Beating the MONSOONS: Our Lavacrete Lodge Gets a DOOR & WINDOWS!

For the last month, we've been hard at work building the roof structure on our Hyper Adobe roundhouse. But with monsoons quickly approaching, it's time to turn our attention back to the Lava Creek Utility Lodge to get it dried in. Today, we install the door windows and take some time to tidy up and plant the Lava Creek garden beds. All right. We are taking a small side quest from the roundhouse, and we are going to dry in the Lava Creek Utility Lodge. Monsoon is quickly approaching, and we want to make sure that we don't have rain just coming in through these windows and door opening because our rain goes sideways here. So we've never done this before. We've never had to put in windows and doors in a masonry style structure. So we have a lot to learn, and we're going to figure it out as we go. Here's the thing. When you put in a masonry window, usually you buy one without flanges because the flange is made to screw into wood. In this case, the openings are the exact size of these windows. We could have spent more money and bought masonry windows, but you can also just buy regular ones and cut the flange off. And it's cheaper. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to just take a utility knife, snap these off, and then we're going to test it. Yes, it's obviously too small somewhere, and I can see it's going to hit basically all the way down the middle on each side. And then it looks to me like we're going to have problems in the corner, but it's hard to tell. The other one, hold on. Didn't we put the other one in from the outside? Let's try that, because remember, it was bigger on the outside. Yeah, that's way too tight. I'm heading flange out here. That's an awful lot to grind off. More room on this side. We had it in here just in the room here. It's like you need to get the edge of everything. To me, it looks like up here. Firing lava creep bullets at the roof. Let's try that. We're closer to the bottom. Right here where this gray point is, you're hitting, but it looks like it'll clear on down until the very bottom gray part. But this section here, ninth time's a charm. Who built these window forms? Good windows in the roundhouse is going to be so much easier. Yeah. It's like the top three. Oh, my God. It's great. Perfect. Cool. Right. This one's got to probably have a lot of work, but we need to come in and cut it. It's definitely way easier than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, I was worried about it being really easy to, like, mess up. Well, I was afraid, like, I didn't know how it was put together. So if you cut it, like, is it going to mess up the gas in there? You know, no, it doesn't look OK. Let's get farms. I'm OK. I mean, yeah, right. Too good to be true. So it's definitely hitting the top. It looks like it's not bad. It's not as bad as I know. Well, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Man, this is such a nice edge, too. I hate to take it out. Is it going? It looks pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad. All right. Well, actually went pretty well. Just had to do a little grinding and adjusting. But yeah, basically, the way you want to do this is you get them in and you spray foam around the edges and fill the gaps. And then we'll have to trim that foam away and come back and caulk the outside. And we might even do some concrete anchor screws into the frame just to hold it in place. But yeah, definitely a different way of installing windows than how we usually do it into a wood frame. I will say, I think I just prefer putting them to wood frames. But, you know, they're in still got a lot of work to do. And then, of course, the door, which I'm not looking forward to, definitely going to be a little more complicated. We'll cross that road when we get to it. I will say, though, I do like because we were originally going to like put these things flush with the outside of the building. But I really like the way you can feel the depth of these openings. And so I'm glad that we decided to inset these a little bit so that you can still feel that like blockiness of the structure. I wish we could deal with the door, but I don't think we can. I don't know. We'll have to we'll have to play around with it and see. But anyway, Ashley's got some stuff to do. I got some stuff to do. We're going to let this foam kind of cure a little bit, and then we're going to come back out later and see where we go from here. We have been going nonstop for far too long. So I'm so thankful that today's video sponsor is Birch Living. That way I can tell you all about our mattress while laying down. I don't even know how many times a week I just come in here and plop down on this mattress under the fan and just breathe. It is such a relaxing place to be during the most stressful time of our lives. And you guys have heard us talk about this mattress over and over again. We've had it for a little over a year, and we still look forward to going to bed every single night because we