least we can say it’s made a huge difference in keeping the trailer warm. It’s a bit unnerving to hear it rustle in the high winds, but so far we’ve only lost a few snaps and the vinyl has held strong. Just before the crazy cold set in, I also put plastic shrink wrap on all the window interiors and that has also kept the draft down. Winter hit with record low temps. With nighttime dropping to around -15 and windchills around -35, we were burning through multiple propane tanks a week, and our space heaters were running 24/7! Then we had 14” of snow, followed by 6” of snow, then freezing rain, and you guessed it…more snow! So far, no leaks and we’re hopefully past the extreme cold, but I’m sure we’ll have a lot more snow before winter is over!
A few other trailer funnies:
- Me trying to get out of bed in the morning when there’s not enough space to walk around the bed. I pretty much look like a sloth, slowly falling off the bed trying not to land on Kris’ feet and ankles because his legs are too long, so they hang off the end of the bed.
- Kris having to go outside in the middle of the night to swap the propane tanks because we ran out and woke up to the trailer being 50 degrees! Brrr!!
- Kris having to wrap the water tank in the garage with electric blankets because it froze and we had no water in the trailer. Then restarting the blankets every 12 hours because apparently all electric blankets now have auto shut offs for safety.
- Me trying to bake banana muffins, but not testing the muffin pan first to see if it even FITS in the oven!! That story ended with me putting the muffin tin in the oven at a diagonal, hoping the batter didn’t run out all over. At least they tasted good!
- Kris accidentally cutting the power cord to the trailer while trenching for the gas line to be run to the new house. Luckily, we were able to borrow a generator until it was repaired.
- Kris discovering that the fan in the bathroom will pull sewer gases into the trailer if you flush the toilet at the same time the fan is on! THAT was a fun one! Ha!
I’m sure I could go on and on with many more stories! Perhaps this blog will just be chapter 1 in a series? We shall see. I hope you at least enjoyed our tale of tiny house living. I’ll be sure to fill you in as we endure the snowiest part of winter and hopefully move into an early spring!
