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. 

Evening Lamplight

Yes, I do have electric lighting. But I'm also off the grid, so power use is always better kept to a minimum. Which means if just hanging out in the evening sometimes I just use my oil lamps and a few candles. It's a relaxing and peaceful light.

Curtains Up!

Curtains are up in the whole place! Here's one photo of some of them.

Tiny House at Night

The nearly full moon made it look pretty bright outside too, but here's some shots of my cozy little place tucked in the trees and snow.

Final photos from the builders - Interior

The builders also took more nice shots of the interior while it was still totally empty than I did. I was too anxious to start moving my stuff in. ;) These should give you an idea of some of the detail in the lofts and kitchen. I think the only thing they didn't get was a good shot of the bathroom. 

Final photos from the builders - Exterior

I just got the rest of the photos the builders took before they towed my house up here. They were able to get some good photos of it in the parking lot before it landed here and is now so nestled in the trees that it's hard to get a full view of it.

Second lesson learned...

Learning lots of things here. First, there is now running hot and cold water in my house. That was just waiting on the power being on around the clock so no pipes could freeze. Anyway, after having the whole house run successfully off the battery bank for the last day, we filled up the water tank, ran the antifreeze out of the lines, filled the hot water heater, and everything works.

 What I learned was, when you start your water pump for the first time, check all your faucets first and be sure they are in the off position. What did I do? Umm... not that. First I turned on the sink, waiting to turn on the shower as I had it stacked full of stuff just to get it out of the way since I'm not done unpacking. So as everything starts running and all the air bubbles leave the kitchen sink, I went back outside to take a look at our setup for pouring water from jugs into the house inside the tank. After a minute, it occurred to me that I could hear the water pump still running. And that seemed odd because it's only supposed to run when a faucet is on. And I had turned the sink off. Remember that I said I had the shower stacked full of stuff? And apparently in the process of pilling all that stuff in there, I'd accidentally turned the shower to on. When I was inside and waiting for the bubbles to leave the kitchen sink, I didn't notice because there was still air in that line. But while outside, the water worked the whole way through and I returned to find water running all over the floor and heading into the kitchen. Now my shower drain seems to work just fine. Unless I've piled my shower full of stuff up to the shower head...

What was stacked in my shower? Oh just all my hanging clothes (dresses, skirts, shirts), all my towels and washcloths, and a few other things that don't soak up water so easily. So now my whole house is filled with things hanging up to dry. I planned to have space to hang my laundry, but I did not plan to ever wash all of my clothing at the same time! So I tried to spread everything out as much as possible, and hopefully it will all be dry in the morning. Oh well, there are worse things than spilled water, but I'd still have preferred not to have to clean that all up. One more lesson learned, and hopefully I'll never do that again.