CHAPTER
19

Finishing Touches

In This Chapter

  • Choosing tiny house-appropriate finishes
  • Installing materials with longevity in mind
  • Building space-appropriate loft access devices
  • Mechanical system trim-outs

It might seem like ages ago that you were learning about downsizing and saving for your tiny house build, and here you are reading about adding finishing touches to your house. How far you’ve come!

In this chapter, we discuss options for bringing the beauty of your tiny house to life. We also cover appropriate choices for tiny house trim, cabinets, and loft access. Lastly, we discuss steps in getting your mechanical systems totally trimmed out. Let’s get started!

Interior Wall Finishes

For a long time, the most common wall finish in a tiny house was simply exposed wood (most typically pine). Today, there are numerous options and nearly every design aesthetic can be satisfied.

TINY TIP

The key factors to consider when looking at interior wall finishes for THOWs are weight, environmental impact, ease of installation, long-term maintenance needs, and cost.

An often underestimated factor is maintenance and upkeep. Many finishes look beautiful upon installation, but in time show signs of aging much sooner than they should. For example, if you install tongue and groove planking in your interior, eventually all those cracks and gaps will begin to collect dust. Furthermore, if you opt for a material with a less-than-smooth surface, wiping the walls down will be just shy of impossible. These considerations are especially important if you plan on traveling a lot or placing the home on rural property along a dirt road.

Most conventional houses on permanent foundations are finished with drywall. This wall finish is an option for tiny houses on wheels as well, but it poses two significant challenges.

  • First is weight. Unless you purchase special light-weight drywall, it’s quite heavy, requiring the trailer plans to reflect the added load.
  • The second concern is that taped drywall joints tend to crack. With enough movement, it’s likely that joints will crack. That said, there are some current tiny housers out there who are very happy with their drywall choice.

If you decide to go with wall paneling as your finish material, you need to choose this well in advance of the actual installation. Because typical paneling is thin, it tends to bow and bend in between studs if the framing members are spaced 24" o.c., which is often the case in THOWs wall systems.

You have two options in the previous scenario.

  • The first is to install the wall’s plywood sheathing to the interior side of the studs (rather than the exterior which is customary) and use it as a paneling backer.
  • The second is to frame the THOWs with a 16" or 12" o.c. stud layout. This option adds materials, cost, and of course weight, so make sure to budget for those factors in your design.

TINY WARNING

You need to decide what type of wall finish material you plan on installing before finishing the design process. Because different materials are affected by factors such as stud spacing and location of wall sheathing, you’ll need to know which option you’re going to choose to ensure that your framing can properly support the system.

In looking for wall material options for hOMe, we came across some high-end panelized systems that yielded a clean, modern look, but we practically fell off our chairs when we saw the prices. We set out on a mission to recreate this panelized look but at a more budget-friendly cost.

We chose a super inexpensive and lightweight vinyl subfloor plywood product called IronPly and hung the sheets on our walls. We created thin gaps between each 4' × 8' piece by temporarily installing nails at each corner. Because we had installed our sheathing on our inside walls, we already had a backer material in place, which created a solid surface to which we could adhere the thin IronPly. After a couple coats of paint, our budget friendly interior wall finish looked like its more expensive cousins.

A great way of adding aesthetic details to a house is by using accent walls. An accent wall is an area within a larger wall finished differently with the intention of creating a visual point of interest. You can add materials such as faux-tile or lightweight metal siding, or you can simply paint a specific location a different color.

There are several options available on the market today. The hard part might not be finding something that works. Instead, the hard part might be paring down your options. You could choose from metal, dozens of patterns of paneling, and even materials not typically used on walls, such as IronPly. Get creative and have fun!

Flooring Options

There are so many flooring options on the market today and as a tiny houser, you can actually choose from nearly all of them. You can use hardwood, floating laminate, nail-down laminate, glue-down laminate, glue-down wood tiles, cork tile floors, cork strip flooring, bamboo floors, carpet, linoleum, vinyl, and more. If you plan on being quite mobile, ceramic tile might not be the best option because it’s heavy and grout lines are susceptible to cracking when subjected to movement.

