Silent But Deadly with Sean David Burke

If you’re hankering for a Tiny House TO GO, then Sean’s Bento Box would most certainly fit the bill.  In this week’s episode we’re thinking way outside the box and chatting with Sean Burke about his container house. If you think that moving a tiny house on wheels is a chore, just imagine how difficult

A Tiny House Was Someone Else’s Dream

I don’t usually write Op-Eds or articles that find me as the focal point. Truth is, I had almost written my entire other piece that was on a subject far removed from this. I was going to share with you the recent emergence of retro camper releases. Myself, smitten since last November with the Shasta

Not Your Typical “Yurt”

The technology for outdoor living has come a long way since nomadic Mongolians first created Gers, commonly referred to today as Yurts. In fact, the first instance of Yurts in recorded history dates back to hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus! Yurts were the perfect way for nomadic peoples to be able to

Bohemian Dome in the Desert

Geodesic domes had their heyday a few decades ago, but the style and quirky details of this dome in Joshua Tree brings the design back to today. Owned by Kathrin and Bryan Smirke, the Dome in the Desert has recently been featured in several magazines and books including “The New Bohemians: Cool and Collected Homes” by Justina

Inside The Best Little House in Texas

when we’re in our house together, it’s who we are. Meet Cody and Randi Hennigan, the DIY tiny house on wheels builders behind The Best Little House in Texas. Their home was lovingly crafted with materials that represent memories and experiences of growing up and falling in love in Texas. The result, a beautifully minimal but

Tiny House Movement | Top 7 Places to Shop for Land Online

Finding the perfect plot of land to build a new home can be a daunting task, especially when you’re shopping for your own piece of the planet via the internet, thousands of miles from where you plan to break ground. The Tiny House Blog is here to help you on your mission to realize your

Jay Shafer – Truth, Love & Beauty & the Flying Spaghetti Monster

In what is no doubt his most revealing interview to date, Jay Shafer reminds us once again that the tiny house movement is ”not just about the house”. Listen in as Jay waxes poetic about attending art school, civil disobedience, truth, depression, nature, homelessness, money, love, beauty, business and how he fit his entire life

Jay Schafer – Truth, Love & Beauty & the Flying Spaghetti Monster

In what is no doubt his most revealing interview to date, Jay Shafer reminds us once again that the tiny house movement is ”not just about the house”. Listen in as Jay waxes poetic about attending art school, civil disobedience, truth, depression, nature, homelessness, money, love, beauty, business and how he fit his entire life

How To Install Hardwood Flooring

At this point you’ve probably seen our finished and furnished bonus room above our garage, but let’s take a quick joyride back in the DeLorean to talk about how we installed the oak hardwood flooring in there. When we mentioned it oh-so-briefly in our first post about the space, we also promised to share more how-to details, since it was our first time doing a traditional nail-in installation (we previously did a floating hardwood installation). It wasn’t terribly difficult, but it did have its challenges. So for anyone else who might be taking on the task, here’s a rundown of what we did and how we did it.

Choosing Our Floors

First off, why hardwoods? Originally we had planned to do wall-to-wall carpet. Partly because we thought it might be a good choice for a cozy bonus room, and partly because we didn’t buy enough extra when we put hardwoods throughout the rest of the second floor three years ago. Carpet felt like a good, easy option.

But when push came to shove, we just couldn’t quite shake the idea of seeing the wood floors extend all the way down the hall and into the bonus room. In the end, we’re verrrrrrry thankful we didn’t settle for the easier carpet option.

Our very first challenge was to find matching floors. For the rest of the upstairs, we had used a color called Lono Oak that we bought from Lumber Liquidators, which we learned was being discontinued shortly after we purchased it. So going into the bonus room project, we just crossed our fingers that we could find something similar that would hopefully blend decently well.

Well, the miracle train must have pulled up at the same time that we parked our car, because it turns out that although Lono Oak had indeed been discontinued years ago, some stores still had very small amounts of it lingering in their warehouses. The only catch: it was scattered across four different locations in the country.

