The Rustic "Temporary" Microhouse

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Go easy on the insulation. Loose encapsulated fiberglass baits can be removed, packed down in plastic bags (sit on them) and taken with you just fine, but in my experience, even a low fire in a small wood stove can cook you out of an insulated microhouse. To eliminate drafts, it is good to seal the crawlspace under the floor. Traditionally, old hay is stacked all around the sill for the winter then used as mulch in the garden. You can also tack on leftover boards or staple on black plastic garden mulch.

Rafters are most easily measured, cut, and prefabbed right on the ceiling boards you fastened to the ceiling joists. Lay out the pattern with a chalk line, giving the roof a high peak in snow country. Leave a good foot of rafter beyond the wall so your eaves have a nice overhang. An eaveless roof looks cheap, like a mad bomber's shack. A microhouse is economical or fugal, but not cheap; it won't be a shack if you take the time to finish it off carefully.

Cut rafters from 2 x 8s or 2 x 10s. Fashion the smaller boards into masses, paired in inverted Vs to be attached to the ridge board at the peak and with a cross—brace just under the peak and another partway down. Cut facing notches in the angled edge of rafter boards in the peak to accept the 2 x 6 ridge board, and cut birds-mouth notches where rafters fasten to the plate.

Mark rafter locations every 16 inches for plywood sheathing or corrugated roofing and every 24 inches for inch-thick board sheathing. Make all rafters identical and fabricate them into identical trusses. Cut your ridge board and mark the rafter locations on it. Raise rafters and ridge board starting with a pair in the center.

Tack the scrap boards across the rafters to keep them from collapsing. It makes for better holding to attach rafters to the house with screws and with hurricane straps (strips of tin that loop over each rafter and hold it to the floor at both eaves). You can buy them or make your own by cutting thin galvanized metal with tinsnips and punching screw holes with a hammer and nail.

The easiest roof is corrugated steel—the so-called tin roof—galvanized or in baked-on colors. Applied like giant shingles, overlapping sheets are fastened through pre-punched holes with deck screws to horizontal 2 x 4 gifts laid across unsheathed rafters, and the peak is capped with a V-shaped stamping. You can also put half-inch plywood or planks on rafters and apply roll roofing or tarpaper and shingles. In warm climates, many old-timers ran girts across the rafters every 12 inches or so, and attached overlapping slates or hand-split shingles to them.

I like to build on hills-as Thoreau did-and under the biggest tree I can find.

See the illustrations and use your own common sense to fabricate and assemble pieced frame members. All frames can be cut and assembled off-site if you have roads to truck them in on and a big strong work crew. To carry them by hand or to transport them in a garden cart, keep pieces as small as you can handle and assemble on-site with cordless drivers or electricity from a portable generator. The frame goes together like oversized Lego. Once again, if you're using deck screws instead of nails, you can disassemble and try again if you make a mistake.

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