Some news on the Tiny House construction front, yesterday and today…

Over the weekend, the subfloor support framing got completed, for the front half of the trailer.  The galvalume sheet metal underneath the floor joists was secured to the joists with screws from below, shortly after 10 “blocking” pieces were inserted between the joists to keep them straight and stable.  The holes in the sheet metal for the screws had been drilled (from above) already, their positions marked using chalk lines where the joists would run.

We moved on to the back half of the trailer.  First came the sheet metal again, supported by jigs freed up after the front sheet metal was secured. Then came the thunderstorm late Saturday afternoon (which I think I wrote about in the email that had a million blank lines somehow inserted), after which we were fortunate to have only broad, shallow puddles on top of the big tarp.  Next we cut and positioned the four 12-ft joists for the rear half, then cut and positioned 10 more blocking pieces between them, as was done in the front.

After we had a few of the rear blocking pieces in place, Mikey decided he could cut down further on heat transfer to/from the interior of the house by reducing the amount of framing wood in direct contact with the sheet metal.  He decided we would remove all the blocking already in place for both the front and rear, and trim about 1/2” off the bottom edge of each (2x4) blocking piece, so the blocks would be above the sheet metal and he could fill in the 1/2” gap with foam insulation.  As we had used screws up to that point for fasteners, it was not hard to remove and then replace the blocks.  Mikey did the removal and replacement; I was kept busy shuttling to the table saw in the workshop to rip each block down to 3” width (thus removing 1/2”).

Late Monday afternoon, when we finally had all the rear joists and their trimmed blocking pieces in place and securely fastened, it came time to put in the screws to fasten the sheet metal to the joists from below.  Mikey made himself more or less comfortable under the trailer, with a package of screws and the impact driver; then I heard him say, “Oh no!”    We had forgotten to mark and pre-drill the screw holes in the sheet metal while the joists were still movable!    :(     Our first and probably not last (but I hope worst ) significant blunder.

We cogitated for a few minutes, as it started to get dark, about how to mark and drill the holes from underneath - which had become our only option without dismantling a couple days’ work - then decided to call it a (long) weekend.

This evening there was one really bright spot: Mikey measured the distance diagonally from corner to corner of the overall length and width of framing done so far.   The measurement on one diagonal was 304 3/8”.  On the other diagonal, he got the same measurement, plus 1/16”.   So, both the trailer and the framing appear to be awfully close to square.