It wasn’t the fastest or cheapest thing to have boxes shipped in from places like Nevada, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Texas. But since it was all on “final closeout markdown” the extra shipping costs were completely offset by the extremely discounted materials themselves (they were marked down to $1.50 per square foot, compared to the $3.29 that we paid previously). And in other good news, I didn’t have to drive these floors home myself. We all know how well that went last time.

Preparation

Once all of the boxes arrived, we moved them up into the bonus room to acclimate for a few days. This helps the wood adjust to the moisture in the air of your home, so they can expand or contract accordingly before you start nailing them in. The photo above was taken after we hauled up around 4 of the 15 boxes, so we still had quite the workout ahead of us at this point.

After 5 days of acclimating (it’s usually recommended to give them at least 3), we got started. The first task was rolling out some underlayment, which acts as a vapor barrier and prevents the squeaking of wood flooring against the plywood subfloor under it. Lots of people use black roofing felt, but I had read that this white silicone version was less messy. So we rolled it out across the floor, overlapping each strip just a bit, and cutting the ends with a utility knife once we reached the opposite wall.

Laying The First Rows

The first few rows is where the most mental work is required. Wood floors need an expansion gap around the perimeter so they have a place to go when the wood expands and contracts with changes in temperature and humidity. We did a 3/4″ gap (since that’s the thickness of our wood) and used a ruler to mark where the outside edge of our first row should sit.

We made marks at both ends of the wall and snapped a chalk line between the two. This would become our guide for placing the first row so that it stays parallel to the wall (we read that a chalk line is more reliable than using spacers in case your wall is wavy or uneven).

As we laid out the first row, we added some small finish nails along the top inside edge (which later get covered by quarter round) just to hold everything in place while we got ready to officially nail it into place.

The first few rows have to be hand nailed, since the power nailer is too big to use so close to a wall. We went down the line and drilled a pilot hole about every 10-12″, then hammered in a nail, and finally used a nail punch to make it flush. Warning: this step is pretty tedious.

We had to do three full rows before we had enough room to get the power nailer in there, which is when we expected the project to just fly along. Spoiler: it didn’t exactly fly (this room took us two days) but it was definitely faster than the whole by-hand thing.

Using the Floor Nailer

We rented an air-powered floor nailer from Home Depot, since it didn’t make sense to buy one for this one project. It was $39/day and we used ours for two days, so it was about $80 in total. We own an air compressor, which is also needed, but those are available to rent too for about the same cost if you don’t have one on hand.

The floor nailer is a pretty cool tool, although it can be a little bit intimidating at first. It basically shoots flooring nails, called “cleats,” into the side of each board, ramming the planks together and securing it to the plywood subfloor below. The cleats come in these long strips that you load into the back of the nailer.

You can see in the shot below how it drives them right into the tongue of the board, sinking them far enough in to not be in the way.

To operate the nailer, you slide it into place over the edge of the board you’re nailing into. Then you pull the trigger with your top hand and smack the plunger on the back with the mallet. It doesn’t have to be a hard hit, but it definitely takes more than a little love tap.

It wasn’t a hard task, but it got a little tiring after a while. To give you an idea, we went through over 1,000 nails. We worked across two days, but even with switching off on the nailing task we were both a little sore from bending over and swinging the mallet repeatedly. I highly recommend shouting obnoxious song lyrics like “HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME!” and “SHE BANGS! SHE BANGS!” with every nail hit, just to keep yourself amused and your spouse at maximum irritation level (I feel like this is a good time to point out the ear plugs).

Whoever wasn’t nailing was in charge of laying out the boards, which helped the person with the nailer work a faster. We tried to stagger our board lengths, to keep the pattern feeling random. We also pulled boards from different boxes as we went. In case there is color variation from box to box, this mixes it throughout your floor rather than concentrating it in one spot.

Cutting Boards

Obviously there are cuts needed at the end of nearly every row, so Sherry kept a running pile of boards with flaws in them, like weird cracks or knots (you can see one in the lower right of the picture below). These were great candidates for end boards where we could off the imperfections and still use the rest of the board.

