Tiny House, Schminy House

I tried to write an introduction for my friend Mark’s article about building a tiny house. But instead, I ended up writing an absurd short story about a groundhog. If that interests you, click on the button below. If you would prefer a funnier read about millennials fulfilling their destiny during the pandemic and gentrifying the forest with a tiny home I hope they one day invite me to despite this frankly crap introduction, then please read on below. Please note that the tiny house in the thumbnail is a luxury Swedish hotel and not a tiny house made by real humans that I know.

Tiny House Schminy House

Read a groundhog's point of view on forest gentrification.

Tiny House? More Like Anal Cavity With a Futon

By Mark Smithers

We set off on this journey several years ago when we purchased a lovely cottage in the Eastern Townships. It had all the things you wanted in a cottage: space, many windows, 2 bathrooms, etc. But with COVID haunting our nightmares we realized that this just wasn’t what we wanted. What did we want? A tiny metal box that loves one thing, and one thing only: condensation.

Yes, we sold that lovely cottage and are converting a shipping container into a ‘liveable’ space. What this project has made me realize, beside fully understanding that no construction big box website has a live inventory, is that ‘liveable’ is a term that can be bastardized to such a point that it can be used in my previous sentence.

Fuck, what have we done? Besides egging on millennials that think becoming a barista is a long term position in life, I feel like my wife and I have made a grave error. But marriage, and life, and good South American empires are all about sacrifice.

What did we sacrifice? Well we might be ‘living’ in a shipping container for a few years but we have chosen this route because it is placed on a piece of land that would make God jealous. So sure, I can’t do yoga in the edifice I will humbly sleep in on the weekends because I will hit 3 out of 4 walls, but gosh darn it, you ain’t no man (sic) if you ain’t got no land.

And for us it is the land, not the ridiculously stupid metal suppository, that makes us happy. There are walking trails, creeks, deer, and probably a few buried horse and dog corpses, but most importantly a few dead horse and dog corpses.

So without much further ado, here are two city folk working on their unglamorous, unpretentious, and honestly just crap future abode. Hopefully with the help of Mrs Lady Nest, we could get the inside looking like a Dollorama version of her perfect designer taste.

Here is the container we purchased from an ad that made very clear numerous times in the text that it had never been used for human trafficking. SOLD.

Above I mentioned that we ‘worked’ on the project. Here is proof that my wife can multitask and sit in a shovel AND give her father (here on out known as the help) COVID.

Looking triumphant in the early morning mist, the Blue Brick sits at its final resting place.

Pooping into things is an important part of not shitting your pants, so we built an outhouse.

Note: the help built 90% of it, but my wife watched her dad build the door, and I nailed the moon and star to it.

We found some windows and a door just left on the wall of a neighbouring house. Very important to convince people a shipping container is ‘liveable.’

The help then went on a fucking rampage of work and built the front and side wall and installed the aforementioned door and windows. Needless to say, on Instagram, I said I did it all.

You there, the reader with an eagle eye, yes that front deck is made out of Brazilian Ipe, thank you for noticing.

‘Liveable’ space.

We did learn to shingle so that shizz is starting to look good. It’s normal to stop a shingle job mid way through- all pros do it.

Especially when you don’t have enough shingles. And that hay is not structural, but it is our insulation from the cold. No joke.

So next up is getting the inside insulated and putting walls up. Then the fun Lady Nest stuff happens. For furniture we are looking at hobby shops because they sell furniture for dollhouses.

Part 2 hopefully coming soon. Unless of course the propane heater we use to stay warm kills us…