Preparations
Summer to Winter, living in a trailer renovation.
In July of 2020 we ended our lease, moved out of our home and into Astrid. By this time the three of us were living in a barely completed tiny home. The first 7 months of living tiny we were roughing it. We had thin foam pads to sleep on, a messed up sewer system, and there were cabinets but no cabinet doors.
Our first order of business was to upgrade our mattress. We ordered a foam mattress from Tuft & Needle with plans to cut the corners off to fit in Astrid’s curved front. Our backs were aching from sleeping on thin pads. We eagerly awaited the shipment of our new mattress and when it arrived in the mail we were more than ready to take it apart and cut it to fit our curved bed frame. After a few attempts to match the curves just right, our new mattress was in and infinitely more comfortable.
It would take us two months to get water running in Astrid due to a leaky old gate valve for our grey tank which resulted in a slow leak that came spilling out whenever we removed the end cap of the dump-out line. With that valve replaced we were finally able to have running water in our kitchen sink. (We still need to be mindful of usage as we can only store about 15 gallons of grey water before needing to empty the tanks, which is not easy or glamorous when you’re not at a campground with sewer hookups).
Bed and water being mostly handled, it was time to paint our cabinets and make our cabinet doors. While driving around Syracuse we stumbled across a mirror somebody had removed from an old bathroom vanity and left on the curb. The dimensions were perfect to allow us to cut the mirror in half and fit as the inside of our wardrobe doors. After some time prototyping a design for our doors I set off milling down poplar and plywood and cutting the mirror (which I did wrong the first time, so I had to come up with a way to have the mirror be a few inches shorter than our doors). Two weeks later and Astrid had new painted cabinets and doors, it was starting to come together inside and feel more homey.
Around this time we were also due to receive a slightly strange and very exciting package. Our new composting toilet from Airhead. Astrid’s old toilet was fine-ish, the original gravity fed black tank toilet worked but was not what we wanted to deal with full-time. Dumping our grey water was already enough of a headache, and in my opinion, dealing with the sewage from a toilet is much worse. We hadn’t done much to the bathroom except remove the old sink and cabinet. The entire bathroom had been spray painted by a previous owner and it was terrible. They used a matte chalkboard paint to spray every inch of it. The sink basin, cabinet, toilet and even the shower pan were all painted with a pinkish off white matte spray paint that held onto every particle of first and dust. It all needed to go along with the black tank. This opened up much more floor space in our bathroom (which is at most 10 square feet when it is totally empty) and is one step closer to making Astrid a self contained home.
By this time, it is the end of November in Central New York, the snow and ice are closing in on us and we are hunkering down keeping warm as we can. We have ordered a tiny wood burning stove but it won’t be arriving until February so until then it is two space heaters and Reflectix panels in our windows to stay warm. Months of listening to space heaters blow 24/7, condensation on every window and surface due to the extreme cold outside and the way electric heaters work, and living under lots and lots of blankets. Once it arrives, installing the Cubic Mini Wood Stove is the most exciting thing we have done yet. Just in time too as we had our first big trip planned, Acadia National Park in March.