As we got to the end of each row, we spun the to-be-cut board around 180-degrees, pushed it against the end wall, and then made a cut mark about a 1/2″ in from the end of the board that it would sit against (the 1/2″ + the 1/4″ tongue pressed against the wall gave us that 3/4″ expansion gap that we tried to maintain).

Then we ran downstairs and cut them with the miter saw (we definitely got our exercise going up and down, so we tried to do a few at a time whenever we could). It wasn’t super glamorous work, but my Tinkerbell band-aid helped. #girldad

The Last Rows

We had to hand nail the last few rows because, just like the first few, we had gotten too close to the wall to use the power nailer. And nobody likes swinging a mallet into freshly hung drywall. So we broke out the drill, hammer, and our trusty nail punch again to do these last few rows by hand. This was our least favorite part of the whole process because it felt like a cruel trick to have to go back to this tedious method after becoming so accustomed to the speed of the power nailer.

Once all the boards were in, it was just a matter of cleaning everything up. Then it was on to installing the baseboard, quarter round, and window molding…

…and then adding those built-ins…

… and finally just filling the room up to create the bonus room we now know and love. And use every single day. Especially the Mega Sofa-Thing. I treated myself to quite the impressive Father’s Day nap there on Sunday.

So if you’re about to undertake a hardwood floor installation, just ready yourself for some heavy box hauling, tedious hand-nailing, and exhilarating mallet smacking. Optional addition: some obnoxious ’90s pop song shout-singing (HEYYYYY MACARENA).

Psst-  This week’s podcast episode is live. You can find it on iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn Radio, Pocket Casts, or Stitcher (click here if you’re a podcasting newbie and we’ll help you figure it all out). We’re talking about how our mornings got greener, what move-related happening has Sherry giddy, and we get a phone call from one of our favorite Canadian designers. We also discuss the design mistake that we’ve made TWICE, dive into why decluttering can make your head hurt, & talk about what has changed about our frame game. 

The post How To Install Hardwood Flooring appeared first on Young House Love.

Do Tiny House People Wear Clean Clothes?

For some inexplicable reason there seems to be a real desire as of late for washing and drying clothes in a tiny house. I am perplexed by this mostly because I don’t understand the desire for clean clothes! I jest. I jest. I get it. No one wants soiled, stained, or otherwise smelly clothing. But

Tiny House Magazine Issue 42 On Sale Now

Tiny House Magazine is pleased to release its 42nd issue featuring the Wanderlust tiny house on the cover. At just $4.99 an issue, THM is honored to be the only ePub dedicated completely to micro, tiny, small, and otherwise unconventional, houses. This particular issue is filled with 78 pages of beautiful photos, inspiring interviews, and

The Southeast Region Bursts Onto Tiny House Scene

Since 2010 tiny housers have been building and living all over the Southeast region. From the La Petite Maison of Sicily Kolbeck to Dan Louche of Tiny Home Builders in DeLand, Florida to my wife and I and our Tiny r(E)volution, there has been a growing presence of tiny houses south of the Mason-Dixon. In

Boombox DC Artist Studio

Last fall I visited Brian Levy and the Micro Showcase in Washington, DC. Brian’s friend (a jazz musician) had some triangular shaped property in the Stronghold neighborhood next to an alley and a cemetery. The odd shaped lot is now home to the Boombox, an artist studio and music space made from two 45 foot

Review of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company and Their Houses

Thinking about buying a Tumbleweed Tiny House? Read this first! Unless you just found out about the tiny house movement yesterday, you’ve already heard of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. The Tiny House Blog is here to give you the full scoop. * Their work is the real deal. Tumbleweeds are considered recreational vehicles, and

Walkin’ on Sunshine with Light Harvest Solar

It doesn’t take a sunny day, or even a solar array, to light up Mile’s face. Just ask him about solar technology! This week the podcast crew ventures out to join Miles Heiner in the shadow of the beautiful St Johns Bridge, in a converted shipping container, to learn about solar technology. He doesn’t care

Treetop Luxury at Camp LeConte

A couple years back I had the privilege to visit with and talk to the folks at Camp LeConte about their safari tent camping experiences available for nightly rental. The safari tents are available in four configurations offering different sleeping arrangements for your specifications. Each tent offers ample storage with closed and open cabinets, a countertop, and

A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity

Emmet Blackwell wanted to share their new documentary from Australia that features many different types of tiny houses, including his DIY recycled tiny house on wheels which is almost complete (pic below). The movie is FREE to watch on youtube. A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity is a feature-length documentary that follows a community in Australia who

We Have A Podcast!

