On Sunday, Sept. 7, I drove myself (and Mikey the wiener dog) down to Olympia to visit with Dee Williams, one of the first people to build her very own Tumbleweed Tiny house using reclaimed materials.

She had TONs of advice for me - and like the title says - my head was spinning by the time we'd finished. I'd planned on taking a bunch of pictures and even taking her out for lunch - but it felt like we had so much to talk about and not much time and it flew by way too quickly.

Getting to go inside her little house, climb up into her loft, really look at the construction all made it feel very real to me. I find myself so excited about the project now that my heart races when I think about it and the volume of my voice rises when someone gets me talking about it ;)

I hope to go back down soon and take some pics for myself - and get a little bit clearer on a couple of things construction wise.

Now that I have the trailer stripped of the travel trailer body, various pipes and plumbing and whatnot - I've been busy sanding and painting. I should be all done with that part by Monday, 9/15. This step is important because it was brought to my attention (by an airstream owner) that steel and aluminum do NOT like each other. Since the bottom of my floor will have an aluminum flashing and that will lay directly onto the trailer ribs - I have to paint it. This creates a separation of the two metals and helps prevent the erosion that would occur if the two metals were flush together.

At the same time I've spent a bunch of time re-configuring the plans to fit with my particular trailer. It's really amazing how different it's going to be - since I decided to go with the travel trailer instead of starting with an actual utility trailer (as recommended by Tumbleweed Tiny Houses). It's a little bit overwhelming.

One major issue is how the floor (and ultimately the wall framing) attach to the trailer itself.

With the utility trailer layout used by Tumbleweed, the ribs of the trailer are dropped and welded to the bottom of the side rails. This allows the floor framing to drop down into the trailer base - and allows you to secure it from the sides, etc.

In my case - the ribs are welded at the top - creating a totally flush surface to work with. So how do I attach a flush surface to a flush surface???

In the end I've decided to do it the way the travel trailer was done - simply drill through the framing 2x4s and use lag bolts all the way through the trailer ribs.

I'm not 100% sold on this idea - but until someone comes up with a better plan - it's the direction I'm going.

Here is how my plan adjustments are shaping up. Can't wait to cut my first 2x4!