DIY – the next level!

Last year during the corona lockdown I wrote a little blog post about our DIY playground that I made in the garden next to my wife’s family’s house in the village – a little project that should keep me busy for a little time and after that my daughter busy for a long time. She really likes to play there so that is a great success. Last year we spend most of the year (from March to November) in the village. This year it seems like we are going to spend a lot of time in the village again (Due to the corona situation in Ukraine we have closed our office since everybody prefer to work from home for safety reasons). I have been watching YouTube videos about tiny houses for years and really wanted to build one but I didn’t really need one I said to my self – but know with no office to work in and therefore another year more or less spend in the village my wife and I decided to build a tiny house. This will give me a place to work and place to sleep for our family.

The house will be roughly 3 by 4 meters and look something like this:

The first job that has to be done was clearing the site where the house should be. There was an old shed full of coal (that used to be used for heating the main house). After half a day of hard work from my wife, father-in-law and me the site was cleared. We were so dirty from the coal dust that it is hard to imagine. The next thing to do was to dig out for the foundation. My father-in-law is very experienced when it comes to concrete and he suggested that we build a full foundation and also made a concrete floor. After some negotiation we decided to make a pillar foundation with 10 pillars. We mix all concrete by hand so that was hard work for the almost middle-aged software developer… 😊

After the pillars were done they had to dry (my father-in-law said 3 weeks) so we went back to our flat in the town but came back about a week after. I had already bought the wood for the floor frame so I couldn’t hold myself back and started to work on the frame.

Here it is with the metal shielding in place that will support the insulation and keep animals out…

The platform is done.

The frame for the first wall (without windows) is almost ready.

It is a little logistic puzzle to get the building materials together. Wood and other basic materials can be bought in the nearby town about 15 km away and transported in our van. A big part of the insulation I got from a friend in the town where we live. It is transported like this:

Roof, siding and windows we also have to get from our home town 100 km away – the roof and siding will be delivered and I plan to buy second hand windows when possible and transport them in my van as well.

There will be more news as we move a long but for about 2 month the building will be on hold because we are defying the COVID-19 pandemic and are driving to Denmark this is the current state of the build: