The following is a guest post by: Derek “Deek” Diedricksen
Hey all, I just wanted to share with you a few photos of a translucent wall I built in a three-season tiny cabin on wheels, that I’ve dubbed “The Light Box”, for obvious reason. By doubling a layer of this white Tuftex roofing, and leaving an air void in between, I could effectively create a somewhat insulated wall, but for my purposes, I don’t yet need that. Also keep in mind, small spaces are VERY EASY to heat, and this cabin, without the loft, is only 45 square feet in size- TINY!
Anyway, this is the front wall/window (very cost effective) of a tiny house we worked on at last months’s Relaxshacks.com Tiny House Building Workshop in MA that I hosted (we have another HANDS-ON one coming up in North Carolina too, which I’ll mention below). The overall idea was to make this front wall almost art-like at night when illuminated, and the reverse during the day, when light came into the small space and lit the interior. The roofing is affixed to a 2by6 frame (the supports also serve as a ladder to the loft) with hex-head, neoprene-washer, screws, and they’re beyond easy to drive. I’ve never seen a “light box” wall like this before, but was inspired to try it out after I used this type white poly roofing on an A-frame shelter/tree house I recently built for an upcoming DIY Network show that I’m now hosting, designing-for, and building for. I’ve also been very busy sketching, designing, and building, for an upcoming follow-up to my book “Humble Homes, Simple Shacks“- if you have cabins, forts, tree houses, tiny houses, or playhouses that you built, or photographed, I’d love to see them and possibly include them in the book- [email protected].
Anyway, the wall has worked out, and I like it so much that I plan on using this same approach on a tree house I’ll be building for someone down the road. With a material this light, in tree house applications, you can actually pre-build entire wall sections of your project, and then single-handedly hoist them up to you platform. This saves a ton of time, not to mention avoids some dangerous aerial work.
As for the other workshop….. April 26th-28th – Wilmington, North Carolina – Three Days of HANDS-ON building, guest speakers, a trip to a tiny house most likely, demos, campfire discussions, and much MORE! www.Relaxshacks.com has all the sign-up details. We’ll also film some of this build for Make Magazine and my youtube show “Tiny Yellow House”.
Steven Harrell of TinyHouseListings.com and TinyHouseSwoon.com is also co-hosting this event….AND We just added tiny house dweller/builder Laura LaVoie as one of our guest speakers (MANY more to come!).
We’ll all be building a small 100 square foot guest cottage together, and trying some new, funky, unusual, and daring designs and approaches- I can’t wait! Click HERE for workshop sign-up info.
