Moving Our Tiny Home For the First Time
So we officially have moved Tiffany for the first time since moving in and making this lifestyle change.
It takes some prep work to move our tiny home. It's not just hook a truck up and go, but we kinda like that.
First, we needed to get Tiffany off the cinder blocks she sits on for a solid stabilization. This seems a lot more intimidating than it actually is. Since our tongue jack is not rated for the complete weight of the house, we needed to buy a heavy floor jack. So after asking Hugo the best place to find one he mentioned one of my favorite stores, Harbor Freight. I love a good deal. Using a heavy floor jack to accomplish this, I feel, is easier. I can tuck it under the steel frame of the trailer into whatever corner of the home I am trying to slip out the cinder block from and vice versa. Crank the jack-up just enough to slip the cinder blocks out and let her down slowly. Simple and honestly less muscle work. But I also now have a heavy floor jack for the truck and the local Tacoma crew. Win-win!
After getting the blocks out next was unhooking the water, sewage, and electricity. Pretty straightforward, just like a standard RV.
On a side note, we did need to change out our plumbing. Originally Tiffany came with a really nice composite toilet but that was not happening in Sam's world and for health codes. So before we moved in we had Adam change it to normal flush. Everything would have worked pretty smoothly but the way we parked the home it made the septic tanks on the opposite end of the home so a U shape 3-inch pipe fitting and 6 feet of piping were used to solve this issue. In order to transport it without that dragging, we needed to redo it to make more sense for mobility. We did this by rerouting our toilet pipe into our main pipe along with our sink. The stinky slinky connection is in the middle so no matter what side the septic tank is on, it would be able to reach it with no major issues. Luckily I had some help from a full-timer on the campground. One of the benefits we cover in our other article, "Living In An RV Park"
Next, we checked tire pressure and made sure all our cords and things were unplugged so it wouldn't get whipped around during transit. After that, we put our new license plate on 😍 and some tail lights which was a simple snap of two wires for power. These are hooked on by two screws so they are removable when not on the road and make the house more aesthetically pleasing.
Locked down our propane tanks and the outside ready to rock and roll!
Finally, the inside needed some adjusting for the movement.
First, we took all our shower things and put them in a box. There are too many bottles and razors to be moving around. We left the tub the way it is since we put our plants in there so they didn't move around and tip over the dirt all over the house. (Oliver already knocked one down once)
Lastly, in the bathroom, we taped the toilet seat down so the lid would not fly up and down on bumps. The bathroom was pretty much set now.
Next were the walls and cabinets. We took down the pictures and hanging stuff for obvious reasons. Tucked some of it under the bench with some pillows on top with a Buddha statue I received as a gift in college, thanks Mel and Ronnie! We took our ottomans from the bench and put them next to the stairs so that held the bookshelves drawers from opening.
Grabbed some child locks for cabinet doors while traveling just in case. I did find out that they do make some for the inside of the cabinet which would be more aesthetically appealing but already stuck these! We'll be able to pull these off if need be and use command strips on the back.
From there we packed up the bookcase items like books and trinkets we have from special moments. All this plus a couple of other things like the boomerang and a Buddha head all fit in one box. We had a total of two boxes that fit in the truck that we removed from the home.
After going through our things to see what we might need to rearrange or pull out during transportation we realized we can purge a bit of some thing. Mainly shower items.
Packing it wasn't too terrible. It took a little time but being our first time all went well. No broken or very shifty things.
-Tim
PS. We used Tims Transportation Services and couldn't recommend him enough! He has pulled plenty of tiny homes and knows how to give your home the TLC it needs. I feel safe with him. 561-578-2101.
