Two person timber frame build

A slideshow of Mike and I building our home.

The natural light throughout the house is the first thing you’d notice when coming in the front door, or maybe the large timber bones. Everyone says, “it feels really good in here," and I certainly agree. The walls are sheet-rocked but not mudded; electrical wires poke out of their blue plastic boxes; we charge phones, the laptop and headlamps with a generator; we only just installed hardwood flooring on the first floor. We carry in water from a spring at the town hall, we use a composting bucket for a toilet, we bathe in a rubbermaid tub in the middle of the kitchen with water we heat on the stove. 

I have never lived in such a comfortable situation.

This is the story of how we did it:

June 20, 2009: We meet. On our first date, a seven hour walk around Binghamton, NY, we find out we both want to build our own house in the woods.

June 2010: Our plan to fund building our home and homestead begins with the owner financed purchase of a two unit rental property (my student loan debt disqualifies us for bank loans). Our down payment is credited back to us at closing for security deposits, taxes and water bills, we only have to bring a couple of hundred to closing. We spend the next five months gutting the basement-turned apartment-turned basement back into a one bedroom apartment where we live until Spring 2011. We live “free” without paying a landlord and have part-time jobs, but money is always tight.

October 2010: We tour a 2.4 acre parcel outside of Ithaca, NY. It is southwest facing, sloped, densely wooded on the uphill acre, with a seep spring at the front of the property. We love it but can not find a way to buy it.

January 2011: I find out the property is being auctioned for back taxes after the corp that owns it failed to prove they serve the public good and are denied tax-exempt status. I attend the auction on a rather sad whim, thinking I was going to watch someone else whisk it away from me. Heavy deed restrictions banning the sale or lease of gas, mineral, oil and timber rights limit the folks looking to buy any of the dozens of parcels up for sale and I walk away with the property for $1,200 (we wouldn’t sell or lease those rights anyway). I had to borrow the money from a friend with me at the auction. Mike and I would later pay her back in labor. 

May 2011: When the two-unit across the street goes on the market our real estate agent from the first deal finds us a private investor who loans us the money at 12% for twenty years with a five year balloon payment. The idea was to put all of the net income from this property against the mortgage every month, paying the balance down quickly. The reality was a problem property that lost money the first three years we owned it. We sold a car I really liked to cover the down payment. I’m still a little bitter.

July 2011: I show the above property to a potential renter. Turns out her father is also considering buying a two unit for his daughter to live in while attending school. I meet with him and eventually he decides to invest in real estate by loaning us the money to buy a $34,000 dollar two unit. You get what you pay for.

October 2011 - April 2012: We learn about a building materials auction 45 minutes away and start buying up material. Most of the windows are brand new replacement windows we got for $25 a piece; metal roofing that will cover the house, a shed and the chicken coop for $500; a new $350 french door for $50. The list goes on. We’re paying for this with part-time jobs that we leave in March 2012 for many reasons, but now I think perhaps the most salient: we’re not good at working for other people.

May 2012: We buy a second house from the guy who sold us the first (having moved to a different city to start a family he wants out of his Binghamton business). It is by far the nicest property we own and the only one we’re not currently trying to sell.

June 2012: We buy a used camper trailer. We put in a driveway on the property. The highway superintendent drives by to see us hand digging out the culvert ditch and offers to send one of her guys down with a backhoe. Delighted, we return to Binghamton but are disappointed to discover, a week later, that they removed far more material than was useful. We have one day to get 40 tons of fill and stone delivered and formed into a driveway using shovels and rakes. The next day the camper is delivered.

July 2012: Several tenants stop paying rent and move out, the remainder of the summer and early fall is lost to expensive and lengthy renovations. We’re once again buying groceries on credit cards.

November 2012: We move back to Binghamton after discovering the camper batteries will not power the furnace ignition once outside temperatures drop below freezing. 

Winter 2012-13: This is a disheartening time. I feel as if I’m moving too slowly and not being effective in achieving my goal of writing in a house in the woods. 

April - June 2013: We move back to the land and build a room addition onto the camper using free, reclaimed material. We put in a reciprocating living roof that is lovely and time consuming. Money is particularly short, the properties are taking up a lot of our energy.

July 2013: In one week we felled, cut to length, sorted and labelled for future milling (rafter, joist, beam, etc.) 28 trees. We hired someone to come drill out six below frost holes for our piers. 