Well, we’re upping the nerd factor around here and giving podcasting a go. The name? Young House Love Has A Podcast. I’ll give everyone a moment to let that process. I know it’s a tricky one. So much nuance.

The first question on everyone’s mind is probably: why a podcast? (And for anyone whose first question is actually “what’s a podcast?” we’ll get to that in a moment). The short answer to the whole “why ” question is that we’re podcast junkies, especially me, and we got excited to try something new and a little bit different for us. There’s obviously more to the story than that, which is why we kick things off with a 5-minute introductory podcast episode to explain it in more detail (it’s the one labeled #0: Wait, Who Has A What Now?) 

That intro episode also provides a preview of what (and who!) we have lined up for future episodes, including some of the guests that we’ll have on. You’ll hear lots of familiar voices, like bloggers, designers, and TV personalities – including a certain former Bayside High student. It was a trip not only talking to her, but talking to her about home stuff of all things. Life is weird.

Beyond our little intro episode, there are also two full-length episodes (#1: What Rich People Have In Their Houses and #2: HGTV’s Sabrina Soto Takes Us Behind The Scenes). It should come as no surprise that Sabrina Soto is incredibly nice, but we were impressed with how candid she was and loved all the stories she shared from her various TV gigs. Sherry is still reeling from a nugget that she dropped about a certain Real Housewife.

So far this little hobby/experiment has been exciting, hilarious, and a little awkward all at the same time. It kinda feels like our early days of blogging where the technology is a little bit foreign and nothing is too serious or set in stone. We’re also realizing that casually chatting about things is a great way to cover a lot of ground, jump from topic to topic, and share decorating tips and stories that might not necessarily lend themselves to a long written blog post or a quick social media photo.

If you’re already a podcast listener, you can just head over to iTunes, Google Play, or TuneIn Radio to subscribe and download the first 3 episodes. We’re also available on Pocket Casts and will soon be on Stitcher. We’re aiming to have new episodes posted every Monday.

But if you’re new to podcasts, let’s back-up for a second so we can help you get started. Podcasts are kinda like free, on-demand talk radio. Just like on-demand TV has become popular (you know, so you can play your favorite show whenever you want), podcasts allow you to play an audio program whenever you’re ready and even pause it if you get interrupted. So rather than being stuck with whatever’s on the radio, you can cue up any episode while you’re sitting in traffic, doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, exercising, painting a room, ironing your dog’s extensive wardrobe, etc.

Our preferred method of listening is via the iTunes Podcasts app on our phones, which comes pre-installed on most iPhones and iPads (it’s the purple icon you see in the screenshot below).  If you’re new to the Podcasts app, here’s a quick 7-step tutorial to get you started:

To subscribe to Young House Love Has A Podcast on an iPhone using the Podcasts app:

• Step 1. Click the Podcasts app and then click the magnifying glass in the bottom-right corner to Search.
• Step 2. Type “Young House Love Has A Podcast” in the search bar at the top.
• Step 3. From this screen, click our large icon in the middle of the screen (known as our show’s “cover art”)

• Step 4. Once on the “Young House Love Has A Podcast” page (seen below) press the Subscribe button. This is free and will keep you from missing any new episode that we post.
• Step 5. The most recent episode may download automatically, but you can be sure you have all three by clicking the download icon (cloud with down arrow) next to each episode. This is also free, and will allow you to listen to all 3 episodes right away.

• Step 6. You can view and play all of those episodes by clicking the Unplayed icon in the bottom left of the screen, which displays any downloaded episode that you haven’t listened to yet.
• Step 7. Then just click the one you want to listen to first and it’ll start playing (you’ll want to click #0 first for ours).

