Fy Nyth's kitchen

My tiny kitchen is actually quite large for the size of my house. Which is good because I use it a lot, most things in it every day since I really enjoy cooking. I make almost everything from scratch and cook for several friends as well as barter meals for some things like my gym membership/crossfit classes. So the kitchen was probably the most important thing for me when designing my house.

This is my oven. It's a 20'' propane range. The space inside fits a standard cookie sheet and I can even get my huge roast pan which will hold a 20+ pound turkey in there as long as it is the only thing in the oven. There are a few times I wish I had 6 burners, but the majority of the time 4 is just fine.

I have a lot of kitchen utensils, but never had many kitchen appliances. I suppose I prefer to do most things by hand. The only appliance I do have is an old kitchenaid mixer that was actually the one my parents had before I was born. I got it when they upgraded to a newer and larger one. It's tucked in the back above the fridge just because I do not use it on a daily basis. But most other tools are somewhere very near my stove and quite handy to reach as I'm cooking.

My sink get heavy use. I like keeping things neat and tidy, but it seems that there are always dishes in the drainer. (as wells as things like a cranberry tart and alfalfa sprouts sitting around) This is actually the wrong sink which was installed due to a paperwork mess up at Tumbleweed. But they have been amazing about being willing to fix it and cover all the costs for the correct one and to have it installed. Once that is finished I'll have a double sink which will be really nice with the amount of use this one gets.

My fridge and freezer are electric but pretty efficient. They are not large, but I can pack a good bit of stuff in there. And yes, that is two gallons of kombucha brewing on top of the fridge and more bottled inside. My scoby's are my only "pets" right now since my composting worms all died out for some reason. When it's a bit warmer, I will replace them.

My freezer full of elk, venison, and trout.

These small inset shelves (in the bathroom wall, that door closest to the fridge goes to the bathroom) are handy for holding glasses and jars.

The next door over is my pantry. It's hard to see the depth from this photo, but I can pack a ton of food in here. I added the spice racks on the door and they help free up a lot of shelf space.

The whole kitchen has a lot of drawers and cupboards where some of the less tidy looking stuff lives so it's not on the open top shelves.

I have cooked a lot of meals here so far and find the kitchen very comfortable and workable. Also, I have learned that it's best to turn my heat down when I start to prepare a meal. With both the oven and a burner or three running, this little house becomes really warm quite quickly. I also often open a loft window just a crack to let out some steam as my windows will fog up and start dripping water pretty soon from all the steam produced by most meals. 

Tiny house in the big woods

This morning when I left for work just after 5 am, this was what my little house looked like. About 8+ inches of heavy snow fell overnight here and it was still dumping when I pulled out and took these shots.

My transforming table

I really like my little table. It's from Ikea, and I haven't seen any other company who makes something very close. When I don't need a table top for anything, it folds down like the above photo., giving me lots of space.

If two or three people are eating dinner, or I have a small project, I fold out one side like this.

The center has six drawers, three on each side which house little stuff like pens, lighters, tacks, chargers, and tons of other odds and ends.

If I have anything that needs a larger table space, I can easily spin the table around and fold out both wings like this. Now it is close to filling my living room space. If I would pull it away from the wall (and had more chairs which I don't at the moment) I could easily seat six or even eight people around it.

They are not paying me to advertise or anything, but for multiple functions and a small space, I highly recomend this table. You can find it at http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10290221/. And they even have several other colors if you don't like the natural wood one that I have.

My lofts

My storage loft finally have some organization. And so far has kept my great grandmother's hope chest among other things.

This shop is looking at my sleeping loft and the top of the stairs going to it.

My bed. It's a bit hard to make a bed very neatly when you have a puffy down comforter and a mattress on the floor.

Another shot where you can see my nightstand which is another old chest. This one also happens to store old journals, repair and sewing stuff, and a few other things inside.

My closet and the foot of my bed which also forms the wall that give my bedroom some privacy. This does still have a mess of unorganized stuff on top as you can see. But it contains backpacking gear and food, camera gear, as well as some clothing and shoes.