August - September 2013: The pier bents are installed along with one 20’ long 8”x 8” sill plate. Mike’s dad comes up for a week to help us out. I start to have mobility issues and nerve pain in my left arm but we don’t have health insurance so I ignore it until we get ACA coverage. Turns out I injured my rotator cuff, probably while processing the timbers. I mention it because it took me years and months of ineffective physical therapy to take this injury seriously. I’m only now finding relief through chiropractic care, so I’ve been in varying levels of daily pain for two and a half years over an injury that probably could have been healed in a few months if I’d taken care of it. 

Winter 2013 -14: We live in the room attached to the camper in the winter of the polar vortex. The rocket mass heater we installed fails by January and we live in a 45 degree home for months. We can’t keep fresh produce, it freezes. The dog’s water bowl freezes on the ground. We sleep in a cocoon of blankets with sheets of mylar stapled to the wall and ceiling over the bed. 

April 2014 - August 2014: Timber framing is heavy, hard work. Mike’s dad joins us several weekends throughout the summer and into the fall. Money is tight, we do odd jobs for a local retiree, have rental issues and make slower progress on the house than hoped for but but the frame is done in time for us to start preparing for our wedding. 

September 2014: We get married and go on our honeymoon, a cabin in the Adirondacks. We really like being in the woods.

October - December 2014: We roof, side, install windows and doors, run electric and insulate.

December 21, 2014: After three break-in fires, we spend the first night in our home. I’m sure we cried from happiness, we’re happiness criers. The wood stove we installed is beautiful, the glow of the fire fills the first floor, and we spend this winter blissfully lounging in shorts and t-shirts because it keeps the house so warm.

May 2015: We were making steady progress with the house and outdoor projects until Mike was injured at work (a part-time job at a small market and deli three miles down the road). A pan of hot oil exploded and he suffered 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns to 27% of his body. Weeks in the hospital, grafting surgery. Saying this stalled work on the house seems unnecessary. He is healing remarkably well and weathered the situation with determination, grace and humor. 

I have trouble talking about the experience, still. Coming so close to losing Mike has changed me. For one, thanks to the last few years, I've seen what we’re capable of living through in several, dramatic examples. I’m also learning to be easier on myself and more impressed with us, rather than frustrated we’ve not arrived at our fully completed goals yet.

That being said, I don’t think we’d buy rental properties if we got a do-over, though I still haven't thought of an alternative that would have worked better for us. 

Timber Frame Construction

We designed our house using Timber Frame Construction: All About Post-and-Beam Building, by Jack Sobon and Roger Schroeder. This book is an excellent resource for the diy timber frame builder so much so that I would say if you only buy one book this should be it.

The authors cover the basics of history, structural type, joinery, and wood and tool selection in easy to follow descriptions that gave us the confidence to build a timber frame home.

Mike adapted the plans for the 12x16 garden tool shed included in the book to a 12x20 structure for our home. We could have built 12x24 without needing to alter the joinery but at the time we didn't like the aesthetics of that size.  In retrospect we would definitely give ourselves the extra four feet if for nothing other than a real staircase, which takes up so much floor space it is the bane of tiny housers the world over.

plans for a 12x16 garden tool shed included in book

One big way to save money for the diy builder is in the house plans.  Our local building code doesn't require an engineer or architect stamp on building plans under 1500 square feet, saving anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on local rates and how much design time is needed.

The authors give clear instructions for modifying the tool shed design, so there was no guessing on our part as to whether we would need to adjust joinery or timber size to build a larger structure.

These are the bones of our house. I could look at these pictures all day long.

We lengthened the eaves for summer shade and winter light and to keep water as far away from our piers as possible.

We also added almost a full second floor; the side walls of the second story are five feet high but thanks to a 7/12 roof pitch the ceiling rises quickly enough that we don't lose any head space upstairs.

We changed some of the joints on the advice of our timber framing code officer. The rafters, for example, are notched with a birds mouth and then timber locked (heavy duty, kind of pricey "screws" that we also used to lock in the floor joists) in place.  The top plate (horizontal beam on which the rafters sit) are not notched, unlike in the book plans. This saved us some work and we're happy with the result.

So we got some outside help and didn't rely entirely on this book. And we modified the plans a bit to suit our own needs, but the ease with which we did so is part of what makes the book such a great resource.

Buy it, you won't regret it.