No matter what flooring you choose, be sure to make your selection early on. There are different installation details associated with different finishes, so you’ll want to know how each option will affect your overall interior height. Your ceiling heights are measured from the finished floor up. That means if you budget your design for a ¼" thick finish floor but end up adding ¾" thick wood, you’ll lose ½" from your ceiling heights. This might not seem like a big deal, but it could trigger a failure in a code inspection if you’re going the legal route.

The two most common finish floor options used in tiny houses are wood (laminate and true wood) and sheet materials, such as linoleum and vinyl. Preparing for sheet flooring is quite simple, but there are some important details to keep track of.

The subflooring needs to be perfectly smooth. If it’s not, any imperfections will show through the material and potentially cause premature failure of the flooring. The best way to create a perfectly smooth base is by adding a new layer of material to the rough-floor sheathing. It’s best to use a lightweight and thin plywood option, such as IronPly, rather than heavier particleboard. Whatever material you choose, keep it as smooth as possible and butt the joints as tightly as possible to eliminate any gaps.

TINY TIP

If your tiny house walls aren’t completely square to each other, choose finish flooring materials that won’t highlight that fact. Choose a pattern that will softly hide any imperfections and stay away from sheet flooring with a lot of squares or straight lines on them.

When it comes to the installation of the wood flooring itself, there are some basic steps to take for a quality end-result. Wood expands and contracts as ambient temperatures and humidity levels change. If the wood flooring you purchased was previously stored in a climate-controlled facility and you then installed it in your tiny house before it was properly conditioned to the new location, the flooring would suffer the effects.

If the new climate is more humid than the previous one, your wood flooring will be subject to buckling as it swells in its new location. Conversely, if your house is extremely dry compared to the previous space, you’ll likely see cracks and gaps in the flooring after installation. The only way to avoid these issues is by acclimating your wood flooring for at least three days in its new location.

Ideally, your climate control systems will already be in place in your tiny house before installing the flooring, so that you can regulate the acclimation process. If part of your plan is to leave your tiny house unconditioned for extended periods of time, a more synthetic flooring material might be a better option.

Always leave an expansion gap around the flooring edges where they meet the walls. This is true for both laminate flooring—whether nailed down, glued in place, or floating—as well as true wood floors. Typically, a ¼" gap is suggested, which is enough to provide adequate expansion for most wood materials. Neglecting to provide these gaps will cause floors to buckle at the joints. Baseboard trim hides these gaps between the flooring and the walls.

Getting Up and Down

If you plan on including a loft or two in your design, you’ll need a means of accessing the space. There are four common approaches to loft access and each has its advantages and disadvantages. We’ll begin with our favorite—stairs.

Stairways

One thing we were clear on before even starting our tiny house design process was that we didn’t want to lumber up and down a ladder every time we had to access our bedroom. Because we work from home and spend most of our time here, we’re constantly going up and down. For us, the only option was stairs.

There are several advantages to stairs, the most obvious being ease of use. It’s also our belief that they’re safer and stronger than ladders. Their downside is that they take up quite a bit of floor space, which can pose a significant issue if you have very little square footage to begin with. Stairs in tiny houses that are much shorter than 24" might prove quite challenging.

This set of stairs can easily be built by assembling custom cut plywood boxes strategically stacked on top of each other.

We built our stairs out of custom-made plywood boxes stacked on top of each other. The construction process was very simple and resulted in a strong staircase that could easily support two people walking on it at the same time. An important feature of the stair design is the additional 25 square-feet of storage space provided below the steps, which is enough to house shoes, jackets, hats, gloves, and much more.

One thing that’s not currently possible for most tiny houses is a stairway that meets IRC code standards. This is because the required rise and run of an IRC-compliant stairway is too large for a tiny house. This could change as tiny house-specific codes are implemented, but for now, you might have to build outside of code if you want stairs in your THOWs.

Ladders

As mentioned earlier, ladders are perhaps the most common loft access devices in the tiny house world. We’ve already mentioned some of their downfalls, but on the upside, they take up very little space and can be hung out of the way when not in use. This is a major advantage when compared to stairs. If your tiny house is so small that stairs are simply not an option, a ladder could be the perfect solution.

Always ensure the ladder has full and connected contact where it meets the loft. In other words, install the ladder in such a way that it can’t slip during use. You might even consider extending the length of one of the side rails beyond the loft floor to make the approach to the ladder safer for the user.

