Asheville city code states that you must have front and rear door access to a residential home. Thankfully (after calling and inquiring) it turns out that the city of Asheville is fine with blocking a back door exit with a railing until the back steps/porch are finished. This means that we do not have to complete our back stairs/porch and we can still get CO (certificate of occupancy) as long as we have a railing blocking the doorway! WEEEHOOOO! Great news! Today I finally had the time to install this railing using the scrap wood we had lying around (only the right door opens).
Instead of renting a off-road Genie Lift to do our back siding/soffiting ($1000+ per week), we are considering renting scaffolding and walk-boards instead. It would take a lot more work because we would have to break it down and re-assemble it to move it around the house, but it would cost $600 for a month rental. A month should be plenty of time for us to do the entire exterior and the soffiting.
In other news I attached the frame I built for the door/window in our master bedroom. Now it is ready for the window to be installed. I have one more shipping container door to frame in our master bedroom and the wall framing for our home will be finished.
I also dropped by Lowe’s today and picked up our 200 amp breaker box, 500′ of 14/2 wire, some plastic outlet boxes, two fans for our living room, six can-lights for our cathedral ceiling (4 will shine on top of the 40′ container and two will shine down on the living room), 4 Jelly-Lights (one for each of the 20′ container walls in the living room and 2 for the dining room wall), 8 smoke detectors (one for inside and one for outside each bedroom, one for upstairs, one for the kitchen), a fire-extinguisher, the 1’x2′ trim for the interior of the huge window panes, more silicone for the window panes installation, and the 2’x4’x10′ boards I need to finish framing the last shipping container door in our master bedroom. I have not spent that much time in a store in a long long time. Glad its done.
This evening I also dropped by our plumbers house and discussed materials and costs for the plumbing. Turns out that plumbers usually charge more than electricians? That seems crazy to me given electricians can literally DIE from a mess up and the worst a plumber can do is get some shit on them. Anyway you learn something new every day right? Turns out we have a great plumber who lives right down the street from us and goes to Jubilee! with us who wants to help us out. He even gave us all the 3/4″ water pipe we will need for inside our house. What a nice guy… I am really looking forward to getting started on the plumbing soon!
Thats it for today. Thanks for reading!
40x28 
Everything is looking AWESOME! I’ve made my final building decision and I’m calling in the morning to arrange a meeting with the local sales rep to place my order! I’ll be building a much smaller house than y’all, but I’m done with all of the baby raising, so I don’t need as much space. 12×28, with a little loft over 10 foot of it, and I’m paying for a few extra’s like two pre-installed doors and a tiny window. (The windows are crap, but with a pre-cut “hole” I can immediately put a tiny ac unit in to make indoor work more comfortable). One question, why did y’all choose 30# felt under your metal roof rather than one of the synthetic underlayments? I’m going to put an ice blocking synthetic down before the metal since I’m building in a much colder climate… I’m guessing that’s not a big deal as far south as you are… and the felt is much cheaper? and you used purlins… I don’t really have that option since the building comes pretty much done… on the outside anyway 🙂 I’m TOTALLY STOKED to begin my journey! Sorry so long… I’m a little excited!
Hello Tracey,
Glad to hear that you are moving forward with a container home. We used felt due to cost and time considerations. The purlins were a mistake. At this point looking back we truly wish we had used the funds invested in the purlins for foam insulation for our roof instead. Hope this helps with your project! Good luck and have fun!
Oh, I’m not using a container… Probably will for later projects, but for the tiny home build I’m using a large storage shed from a dealer that builds in several east coast locations. I was able to examine them here, but it will be built and delivered by a dealer in PA. They are willing to do some significant modifications for me and I am very grateful. I opted out of the cheapy windows – I’ll buy real ones later – but they are installing the two doors (which open inward) with the jambs elevated three inches to allow for me to install an insulation layer and a second subfloor, and they are installing ten feet of loft space… Sorry to hear the purlins were a mistake… I was feeling guilty for not using them since you said they would help with heating and cooling so much… but since the manufacturer is building, it wasn’t possible. I’m glad they are at least willing to do the synthetic underlayment. Anyway, probably more than you wanted to know 🙂 It’s being delivered the week of July 14th, and I’m super excited. Nite!
Please continue to keep us updated, this sounds so cool!!!