Looking over toward the top of the stairs.

The view out of my window right at the head of my bed.

Looking into the loft from the top of the stairs.

Fy Nyth's bathroom

It seems that this is often one of the things people are most curious about. A bathroom in a tiny house. Especially one that is off grid. I finally got a chance to take a few shots of mine. It is so small that getting a good photo is kind of hard I will admit. In the photo above you can see my compositing toilet which I will do a whole post about at some point.

I forgot to get a shot with the mirror cabinet open, but it is a cabinet and holds a lot of stuff. Maybe it's better that I didn't after all. I suppose a woman's bathroom stuff might be best all kept behind a closed door.

There is no sink since I have a sink only a few feet away in the kitchen, but this little shelf my friend built for me is handy so I have somewhere to set things down other than on top of the toilet.

The floor space really is small. It was hard to find a little trash can that would tuck into this space. This one is actually a holder for spare toilet paper, but it fits in nicely and makes a great trash can for me.

The shower which I really don't use. I tend to wash my hair in the sink most of the time anyway and have for years. And since I have to haul all the water I use to my house manually, it's easier to shower when I'm at the gym rather than carrying that much water. So my shower is storage right now for some hanging clothes and my little hand washing machine.

Tiny Corner Couch

An amazing friend built me a corner couch for my little house! I've got the cushion's cut to fit, and have the fabric to cover them, but still need to create the covers. I'm not sure if I will pay someone to do that for me since I hate sewing, or if I'll quit being lazy and do it myself since I do know how and it would save me some cash.

 It has storage for multiple things in two separate boxes that form the base. The one box is ventilated and houses my battery bank, charger, charge controller, monitoring equipment, inverter, etc. Basically the guts of the power for my house. The other box (which is separated slightly so nothing can accidentally block the ventilation of all the power equipment) is my storage for extra bedding, blankets, tools, and travel bags. 

Soon there will be an addition that allows me to pull the one back cushion off and lay it flat to widen the seat part, creating a comfy guest bed. I'll add photos of that when it is finished.

Wildlife around my house

Here's a just a few glimpses of the critters running around here. The little porcupine waddled by my window while I was cooking one evening. Below is a wolf track. I didn't seen him as I was gone when he stopped by, but from looking at his tracks, he trotted up the lane, did a loop around my house to check it out, and left again. And the last photo is a moose track. He's been in the drive several evenings when I came home, but this track it just a few feet from my door. And looks large even compared to my size 9 boots. There's also lots of little birds and squirrels around and I saw a snow white ermine just before getting to my drive earlier today.

Parts of the power system - Solar panels and batteries

I've been learning all kind of things about power systems, electricity, and living off grid. Here's the batteries that are the heart of my electrical power. They are responsible for all the power storage so I have electricity even if the sun is not shining at the moment and the generator is not running. Right now I have two of these and they are 155 amp hours each. In a few days, two more will be added so I will have a bank of 4 for a total of 620 amp hours of storage.

 Below is my little generator. It really has been a champion so far. Starting in cold weather, using a tiny amount of gas, and running the house or charging the batteries.

This is the weather proof cables with #10 wire that run about 50 feet from the little clearing where my solar panels sit and into my house. There seems to be very little line drop in the power produced. I did not want to put the panels on my roof for two reasons. My house is almost one hundred percent shaded in the winter. And I want to easily be able to clean snow off of them which would be difficult on a roof.

I just realized it's pitch dark outside and I didn't actually get a shot of the panels where they are sitting outside. But here you can see the frame a very kind friend built for me in his shop. There are two of these so they can more easily be moved. Each frame has two 100 watt panels for a total of 400 watts.

Here are the two current batteries plugged into the charger and generator on one end and the inverter on the other end. Below you can see the addition of the controller for the solar panels. This set up allows me to run the house directly off the generator or the batteries by switching the plug from the generator to the inverter. And the batteries can be charged by the generator and/or the solar panels.