You can purchase pre-made ladders or custom make them yourself to match the look and feel of your tiny house. You can also purchase an inexpensive attic-access drop down ladder assembly and extract the ladder from the frame. This will give you a lightweight, yet strong, means of access to your loft.

To attach the ladder to the loft framing, you can look online for library ladder assemblies or create something less expensive. Even just black pipe from the plumbing department held to the wall with basic C brackets can act as anchoring points for the ladder hooks. The point is that with creativity, you can create a comfortable loft ladder for $100 or less.

Ships Ladders

Ships ladders are a hybrid of stairs and ladders. They’re most commonly built at angles between 65 and 75 degrees, which means they’re easier to walk up and down on than standard ladders. In addition, their treads (the part that you step on) are larger than those found on standard ladders. If you’ve never seen them before, picture a sturdier version of a simple loft ladder.

DEFINITION

Ships ladders are a hybrid of stairs and a ladder. They’re more comfortable to use because they’re installed at a lower angle than standard ladders. They typically have a riser height between 9" and 11" and a tread run between 5" and 7". A handrail is always recommended for safe access while getting up and down the loft.

Unlike standard ladders, a ships ladder isn’t something that can easily be put away and it certainly can’t be hung on a wall. That might be a disadvantage, but their footprint is significantly smaller than a full stairway, making them a great choice for many tiny houses.

An IRC (International Residential Code) provision for the use of ships ladders states that they’re allowed as a means of egress from a loft space. However, they can’t be used as the primary means of egress, meaning that some other form of access must be included as well. There isn’t enough room in a tiny house for two modes of stair and ladder egress from one loft. As such, until we see changes in the code that allow ships ladders as a primary means of egress, they won’t be IRC compliant.

Alternating Tread Devices

Alternating tread devices (ATDs) are a great way to access a loft space. They take some getting used to, but ATDs provide safe loft access with a minimized footprint. Because the stair treads alternate left to right as they ascend, the space needed to ascend the same distance is greatly reduced over that of a traditional or ships ladder. See Chapter 6 for an example of an ATD.

Alternating tread devices are included in the IRC. However, similar to ships ladders, they cannot function as a primary form of egress. That said, they’re used in all kinds of commercial applications, such as warehouses, restaurants, and even in some of NASA’s buildings.

Cabinetry and Counters

When most people think about cabinetry, they typically think about kitchens. That makes sense, but cabinets can also make great additions in other parts of a tiny house. Because standard furniture can be hard to fit in a tiny home, using modular cabinetry as both storage and furniture can be a great way to go. For instance, upper cabinets placed on the floor can serve as ideal frames on which to place cushions and create sofas with built-in storage.

No matter where you install cabinets in a tiny house, you’ll need to consider factors such as weight, style, budget, and ease of installation. Be sure to optimize every inch of your cabinet layout. In the old days, people used filler blocks for thin areas between cabinets to hide dead space. However, today, you can use that space for slide-out drawers creating a perfect slot for baking sheets, dishtowels, and other thin items. You can also install under-cabinet drawers in the toe-kick area for further storage capacity.

TINY WARNING

The weight of off-the-rack particleboard cabinetry is significant in a Tiny House On Wheels (THOWs). If you plan on driving around a lot and want the lightest tiny possible, look for custom-made units or lighter weight options from the RV industry. Furthermore, make sure to anticipate the weight distribution of those cabinets on your overall trailer design, so you don’t end up with an improperly balanced tiny house.

No matter what style cabinet you use and from which source you purchase it, you’ll need to understand some basics about cabinet installation. Let’s go over them below.

1. First, be sure to measure where your cabinets are going to be installed before you order them. In other words, don’t trust the plans on this one. Even if you built to plan, there’s a chance that a small hiccup here or there could have changed your layout.

2. Second, be sure to check your space to ensure it’s square. If you only measure along one wall and don’t check that the intersecting wall falls square to your reference wall, you may find your cabinets don’t fit during installation. If things are indeed not square, come up with an action plan for correcting the issue ahead of time. The most common repair option is shimming the cabinets so that they appear tight to the wall, even if they’re not.

3. Next, be sure your trailer is level before taking any further action. If the trailer isn’t level when the cabinets are installed, the cabinets will remain unlevel later. If your floor is truly not level, start by setting cabinet bases at the high end of your layout and shim everything up to meet the level line.

