Drewminutive - tiny dwellings and adventures: Trailer Destruction

Trailer Destruction - the beginning

The humble start to the creation of a trailer based Vardo -

a.k.a. what am I getting myself into right after the first freeze of the year...

I've had for several years a 4.5'x8' convertible utility trailer that tilts and extends out to 4.5'x12' sitting there in my yard getting very bored. It's served a useful life from hauling landscaping materials, lumber, two large oak church pews from New Jersey to New Hampshire, two marble topped cabinets from my parental units, even several motorcycles from time to time. Lately it's just been just collecting branches and other yard waste as I clean up overgrowth and broken limbs and such.

Since this year I had decided to follow my interest in small/tiny houses, the concept and previous plans for creating a Vardo finally came back to the forefront of my mind. I figure it was a good start to get my feet wet with tiny homes. I've own a not so tiny 1897 Victorian that I currently live in situated in the middle of the largest city in New Hampshire. My lot is 50' x 100' and contains my home, two car garage and two car parking pad.

So after researching many different options for Vardo designs I settled on P.A.D.'s Don Vardo plan available here - Don Vardo plans

The reason I chose that one in particular was the construction techniques used. It's designed in a lot of ways how one would actually build a well insulated home that includes electrical and heat. I also love the engineered beams used for the roof support. I'm not going to follow the plans completely but will modify my trailer, the structure and look to fit into my ideal in my head. The end result will be a trailered Vardo that is single axle, under the 8.5' width limit according to US DOT rules, and about 10' in length. As a result of extending the width of my existing trailer I will be beefing up the actual frame as well as upgrading the axle to a 3500 lb wider axle. I've started the research on trailer axle kits and frame options and will talk about that in a later post.

So, as I move forward I will attempt to document the process as much as I can in photographs, drawings, sketches and anything else I can produce. As a short background on me - I've done everything from basic framing, electrical, plumbing, heating, roofing, tiling, painting, welding... and so on. I don't feel that anything will be out of my realm of skills to complete safely or within a reasonable time. I've not set a time limit for completion of the project since I've got enough on my plate with current home maintenance and my work at my actual job.

At the start of next month I'm attending Deek's Tiny House Building workshop where I plan on finding more ideas and get to discuss a lot of things before really diving in to my project. Info on the workshop is here - Tiny House Building Workshop #3. In the meantime - here's a few pics of my trailer as I broke it down to its core components.