The Independence Day holiday was a working holiday for us.  Once we started up again with the actual physical construction part of this tiny house build, we’ve been very eager to continue on with the wall framing, so pretty much every day recently that we aren’t working our normal jobs, we’re hitting the build to keep our progress momentum.  So, the fourth of July was a day spent slicing and dicing 2×4’s and a few 2×6’s.  We got our third wall (one of the long walls) laid out and Eli, having just worked a slew of long days in the field, had time on Thursday to assemble it all.  So I came home from work to a third wall framed and ready to go!

With three walls assembled, it was time to move those walls to vertical!  But, we thought patience might have to trump eagerness when – being the weekend after a holiday – none of our friends or neighbors were in town to assist in the wall raising.  And, skeleton framed walls might seem like they have so much empty space as to be light and buoyant – HA!  A 24-foot long wall that’s about 9.5 feet high is a serious chunk of weight.  Two of us alone were not raising that by ourselves.  But Eli, never to be hindered, set to work rigging a system of assist to let us get those walls up!  I manned the ropes by the truck anchor (my 4Runner was a champ!) and Eli did the heavy lifting and kept tabs on the ropes as the wall made its assent.  Basically, Eli would lift a side of the wall, and I would tighten up the ropes on that side to support the weight, so Eli could then move to the other side.  Getting the wall over the wheel well was by far the hardest part.  When we hit vertical, though, it was the most intimidating!  But, we immediately secured braces and were slow and steady moving the wall into place.  After raising that first wall, the shorty end wall felt like it lifted itself into place.  Okay, it wasn’t quite that easy, but we could raise it without assist, so it was nice not having to worry about bracing ropes and also to have the wall be more stable and rigid as it was shorter.

So, by the end of the day on Saturday, we had half the skeleton of a house!  We just couldn’t resist “moving in”, so we spent the night camped in our sleeping bags on the trailer within the half framed tiny house!

Rigging and ropes in place

Truck anchor for ropes

Up the slides

Half way there

Wall raising continues

And just like that, it went from just a trailer to a partial house

Tacking the housewrap strips

Putting housewrap and sill seal under the walls for weatherproofing

Half the skeleton is formed!