Last night I noticed someone had posted some pallets on craigslist so this morning before work Katie and I made a pallet run and crossed our fingers that they were still there. We lucked out and picked up 12 good pallets. I’d say 6 are nice standard pallets (40″ by 48″) and the other six will need only minor repair before they become walls and part of the roof.
I finally found time to get back up to the farm for a couple days to work on the tiny free house. I got the walls half way up and now only need 6 more pallets for the walls and 8 more for the roof. The walls are a not exactly plumb but not bad. They should be strong enough but they will definitely have a bit more character than most homes.
King, the dog, kept me company the whole time. Unfortunately this time of year (right after harverst) the nearby fields tend to breed lots of flies, especially the tomato fields, so King and I were constantly shaking off flies… yeah yuck. The shower at the end of the day felt really good.
Katie did come out and help a bit though. I’m not sure exactly what she thinks of the tiny house yet but she seems to be warming up to it. This was the first time she actually wanted to get inside and help her dad.
Here’s one more photo at the end of the day. We needed to move it so I piled up all the pallet wood and pallets inside.
I’m also posting updates on Tiny House Forum too.
It’s Sunday morning and another weekend away from the saw dust and splinters of my tiny free house (sob). The last few weekends seem to have been eaten up by other things. This weekend was spent mostly preparing for a work related trip to Los Angeles. So I thought I’d map out my plans for getting the house closed in before it starts raining here in northern California. The little project plan below shows what I think I can get done in weekends beginning with the next available weekend. These pre-work steps are things I can do at home during the week.
This should get the exterior closed in. Then as winter rolls in I can move to the interior and finish the interior walls, insulate, plumb, and wire it up. I already have house wrap, roofing felt, some plywood, a good lead on some metal roofing from a nearby farm (in trade for pallets no less), and some other stuff so I should have a good jump on scavenging.
I think planning like this will help keep me on track too, especially with the weather changing. It really is starting to feel like fall, still warm here in the Sacramento Valley but definitely starting to cool off.
OK... this has absolutely nothing to do with tiny houses. It's not even an affiliate link; right I get nothing if you buy shoes from these people. But this company is running a sweepstakes and the winner gets free shoes. All you have to do to enter is post one of two videos about their shoes online to enter. I thought that was such a novel viral marketing idea I had to give them credit by posting this video here. Now I'm entered to possibly win free shoes but more importantly... I'm rewarding someone for a clever idea. Oh and yes... I do own a pair of their shoes, a paid of hemp sneakers.
I’m embarking on a little experiment. I’m going to build a tiny house that's cross between Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond and a Tumbleweed-like Tiny House on wheels.
The only difference is that it will cost me nothing. Any money I spend will be recouped by selling discarded things I find and most of the wood will come from old shipping pallets.
Why Pallets? It just seems like poetic justice for a house that questions consumerism be made from the very things that carried the products to market. More...
Pallet Framing Plan
Floor Plan
Latest Construction Progress
In The New York Times
In the summer of 2007 I had one of those Ah-HA moments that inspired me to write a book, change jobs, build a tiny free house, rethink my values, my lifestyle, and my future. 
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