the studio, slocan, bc
my own house finally
It’s facing the Valhalla mountain range that I found this rusty trailer for 2k$ CND, back in 2018.
At the time I had steady gigs and lived in a large and cozy place, so I started that trailer as my Office / Studio / Workshop, for me to work from, have my computer, laser cutter, workbenches, and fix guitars as well as building small projects, doing paint and finishes (with proper filtration/vent) … anyway, I planned for it to be a work place only.
Well… a ‘crisis’ took the World by storm in 2019 and my activities took a nose dive … and it become suddenly self evident that it would be a luxury to make that first tiny of mine, “just an office”… I needed a Home.
So the design turned at the last minute as most walls were closed, to create a loft and bedroom, have a full kitchen and plumbing… not ideal.
But it worked.
from scratch yet again
First off, strip the trailer, check the wheels, bearings, brakes and all parts… clean it up, brush, lube…
That trailer was a “U-built” meant for hauling cars. So I added flat iron welded level and across beams, and welded angled iron in the future walls and around two big 5' feet windows to brace and hold everything from within the double studded walls.
Yes, I built double studded walls on that thing:
Cedar panel 1” (r 1.4) | Air gap 1/2” (r 1) | Rockwool Board 2” (r 4.2) | 1/2” ply (r 0.62) | Rockwool Bat 2x6 (r 22) | 5/8” ply (r 0.78) | Cork 1/4” (r 0.82)
An approximated R-value of 31 for the double studded walls.
Big improvements to do for the roof and a key thermal bridge around the skylight window and door of course.
About the door, I built this massive 6” thick swinging door on a pivot instead of hinges, an interesting motion!
The outside is lined with aluminum in a patchwork style. I hope to upgrade the whole door with a window for sunsets (meant to always be West oriented), as well as a custom made 3-point door lock I have a few ideas about…
Two years living in, fine tuning
What matters to me is to have a practical, healthy, efficient little Home that I own and can do anything with in order to experiment with the systems I thought would be ideal for reaching my goals… and in order to fine tune that for myself prior to offer my services to others.
Indeed, I hope to build my cabins and tiny homes including the systems, as to me they represent an important part of the comfort, health and efficiency I am trying to boost in every way possible while staying affordable and ideally light weight.
My goals is to build a Home, that can be moved, but I’m not thriving to make travel trailers.
The aim is to make affordable healthy and efficient living to seek freedom from the traditional debt slavery system.
The trailers and other solutions are only as a way to make these needs affordable and above all, as urgent as possible.
We all deserve to have our own space and living situation, this is where EVERYTHING starts and should be a top priority after healthy food.
This 16 foot long trailer is a good start for a single person, I’ve thought of many ways to integrate a small bath, shower even a toilet, and that would be possible, but a bit tight for my taste. I do have access to separate shower and toilet which hasn’t forced me to integrate them into this tiny but it’s something that I want to offer on other trailer, tho highly recommended to get longer/wider ones… which I hope to build next.
