Illumination

Light! How important is light? Everything we do requires Light, either natural or artificial. How we get that light can effect our mood and our health.

Downsizing and living healthy, sustainably, also means doing what I can to keep me healthy. How does Light fit in there?
Well, Meet ilumi.

I found ilumi on a crowd funding site months ago. It is a smart led bulb, with many features, that connects to your smart phone by bluetooth. 

What attracted me was the "circadian" feature. It sets the color of the light based on time of day, so that the light doesn't interfere with your bodies circadian rhythms. A bonus is that I never have to enter a dark house!

I can turn my one lamp (only one needed in my THOW) from my car, from the front gate or, for now, from the front door of my Big House! You can see the Christmas lights on the "Big House" reflected in the camera lense, that tells you how close they are at the moment. 

You can get your own ilumi bulb now at Best Buy!

A Merry Christmas to All and to All a good Night, Tiny Style:)

Downstairs...Airtight!

The Siding on the downstairs portion is DONE!!!

Still have 3 downstairs and 5 upstairs windows to go in!

Finally figured out a way to wrangle those big sheets 

by myself!

The swamp cooler is put away for the winter and the shelf is folded up and the door to the hose opening closed (actually two doors one inside the other).

Also made a draft stopper for the front door, since I can't install the door sweep until the electrical is done.

Buttoned up for the cold weather!

The ENVI heater is working great! I haven't needed to use a space heater since it came up to speed:)

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Heater!!!

It is getting into the 20's at night now, so time for some heat!

This is an ENVI convection heater. It is only temporary on this piece of particle board. Once the walls are finished, I will mount it permanently on a wall. They are only a few inches deep and are mounted 6 to 8 inches above the floor on a wall. No moving parts, the way they heat is as the air inside the heater warms, it rises and draws cold air inside from the floor. Won't heat your house fast, but will maintain heat well once it is warm.  Made to heat 150 sq. ft. it is perfect for my 144 sq. ft. THOW!

At about $140, it is very easy on the budget too!

Closet!

Decided for weight reasons, a portable closet is better suited to my THOW.

That's the Left side....

And here's the right hand side! It holds everything including shoes! I still need a few fabric bins to keep things neat.

But I now can adjust to the layout while I continue to build.

So Back to sandbagging and trying to get the last of the downstairs siding and windows installed. Then the upstairs exterior and windows and the inside can get started.

Fridge and Freezer!

I knew I wanted a chest freezer and a chest refrigerator. It is so much more efficient to not lose all your cold air every time you open the door! So I had been watching prices and looking at them. I decided the "convertible"  style at close to $900, were not an option for me! 
I wanted an Igloo, or Kenmore 5.1 cubic ft. freezers , two of them, that I could convert one, to a refrigerator.

They went on sale! I saved about $200, buying them now.
Converted one, by trading out the thermostat.

Here is the one that is now a fridge. The original dial is just decorative now, the digital numbers are the real thing.

The Freezer and Fridge are identical inside...

Except for the temperature! So now I am looking for wire bins to put food in to make accessing it easier. 

So when these go into the THOW, I can put them opposite each other and balance the weight evenly.

I found inexpensive cutting boards to cover each lid so they become usable counter space as well.

Next project.....closet!

El Nino is coming!

So, I have been sandbagging! Like crazy!

My big house and THOW are on the right side.....the torrents come through on the left side. I'm hoping this will keep them apart!

 You can see the big house, My THOW is just on the other side of the trees on the right and I hope to keep it that way! I have about 200 sandbags in place now, would like to add another 100 and hope things don't erode!

Safe and Sound!

Well, after returning from my volunteer work in Nevada to find I had been robbed of almost $1,000 worth of tools, supplies and some just oddball stuff, I realized I needed a security system for my THOW! 

But, how can I have a monitored system that isn't tied to a landline?

Found a system that works off cell service!  SimpliSafe is a new type of security system. So anywhere I might park my THOW, as long as there is cell service, I will be covered!

An added bonus is that I can install all the components myself! It is even cheaper to monitor per month than my regular system in my big house AND I can monitor it and turn it on or off from my cell phone!

So, here are my Co and Smoke detectors, protecting me while I sleep. Also working are the entry sensors, the motion detector, and the keypad. Not yet installed is the freeze alarm. That can wait until there is something inside that could be hurt by freezing. Keychain remote works well too.

I definitely feel safer.