Tiny House Refresh

This client came to us with their sweet 10 year old tiny house needing a few updates around the exterior and a shower pan which never got finished. Their big puppies kept digging holes to hide underneath the tiny home causing a displacement of soil and potential shifting of the stability of the home supports. The battery and LP gas storage cabinet face and doors were made of wood and were rotting from exposure to weather over the years.

The home had a cedar skirt that was mounted around the wheel wells and the perimeter at the prior owner’s location, but the size wasn’t quite right for it’s new spot. In alignment with the ethos of WRLD BLDR to center sustainability, we set to work on reclaiming and repurposing the materials that were already on hand.

After dismantling the original skirt, the cedar boards were sanded, recut and mounted to runners that tucked neatly into the frame of the tiny home’s trailer bed. These were then sealed with a slightly tinted all weather polyurethane to hold up to the rainy years ahead. We set up a temporary spray booth behind the house to ensure a clean and even coat. The multi-tonality in the reclaimed cedar accentuated the rusty exterior faux finish of the home which was built on the show Tiny House Nation! (pause for a fanboy moment)

Onward to the Battery and LP cabinet on the tow hitch end.

The original cabinet face had rotted off unfortunately. Our client needed to be able to open and close this regularly to service the batteries which connected to their solar system, and switch out the LP cans that power the fridge, heater and hot water inside. We chose to rebuild the face and doors out of PVC trim to ensure that the exposure to future rainy years wouldn’t be the cause of another replacement down the line. We debated painting the PVC to match the grey of the trim but after seeing the ‘‘jolly pop of white’’, they decided to leave it as is.

The last touch up on this wee home was the standing shower pan. We settled on a matte finish ceramic round tile which made conforming to the drain grade easy and are my preferred tile for shower floors, the more grout, the more grip. No one wants to have a slip in a tiny home shower, you might end up in the kitchen!

First we dry fitted, then laid down the mortar, tiles and grout. The grout we selected was polymer modified to hold-up under the damp conditions of the shower and resist shrinking and cracking over time.

All told the tiny house refresh took a total of 7 person days. It’s amazing how much can change in a week! We followed up a few weeks after completion and were happy to find our client was inspired to tackle some other little repairs themselves.

Let us be the BLDR for your WRLD 🫶🏽