$450 Tiny House Foundation

There was never any question as to whether we would build our house on a basement or crawl space foundation.  As a mason, Mike had spent too much time patching and parging leaky, wet basements to even consider building on one (I've heard these words in this combination many, many times: "every basement has moisture problems"). The expense of a basement foundation for a couple of do-it-yourselfers on a budget would have eliminated it as an option anyway.

So the real question for us was: pier foundation or floating slab?

Floating slabs held a certain appeal for me because the foundation could serve as the floor of the first level of the house if we gave it a nice finish. Also, the idea of "floating" on top of the seasonal tides of freeze and thaw rather than fighting them made a kind of intuitive sense to me. 

future location of house and the trees we used to build it

Our land is on a slope, which would have meant a lot of excavation and then the back of the house would have been in the side of the hill: welcome back moisture problems.  And all that concrete and rock would have taken a hefty chunk of our building budget.

Our abundant black locust source meant we could build the house on "free" piers (with the amount of work we put into finding, felling, dragging, and joining 10-12" diameter locust piers I just can't bring myself to not qualify "free").

setting our intention/founding statement

For $300 we hired a fella to come up and drill out six pier holes 48" deep to get below frost level.

Then we poured a concrete footer.  We had planned to sink the piers in the concrete footer but our wonderful code officer, who owns a timber framing company and has been a wealth of information, recommended against it, explaining that water would move into the space between the concrete and the pier and start to rot the wood.  

So we poured the footer, dropped the piers in the holes and back filled with rocks and dirt.  

July 31, 2013: first pier bent completed

Ok, actually we made three sets of pier "bents" consisting of two vertical piers, a horizontal beam joined to the top and braces connecting the beam to the piers. 

This was extremely heavy, hard work, but the finished product was well-worth the effort.

September 2013: all three piers finished

Total foundation cost:

$300 for the holes

$150 for the concrete

$450 foundation

Benefits of piers:

     -probably the best method for a two person (three when Mike's dad came to help) build

     -ventilation means we won't have mold/mildew/rot problems

     -low carbon footprint due to very little concrete used

     -cheap, cheap, cheap when you diy  

For technical information about the foundation (sizing piers and footers, joinery) don't hesitate to email me: barrett.ec@gmail.com. Or better yet comment!

    

Call a lumber mill

Local lumber mills can be a fantastic way to build your home on a budget, particularly if your code officer allows you to use rough-cut lumber (if you don’t know ask).  Local lumber mills have a variety of benefits over box store lumber.  First on our priority list is cost, with a budget of $5000 for the whole project and $1000 of that gone to windows, doors and roof, a small carbon footprint, locally sourced house is great but only if it gets built. We just ordered our flooring, roof decking and adirondack siding for the whole house, delivered, for $1257 from County Line Lumber in Greene, NY (if you’re in the vicinity I highly recommend giving them a call).  As a comparison, the 1x various widths x various lengths that we’ll be using for the floor and roof decking came in at $.48/board foot, whereas the box store price hovers around $.84/board foot.  This is a giant win for us, we’ll have the shell done and be able to move inside and work sheltered from the elements for around $2400.  And because the mill cuts “true” we’ll get lumber that is the actual size it claims to be (if you’ve ever measured a box store 2x4, you’ll know it should be labeled 1 1/2x 3 1/2) so the lumber will be that much sturdier.

adirondack siding Mike cut with the chainsaw mill
ignore the construction mess

 The cost saving is in part due to the lumber being green and rough-cut.  Not all code officers will approve this but ours, a timber framer himself, had no issue with it.  The rough-cut simply means we’ll have to sand the floor, and the roof decking, which we’re leaving exposed though we’ll be painting it, will have what we think is a really lovely textural quality.  As the lumber is green we do have to consider shrinkage, which is why we’re having it delivered a month before putting it to use.  When it arrives we’ll sticker it, which simply means we’ll stack it on top of some kind of support so air can circulate around it, and let it dry in the sun as much as possible before we use it.  I’ll address more of the shrinkage considerations in later posts as we utilize the lumber but suffice it to say for us dealing with the green, rough-cut lumber was totally worth it.