That’s it, you’re all set up! After you have listened to our first three episodes, it’s pretty much auto-pilot from there. Each Monday, as long as you have subscribed, you can just click the purple Podcasts app on your phone, click into the Unplayed section on the bottom left, and a new episode should be waiting for you.

You can also discover other podcasts to listen to by clicking the Featured or Top Charts section of the menu along the bottom of the screen. There’s something for just about every topic imaginable – true crime, pop culture, news, yoga, parenting, entrepreneurship, and beyond!

Note: You can also stream our podcast on your desktop via iTunes by following this link and clicking “View in iTunes” under our logo. If you’re on a PC computer that doesn’t have iTunes, you can learn how to install it for free here (then come back to this post and follow this link to find us there), or you can try listening from your computer via Google Play. If you have an Android phone you can download an app like TuneIn Radio or Pocket Casts, both of which have our podcast (and we hope to be on Stitcher soon). 

I think that covers the basics to getting you started. And if you’re wondering what I’m doing on any given evening, the answer is: playing with the microphone and slowing down my voice so I sound like James Earl Jones.

The post We Have A Podcast! appeared first on Young House Love.

Wild West Wagon: Before and After

Ever since I was a child, I have been in love with Romani vardo or “gypsy wagons.” We have some space on our property that needed a little structure that was useable but not permanent and after searching through Craigslist and Tiny House Listings for years, I found a handmade wagon that I could fix

Top 10 Tips for finding the Best Tiny House Builders for Your Home

Home construction is likely to be the biggest expense you will undertake in your lifetime, even if you’re taking advantage of the major savings possible through tiny home ownership. With so much at stake, you definitely want to be sure you’re working with the best of the best in the industry. The Tiny House Blog is

Talking Sh#t With Joe Jenkins Author of the Humanure Handbook

No one can say that Joe doesn’t know his shit because this guy literally wrote the book on it. And, for as much as we thought we knew about composting and composting toilets, as it turns out; we don’t know crap about it. Joe originally had only 600 copies printed of his first edition, and

10 Things I Learned Building A House

Back when Obama was transitioning from a state Senator into the POTUS and 20th Century Fox tried to pass off Liam Neeson as Hannibal, my wife and I donned our tool belts and safety gloves to build our own tiny house on wheels. Before the undertaking I vaguely remember cobbling together a bird house in

Living Large in Our Little House – Book Announcement

This is a guest post from Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell, whose book, “Living Large in Our Little House: Thriving in 480 Square Feet With Six Dogs, a Husband And One Remote…Plus, More Stories of How You Can, Too” is being released today. I provided the foreword to Kerri’s book and I think you too, will enjoy her

Tiny (Green) House Featured in Behr Paint Commercial

You know tiny houses have become mainstream when major brands put them up front and center in their commercials. Behr, the paint and paint products company, recently featured a tiny house in a commercial for their Marquee Exterior Paint. The commercial features a young couple painting their tiny craftsman/Victorian house on wheels with a pretty, green

Zyl Vardo’s MoonDragon Tiny House

One of my favorite tiny house builders is Abel Zyl of Zyl Vardos. He is a creative genious and has come up with some very unique tiny homes on wheels. Be sure and check out his web page Zyl Vardos. He just completed his latest called the MoonDragon and is getting ready to deliver it

Tiny Houses for Sale in Michigan | 10 Small Homes You Can Buy Now

In search of a tiny house in the Wolverine State? Look no further! Get ready to point at the palm of your hand as you identify where these ten awesome little homes are located. And if you’re not sure how much to pay for your new home, check out this article for some insight. Traverse

Riding the Roller Coaster to a Simpler Life with Rene Hardee

In the middle of a typical day in a typical family, Rene’s “Ah Ha!” moment led to her becoming a not-so-typical-one-woman whirlwind of tiny house change and advocacy. She started out with one goal in mind, to live a simple life. Nowadays, however, her days are anything but; divided between her family, her job, and

Welcome to the BunKaboose

Allow me to be frank. I am an easy consumer. I’ve never met a point-of-sale item I didn’t want to pick up and walk away with. I’m the guy that goes to IKEA and opens my wallet for the overflowing bin of plastic 3-piece kitchen utensil sets for just $2.03. So considering my affinity for