The romance of a bygone era, along with the curiosity and intrigue of age old crafts, shaped the person I am today. I was fascinated with the 19th century growing up: the technologies of the time and hands-on way-of-life, the craftsmanship and attention to every detail of even the most ordinary, mundane objects fascinated me — the details that today would be taken for granted or even ignored.
I strived to achieve the same expert-level of craftsmanship in a variety of art forms.
Whenever an opportunity was presented for me to learn an age-old skill, I jumped at it! Woodworking, sewing, cooking, carpentry, outdoor survival, painting, sculpting, archery…the list grew. I was often labeled a regular “Renaissance Man” and even a Jack-of-all-trades, but one trade skill had eluded me until recently, “The King of All Trades” as it had become known over the centuries: Blacksmithing.
Just a few short years ago, I started feverishly scouring Craigslist day and night until I found the object of my desire. I called the lister immediately and shortly thereafter was the proud, new owner of a 1906 Hay Budden anvil. The 200 pounds of American-made wrought iron and steel was love at first sight and, little did I know at the time, was the beginning of a new chapter in my life.
A couple days after I picked up the anvil I also acquired a 1916 cast iron, hand-crank, Lancaster coal forge and began learning to forge. Completely self taught, I endured quite a few burns and plenty of melted and destroyed projects, but I was hooked.
Blacksmithing was the keystone to a culmination of acquired skills. So much creativity was suddenly possible for me! If I wanted to carve a set of wooden spoons, I could now forge a hook knife to do so. Custom drawer pulls for a new desk? No problem. If my lovely partner, Anne, needed a custom hive tool for her beekeeping, I could oblige. I built a small shop to accommodate my new passion for blacksmithing and am the proud owner and operator of Santiam Forge.
While I’m working by the light of the fire in the forge, Anne is often out in the sunny yard. Cloaked in a yellow veil and white protective suit prying loose frames covered in wax comb and honey. She uses her custom forged hive tool, checking on her bees and tending to their needs. Not too long after I started blacksmithing, Anne picked up beekeeping. She joined a local beekeepers club and enrolled in the apprentice level of the Oregon Master Beekeeper Program.
Last spring she picked up what seemed like a mountain of disassembled assorted planks. Together, with the help of plenty of wood glue and a nail gun, we assembled and painted her very first hive. Shortly after she picked up her first package of bees. Buckled tightly into the passenger seat, she and 10,000 new passengers made the nerve racking drive home.
Thanks to the support of her beekeeping mentor, the seasoned advice from bee club members, and the hands on help from other beginner beekeepers, she was able to face the challenges of her first year of beekeeping. This year she is excited to start the Journeyman level of the master beekeeper program and will be expanding to two hives this spring.
In addition to honing our crafts of blacksmithing and beekeeping, Anne and I decided to embark on our journey of building a tiny home.
This journey towards tiny-house bliss started roughly three years ago with the decision to go “tiny.” Our drive came from the culmination of years of money seemingly wasted on high priced rent, working long hours just to break even, and ultimately, not following our dreams.
Anne and I both have aspirations to travel, all the while to always have a place we can call home when we returned. We didn’t want the responsibility and expense of maintaining and protecting a big empty house while we were away, nor did we want to rely on family or friends for temporary housing when we returned.
We had both seen photos of tiny houses in the past, yet had never considered tiny living as a serious option until now. Building tiny made perfect sense! We would get everything we truly wanted in life: a debt free place to call home, a simplified way of life, and the freedom to take our home with us or safely park it as it awaits our return.
We bit the proverbial bullet and jumped feet first into a tiny house future!
We knew we wanted to build our tiny home ourselves so the first step was to find a set of plans we liked. After months of tireless searching, no designs seemed to quite fulfill our needs, and the ones that we did like were more money than we wanted to spend on a set of building plans. This left only one possibility; I would design the entire structure from the wheels up.
Both of my parents (and myself for that matter) are licensed contractors. I grew up around new construction and remodels. Later in life, I worked on them as well. By no means am I an engineer or architect nor have I ever designed something as complex or as a large as a house; even if it is a tiny house. Anne and I set to work on building our tiny dream home.
Using Google SketchUp, we created a 3D model of our future abode. Wanting everything to be perfectly designed, for months we tweaked and redrew until we believed it was as perfect as it was going to get on paper. Before we proceeded to build, I had an architect friend look over my design. With a resounding thumbs up, we were officially ready to start building!
We had our trailer custom made by Top Notch Trailers in Washington state.
On Halloween 2014, we picked up our shiny new foundation. No turning back now. Everything suddenly got a lot more real. This was actually happening! That spring, the first load of lumber was delivered and we began construction and encountered our first hurdle. Spring time in the Pacific Northwest consists of two things: rain and slightly more rain.
Keeping everything dry while building outdoors became an ongoing challenge. Often times we were interrupted mid-build by rain and would have to quickly tarp the whole structure. The first few times tarping definitely had a learning curve, but after a dozen or so times, we had it down to a science! Lesson learned, don’t try to build in stages during the rainy season!
As summer time rolled in, so did our next challenge; balancing work with construction.
To help my newly found blacksmith business grow, I decided to have a weekly booth at the nearby Saturday market. In hindsight, I may have bitten off more than I could chew. Being a one man shop creating hand forged items and keeping enough stock to run a market booth every Saturday from June to October, all the while taking custom orders, left virtually no free time to work on the tiny house. We were in a Catch-22.
The money I was making from Santiam Forge would in turn go into completing the tiny house, however, I was working seven days a week to keep up with demands. From time to time, I would have a free day that we would take full advantage of. By the end of the summer, we had the structure fully framed, sheathed and wrapped, with completed windows and roof.
Halloween 2015 marked the last Saturday market of the year and the one year date from when we first picked up our trailer. Also our original planned date of completion… With the incredibly busy summer, we had fallen a bit behind schedule.
With the house now dried in, we were free to begin working on the interior.
Throughout the fall, we planned out our electrical. This was the most nerve racking part in my opinion. I double, triple, and quadruple checked every outlet and lighting placement. making sure all of our needs will be met, and that the finished design will flow and make sense. After the winter holidays, we began drilling the countless holes to run all the wires. One burnt up drill, and what seemed like miles of wire later, the electrical is roughed in. Our next step in the coming month will be to install the small amount of plumbing and the expansion foam insulation. Although the most exciting part is yet to come: doing the finishes and custom iron work for our very own home! Our new completion goal is now late spring to early summer 2016. Needless to say, I’m not going to stretch myself so thin this summer!
Blacksmithing, beekeeping, and building continue to stretch us creatively. Anne and I both enjoy the creative process and find immense satisfaction in honing and perfecting our craft. Reflecting on our journey has been just as meaningful as our participation and so we maintain social media accounts to document and capture our adventures and welcome readers to follow along. You can following along with our build by visiting The Blacksmith and the Beekeeper Tiny House on Facebook or on Instagram. Also, see what’s happening at Santiam Forge on Facebook and Instagram as well!
Written By :: Alan Hussey Jr. for Tiny House Magazine Issue 39