Another benefit of local lumber mills is you get to speak with highly knowledgeable people whose life’s work is lumber, an experience I have yet to replicate at a building supply box store.  Tim from County Line came to our property to assess our timber (valueless due to it being mostly soft-wood and black locusts which are apparently more trouble than they’re worth to mill but as you’ll remember from other posts can be a homesteader’s bestie—oh well, I didn’t really want to clear that many trees from the land anyway and there was honestly something liberating in knowing that the value of our land is what it means to us and what we do with it).  During the hour and a half he spent walking around with us he identified our trees, gave us tips on what to use them for, how to anticipate the amount of product we can get from them, and a lot of tips for timber framing and utilizing green wood.  And when we save up to put in a nice hardwood floor next year, we’ve already got a relationship with him.

Mike has a real eye for detail, look at that door frame!

Last but not least, utilizing a local lumber mill means local lumber, means smaller carbon footprint because we’re not buying lumber that’s been shipped great distances to be processed and then shipped out to stores all over the country before coming to us.  Local mills also tend to understand the importance of sustainable harvesting better than profit boxes. 

The only downside I’ve found to local lumber mills...try as I might I found very little information online.  As Tim put it, “my son keeps telling me I should get a website, I don’t know, I guess I should.”  I like doing things online, I like to research as much as I can and compare prices and read reviews.  Well, it seems local businesses and builders prefer word of mouth and interpersonal relations, so get comfortable with it, I’m working on it.

Where you lay your head

A little over a year ago we were in a bit of tailspin.  We’d owned our 2.4 acre property for about a year and a half and thoughts of being on the land, building our house and homestead, had quickly grown to a kind of obsession.  Living in a small apartment less than an hour from our land, we were constantly dreaming of, planning and researching the homestead we would build.  The homestead wasn’t a far off goal, like retirement, or even the maybe someday goal of having children.  Rather it was always just an arm’s length away and so, it was never far from our thoughts.  It’s exhausting, wanting something so bad, knowing that if it was simply a matter of our own hard work and endurance we would succeed.

tiny house in progress

And then I was laid off in March 2012, a few days before I turned 30.  Mike works full-time on rental properties we “own” through high interest private financing. They don’t make us much now but neither of us likes working for other people and we don’t mind hard work so they’re pretty much our best bet for a retirement plan.  My job was our main income source.

Being laid-off was a devastating blow to our plans.  So we did what we do in times of crisis: we took long drives and discussed all our options, testing the strengths and weaknesses of different plans and affirming that the sooner we were living on the land, relying on our bodies and wit to be self-reliant, the happier we would be. On one of these drives we stopped at an used RV sales lot and found a camper that would cut out a lot of our building budget but it could mean we were on the land as soon as possible, with electricity and plumbing (sort of, we have to truck in water).

We purchased the camper, moved it to the land and began building a room addition onto the side of the camper to give us more space.  In retrospect I would have saved our money.  Sure the camper has certain advantages in being ready-built but it’s not built for the two of us, our two 60lb dogs and two cats.  It’s so cramped that it’s hard to keep clean.  The bathroom is not comfortable and without running water it’s not convenient.  We have to get the holding tank pumped every two weeks at $40 a pump.  We have to run the generator five hrs a day to keep the batteries charged.  We catch cupboard corners in the head every other day and the materials are so cheap that door moldings are falling off. The camper is dark and increasingly musty as apparently all of the creatures breathing inside it create condensation (according to the owner’s manual) which along with boiling water for coffee and tea, cooking, and the heavy spring rains, are soaking the dark insides of our cupboards. 

reclaimed tongue and groove interior walls flew together
gifted from Mike's awesome uncle 

The room we built is beautiful, full of light and fresh air.  It is strong and sturdy and we’ve got about $300 into because we’ve mostly used materials from the land.  We will be moving the camper off the land as soon as possible because the room we’ve built is so pleasant it’s made the camper intolerable.  The composting outhouse we built (post to follow) is by far more comfortable and pleasant than the camper bathroom and has greatly improved the quality of our lives.  The two benefits of the camper have been that we had a roof over our heads while building the room turned tiny house and that the health department officer who came to the land for the deep hole test for the onsite water treatment permit didn’t question what we’re doing with wastewater.  If we'd only had the room and the composting outhouse we would have been in violation of Health Board regulations and I don’t know what would have happened. 

reciprocating roof

So, I would not buy the camper if I had it to do over.  But this is part of the process right... learning from our mistakes and adjusting our future plans?  And I find it comforting that we can build a 9x13 room out of scrap material and forest floor timber and fall in love with it so much that we’re giving up living space in the camper because we only want to be in the room.  I think that bodes pretty well for the 12x20 house we’re building.