Good day all. I want to share with you a Tiny House on the Prairie. Yes I was/am a “Little House on the Prairie” nerd….
2019 we purchased a 12 acre piece of my old home place, where I grew up. At the time we were not quite at a place financially to move out there fulltime, so we thought we could put an office and barn out there till we figured it out.
Then we bought the “Beast” our UTV to putter
around in, and little Nellie our John Deere tractor to plant a garden and work on creating a driveway.
We started with a 32 foot x 12 foot shed and over several weekends we transformed it from an empty basic shed into a cozy retreat. We had some help getting the electricity hooked up and spray foam insulation installed but the rest of it we did ourselves. I am very proud of how it has turned out so far still have some tweaks to make and looking for a couple of pieces to add to it but thought I would share it with you and you can follow along as I finish it over the next few months/years.
First things first, we set the house up to look out over the “buffalo wallow” to the West of our property so we could enjoy the sunset. West Texas is flat land without many trees, mostly farmland for as far as you can see, the one thing that we have that is amazing is the view of the sunset and sunrise. As I am not always up and going at sunrise, we choose to face the house and build the deck so that we could enjoy our evenings.
Next we had to paint, inside and out. The exterior color was horrid so got that done first. Chose a flat white with black trim and a red door. Love the contrast and just a pop of color.
The inside was more challenging, as we had sprayed the foam insulation and it was yellow, which would had to be painted to get the look I wanted. Painting the foam black took a lot of time and was very messy 😉, but had to be done.
You see I did not really want to do anything to the ceiling I
just wanted it to disappear, so using flat black ( paint that would “catch” the light) I was able to have a ceiling that once I got everything else done it would not be noticed.
I also needed flat black on the walls so that once I covered them in the old/used fence pickets nothing would show through the cracks. This is important because there is nothing more annoying than looking at your amazing feature wall and seeing yellow pine or white from the studs/wall behind it through the cracks. If painted in a flat color either black or the color you are going to paint the planks, the cracks between the pickets/planks disappear and all you see is your amazing wall.
Believe me I know this from experience, we put up some wood planks on a wall in our current house and I did not know this trick and when I sit at our dining table I see this….. Most people do not even notice it, it is small, but it drives me crazy…short trip I know but still!
Once the ceiling and walls were painted, I bought a Ryobi battery operated brad tacker/nail gun (best thing ever), and enough new 6-inch-wide fence pickets to lay around the bottom edge like baseboards so that I could start with a level base.
The baseboard pickets were the only new pickets used, all other pickets were scavenged, or begged for (budget friendly😊), thus the multicolored pieces noted in the picture …. I did paint a few of them to add some variation, but the red and the white ones shown in the kitchen picture below, came that way. I love the way it turned out.
The back wall where we would be putting our bed, I wanted to be a little different and white to show off the black iron bed I wanted to get. I have always wanted to try German smear on a faux brick paneling, so that is what I did, and it turned out amazing!!!
As I did this work prior to starting this blog, I will be showing you more details on how you can do each piece of this renovation over the next few months but couldn’t wait to share, what I have done so far with you.
Next was the floor, this is a wooden shed on skids, so the floor is just plywood but is in good condition and sealed well. After going back and forth about what we wanted to do with the floor we choose “no” flooring, meaning I would just paint the floor. I did this in layers, first using a paint made for the floor, a white primer, then a flat black (left over from the walls), then the final coat I choose a gray flooring/garage paint. My hope over time is that as the floor wears the black will peek through.
I wanted to distinguish the kitchen area just a bit, I did this by stenciling in a black and white pattern over the gray floor I just painted. The contrast turned out perfectly.
And don’t you just love my blue enamel bowl sink!!!
In the bedroom area I wanted a colorful rug that was durable as the Tiny House is in the middle of farmland and it had to be dog friendly. I started looking at indoor/outdoor rugs and was pleasantly surprised at the variety and color they now come in, I found this a colorful indoor/outdoor rug at Wayfair, and it was a perfect fit, size and color wise.
Oh and somewhere along the way we built a deck, and worked with some college kids that wanted to practice their welding skills to build a cover so we would have shade from the hot Texas sun…. going to be 104 today!!!!
They seem to have done a good job it has not sailed away in the West Texas wind yet!!!
I finally after much research found the bed frame for my space, doesn’t it look great against my faux brick wall? Add the perfect comforter I found on Amazon to go with the clearance pillows I got at Dillard’s a few years ago. The touch of red in the pillows pulls everything together, the red from the walls, the rug and the kitchen retro refrigerator and microwave all together…
This might not be to everyone’s taste, but I find it cozy and peaceful.
I still have some work to do to finish the walls in the bathroom and I think I may do some stenciling on the floor in there as well. Hope you come back to see the DIY how to’s and to see how it looks when it is finally finished.
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