Our personal preference is to install upper cabinets in a kitchen before the base units. It enables us to stand comfortably while hanging heavy upper cabinets. It’s common practice to mount uppers so that the distance between the countertop and the bottom of the uppers is 18". Because a countertop is typically 1½" thick, you can mark a line on the wall 19½" above the top of the base cabinet’s height.

In order to find and mark the base cabinet’s height before they’re actually installed, you’ll need to identify the high side of the floor, mark a level line, and then measure up from that line a distance equal to the height of the base cabinet: typically, 34½". It’s from this line that you’ll measure the distance to the upper cabinets.

TINY TIP

Avoid unexpected issues with your electrical plug and switch layouts by deciding where to place your cabinets during the design stages and before setting up your rough electrical wiring. Make sure to plan for under cabinet lighting and other details that rely on proper placement within your cabinets ahead of time.

There are many choices for countertops, which can make it difficult to make a selection. Again, refer back to factors such as weight, cost, and practicality when making your selection. No matter what material you go with, you’ll have some installation guidelines to follow.

The first step is to ensure the space is square. One thing you’ll notice about countertops is that they often come with a backsplash, which provides a convenient way of hiding any wall planes that are out of square. By scribing the exact contour of your wall onto the backsplash with a compass and pencil, you can use a belt sander to remove excess material until it’s a perfect reflection of the wall contour.

The best way to ensure your counters fit snugly is by starting with a dry-fit assembly. Place each counter piece against the wall as if you were going to install it. Mark the wall undulations on the backsplash and make any scribe cuts as necessary. Continue this practice until all joints are tight and the transitions from counter to wall look good.

Once you’re happy with how things look, start making other cuts for items such as sink openings, faucets, and any other penetrations. Finally, create the permanent installation by gluing the miter joints together and locking them to each other with under-counter clamps provided by the manufacturer. Attach counters to the lower cabinets with L-brackets or wood blocks. Make sure to use screws that don’t penetrate through the countertop surface.

Trim Work

Trim plays an important role in home construction. It hides gaps and adds beauty to any project. Trim layout style and material choice impact the overall look of your house, so be sure to select something that compliments the house’s design aesthetic. The most common trim materials are real wood, engineered wood, plastic, vinyl, and medium-density fiberboard (MDF).

Real wood yields the highest quality finish but is more expensive. MDF is inexpensive but swells with the slightest contact with moisture. No matter what material you choose, there are many different profiles or cross sectional designs to choose from. You can use one style for the entire house, mix and match, or even build up several styles in one location for a more sophisticated look.

The most common joints used in trim work are miter joints (45-degree cuts that come together to make a 90-degree angle) and butt joints (square cuts where two pieces of trim butt into each other). You can create more elaborate joints if you prefer, but the skill required jumps up exponentially. We recommend using glue on all joints to help keep things tight as the house travels down the road.

DEFINITION

A miter joint is a joint in which two opposing angles are cut to equal the total angle of the joint. For example, two 45-degree cuts assembled to make a 90-degree turn in the trim around a window.

A butt joint is a joint in which two pieces of material meet flush to each other where the end cut is made 90-degrees to the material in question. It’s the simplest of all joinery.

Use a small gauge nail gun to install trim. Gauges between 22g and 16g are considered adequate for trim installation and will minimize the amount of patching needed to hide nail holes. These nails are so small, especially in the 22g realm, that you can often just leave them open without any patchwork at all.

If you do find that a nail needs to be driven deeper into the material to hide the head, be sure to use a nail set—a small metal tool designed to allow a nail head to be pushed below a material’s surface. These allow a person to hit only the nail head, sparing the wood around it and making for a much cleaner installation job.

Paint and Stain

Paint adds a protective layer over the substrate and provides years of longevity to a material. Stain, on the other hand, actually penetrates the material and changes the color of that substrate on a much deeper level. Staining must be sealed to protect it, making it a multi-step application process.

Both materials can be applied by roller, brush, or sprayer. If you choose to spray your material, be sure to protect surrounding areas from overspray. It’s easy to lose track of this and completely ruin surrounding objects such as your neighbor’s cat without even realizing what’s happening.

When applying paint or stain with a sprayer, you’ll still need to take the additional step of rolling or brushing it into the material for full adhesion and/or penetration. Be sure to paint all surfaces on all sides of the material in question to ensure the best quality results possible. This includes the end-cut surfaces.

