I also realized the side windows were too high and needed to be lowered so I threw a temporary support in, unscrewed a couple pallets, cut them up and reframed. I only got one window lowered before I called it a day on Sunday.

Next Steps:

• Lower other side window.
• Finish putting boards on roof.
• Finish filling in pallet boards on sides so I have something to screw the milled pallet boards onto.
• Finish roof (roofing felt and shingles (The jury is still out on the final roofing material)).
• Mill up a bunch of pallet boards for the siding.
• Wrap it up with house-wrap.
• Screw on the milled pallet board siding.
• Install the windows I got free off craigslist.
• Mill up pallet boards for trim around the windows and door.
• Build the door from pallet wood, and install.
• Seal the exterior with some kind natural free finish. (I’m open to suggestions.)

At that point I’ll be ready to move to working inside the house. My plan is to get all this done before the rain starts. At my current slow pace I think it’s possible. Here are a few more photos.

The first is a wine cellarette and is built from reclaimed barn boards. It appears to be Southern Yellow Pine with lots of insect damage, which actually adds a lot of character. The other is a Low Boy made of oak.  Typically you would not find an oak low boy, but pallets are free. The pallets I used for the low boy were from pallets used to ship heavy equipment, they were 1″ thick.

It’s really amazing what can be done with free found stuff. It take a bit more effort to turn the trash back into usable material but it can be done, and in this case done very well.

In the foreground above you can see the trailer. Notice the giant truck wheels which are far larger than those you see on other tiny houses, like the Tumbleweed variety. We also made the decision to permanently attach the house to the trailer. This will be far safer and stronger. This house is about being free too and not about being some fancy transformer. I’ll save the idea for another tiny house… or encourage you to explore the idea.

But I also need to go back the floor plan drawing board and the wheel wells. Now that I’ve dumped the detachable trailer idea, the house doesn’t have a perfectly flat bottom so the last floor plan doesn’t work. I really like the direction I was going in so maybe I can use some of those ideas while adding in the wheel wells.

Above is a stack of pallet slats cut away from their 2×4 rails. They’ve also had their ends cleaned up with a chop saw and sanded. Now they’re waiting for the router tp cut their lap joints.

Above are the boards lined up on the 2×4 frame illustrating how they lap joints will help seal the seams. I was planning on completeing each frame but now I’m thinking I should build the frames, assemble them, and then cover them in slats to keep the slats all lined up and tight.

Above is a close-up of my work space. Next time I’ll set-up in the shade. By lunch time it was at least 90 degrees and my neck is a bit sun burned.

The main tools are a circular saw, router, chop (miter) saw, belt sander, drill, and hack saw. I personally can’t stand battery operated tools so all these plug into the wall. I tried using a jigsaw on the nails but quickly broke my blade. A reciprocating saw would be much easier to use for cutting through the nails. A table saw would make cleaning up the long edges of the slats much easier. A router table would make the lap joints on the slats much cleaner and quicker to cut.

Above is a close-up of how the wall panels will look. The pallet boards fit together really well.

And last but not least my helper, King. He was my wife’s grandpa’s dog. When her parents and aunt inherited the family farm King came with it. He’s very nice, likes eating pine cones, and constantly sneaks up on people to lick their hands when they are not looking. A photographer for the New Your Times was out there with me yesterday… I think he found that out the hard way. Sorry about that Max.

Dismantling Pallets

Pallets are really hard to pull apart. The are built to stay together forever. The wood tends to be brittle and the nails have grooves that really grab so when you try to pull nails out or pry the boards off you waste a lot of time and damage a lot of the wood.

Professional pallet dismantlers just cut the nails. The problem with this is that nails stay in all the boards. If you can make use of nail ridden 2x4s and nail free slat boards that are about 16 inches long my way of breaking pallets down should work fine. Just cut the slats near the 2×4 rails; see photo below; the yellow lines would be where you’d cut.

Once the slates are cut off the 2×4 rails are easy to clean up with a hack saw or reciprocating saw. Just cut though the nails and you have usable 2x4s, albeit filled with old nails, so be careful when you cut these to length later.

Reworking The Wood

Then take your slats and clean them up. I used a chop saw, circular saw and belt sander. I cut my slat boards to even 16 1/2″ lengths. The thickness and height of each board is different but for my purpose this is fine. If I had a table saw I’d use that instead of my circular saw to get the top and bottom of the boards parallel. Cleaning up small boards with a circular saw is a bit tough.

Then I used a router to put a 1/4″ by 1/2″ groove around two sides, a long side and short side. Then flipped the slat over and did it on the other two sides. You might wonder why? Take a look below and it should make sense.

Now they fit together overlapping at each edge. Water should pretty much run off and away from the wall similar to how a shingle works. The 1/2″ overlap is very small though so I’ll use building adhesive too to keep everything together and as tight as I can. As I get better at it the boards should look a little more consistent.

Now this is approach will not make a solid seal like a plywood surface. It also takes a whole lot more effort, so if you plan to build a tiny house yourself I’d pretty much recommend using plywood or reclaimed plywood. I’m going to continue down the crazy path of using pallets though. There is just something poetic about pallets, but I digress…

Assembling Wall Panels

The 2×4′s are screwed together into panels 40″ by 32″ and are made out of 3 32″ 2x4s and 2 36″ 2x4s. This is a new size. I had planned to make them 36″ wide but need to change that to match the wood slat width.

I’m pretty sure the right way to build the bouse is to build the panel frames first, attach them all together, wrap the house in house wrap, and then screw on the slat boards. I think if I put the slat boards on the panel frames first there will be noticeable gaps between panels. Screwing and gluing the boards on after the house framing is complete should result in a better looking and tighter shell.

This is still a work in progress but far enough along for me to start putting panels together today. I also think I have a way of dealing with the verticle seams between the pallet boards that will cover the exterior. Using a router I’m going to create a half inch lap joint all the way around the boards. It’s hard to visualize so I’ll just take pictures today as I work on it and show you all tonight how it all came together.

I would love your feedback, especially if you know something about framing. The floor framing plan is a bit overkill but I’m trying to stick to short 36″ 2x4s and it needs to be strong enough to hold up with just the 4 RV corner jacks holding the house up. Normally 12′ 2x8s or 2x10s would seem like the right way to frame this… but would something like what I’ve drawn above work? The jury is still out in my head so I’m throwing it out to you. Thanks!