Finishing Mechanical Systems

We’ve been talking about cabinets, trim, paint, stain, and countertops. However, now we are moving to the final stages of construction as we cover electrical, plumbing, and HVAC installations.

Electrical

As we mentioned in the section on cabinet heights, some details surrounding electrical systems potentially come into play much earlier than during the finishing process. Consider electrical plugs in a kitchen, for example. If the boxes are set in the wrong locations, you might have to cut the countertop backsplash to accommodate their position, which never looks good.

Ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) plugs are required in all wet locations and areas at risk of moisture, including bathrooms, kitchens, and outdoor plugs. Conversely, arc fault circuit interrupters (AFCIs) are typically required in bedrooms. However, be sure to check local code requirements because some jurisdictions now require AFCIs in all locations in which GFCIs aren’t used.

TINY WARNING

Be sure to learn what electrical plugs are required in each location and what wires are called for in each situation. For example, GFCI plugs are required in all wet locations, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and exterior plugs. Another example is the need for 12g wire on all kitchen circuits. Take the time to learn the requirements in order to keep your installation safe.

Choose lighting options that highlight your favorite features in your tiny house. Mood lighting can be created with dimmer switches and warm-toned light bulbs. Incorporate brighter lights over any work areas and set them up to operate on separate switches from the regular lights.

You can choose between recessed-can lights for a clean modern look or hanging pendant lights for a more whimsical feel. Track systems are very sleek and wall sconces provide a nice traditional look. In terms of bulbs, LED technology has come a long way not only in efficiency, but also in cost and aesthetics. Where they used to emit a stark light, they can now emit much softer and warmer tones.

Plumbing

Rough plumbing is typically not considered a glamorous component of a residence, but finish plumbing certainly has a wow factor. Various options exist and almost anything available in conventionally sized homes works in tiny house applications as well.

TINY TIP

Be sure to use caulking anywhere water might find its way through the holes made for the fixtures. Water damage can appear quickly or over long time periods, depending on the severity of the leak. Neither is something you want to deal with, so put in the extra effort to seal all points of water entry to minimize issues down the road.

Because each manufacturer has its own installation requirements, it’s best to follow the instructions that come with each fixture you purchase. You may need specialty tools to complete the installation, so be sure to check the packaging for guidance while still at the store.

One secret that we learned some time ago is that it’s much easier to install faucets in a countertop before the countertop is in place. If you wait until the countertop is installed, then you’ll have to work on your back to fit the fixture tightly into position. Instead, install the fixture while the countertop can be flipped over.

HVAC

HVAC system installation is one of the final steps in house construction, so when you reach this point you know you’re nearly done! HVAC systems include bathroom fans, kitchen fans, and heating and cooling components. By this point, you’ve likely already installed your climate control components, so this is the time to trim and finish them out completely.

Be sure to install your fan covers and any filters in the HVAC systems in such a way that you can easily access and remove them later. It’s important to keep your ventilation pathways as clean as possible and free from dust, cobwebs, and grime. This will extend the life of the unit and make it more effective in day-to-day use.

One specific location in a tiny house may pose a challenge when it comes to ventilation—the range hood above the oven/stovetop. There are requirements about how close a vent hood may be from a range top. This is rarely, if ever, a concern in a conventionally sized home. However, in a tiny house with lowered ceilings under a loft, meeting these requirements can be an issue.

Make sure your hood vent gets placed far enough from the stove. On gas units without electric burners, the hood should be at least 26" above the surface of the cook top. For electric stoves, the hood can be dropped to within 24" of the top.

Be sure whatever unit you use meets the requirements for exhaust (how many cubic feet of air it moves per minute). Also, install a vent hood that’s 6" wider than the unit for which it’s proving ventilation. For example, if you have a 30" wide oven range, install a 36" wide hood vent. This will collect steam and smoke that might otherwise escape the vent draw.

By this point, there’s not much left to do except sit back, admire your work, pat yourself on the back, and sleep for a few weeks straight. Congratulations! Your house is now move-in ready!

The Least You Need to Know

  • Choose finish materials that are lightweight, cost effective, and as eco-friendly as possible.
  • Most finish options available for conventionally sized houses are available for tiny houses as well.
  • Effort put into the proper installation of finish materials pays off greatly in the overall look and feel of a completed tiny house.
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