know we're going to get a good night's rest. Birch Living makes fiberglass free mattresses that are crafted with natural and organic materials. They're free from polyurethane foams, which can cause harmful off gassing. And because it's made with premium materials, they are breathable. The wool and the natural latex allow for increased airflow, keeping you cool and comfortable all night, which is very important when you sleep next to a real live heater every single night. And every Birch mattress is made for all sleeping positions. So whether you're a side sleeper like me or a stomach and back sleeper like Jonathan, you know that you're going to wake up refreshed every single morning. We really do love Birch Living, and we are so thankful to have them as a sponsor here on the tiny, shiny homestead. Right now, they are having a 4th of July sale where you can get 20% off now until July 12th. Don't wait for better sleep to just magically happen. Make it happen with a Birch Living mattress. Now you can scan this QR code or visit the link below or in the description of this video to save today. Don't forget, it's the 4th of July, so 20% off of your purchase now through July 12th. Thank you, Birch Living, for sponsoring today's video. Now, let's get back to work after a nap. Come way up right there on that side. Now the other side, push the bottom. OK, that's pretty close right there. You got to let your top come way back. All right. So that looks good that way. Surprisingly, it looks good that way. To install the door, we used four inch masonry tapcons pre-drilled with the bit that it came with. We did find that a hammer drill pulverizes the material a little too much and makes the hole a little too big. So we just use a regular drill. All right, I'm going to put the last one in on this side and then we can shim the other side. Counter sunk on the frame and then we screwed it in. This held super tight and we're really happy with the result. Good morning. Today, we're still working over at the Lava Creek Lodge. I have been trying to fill up those garden beds with a five gallon bucket. And let me just tell you, it doesn't go quickly at all. It's a lot to fill in. So we borrowed our friend's tractor. Thank you so much to Jim and Pam for letting us borrow it. And we are going to try to get those filled up today. Like I want to be done with this project. I want to wrap it up. We got the door and the windows already installed. I plan on doing some trim work like with the caulking. Hopefully tonight we need to stain some trim that's going to go up on it. There's a lot to do. But first, let's try to get this garden bed filled up, at least with halfway with our native soil. Then I'm going to run down to get some composted cow manure. Then I'm going to top it with really good soil. So busy day. Let's get started. Jonathan just sent me a text and was like, hey, before you fill up those beds, Adelaide really wanted to make sure that we could put some kind of conduit in there for a hoop, for shade, for overwintering vegetables. But I just did a little bit of research and we'll be able to stick those in to the soil. No problem. So I'm just going to keep filling and continue working in this heat before it gets miserable. I'll nicely I'll probably keep working all day because there's a lot to do. But just now I'm complaining in my head. OK, so the garden beds are filled a little over halfway. So I'm going to go get a load of water because I think it'll be easier to do. I just think it'll be easier to do that than stringing out a bunch of hoses, trying to get it here. I'll be able to fill it a lot faster, like drench it with water using my one inch hose instead of the garden hose. So I think this will just be faster. We'll see. All right. Well, we got that garden bed completely saturated. We put probably 75 gallons of water in that it's standing. Hopefully that'll soak down. My goal is because we filled so much of that bed with limbs and stumps and a lot of heavy material, and then we put our sandy soil on top. I'm hoping that the water kind of like moves that dirt down and shifts it around to where fill in a little bit of those holes. The problem now is I still have 250 gallons plus in my tank that I need to have the bed free to where I can go get cow manure. So I got to go empty that in another tank, get it out of the bed. I can go get the cow manure or all the cow manure and then put the tank back in. Go get another load of water. Do the same thing. Get the tank out of the truck. Get top soil. It's going to be a long day. Oh, hey there. While Ashley is on her side quest of filling up the Lava Creek garden beds, I got to deal with this behind me. So I'm going to explain what's going on. We talked about how much we like Lava Creek. However, there is one thing that we have found that we do not like about this scoria or cinder sand is that it is not good for your animals. And so Trona, one of our great Pyrenees, she loves to roll around in this stuff, probably because it's cooler and it feels good and it's got a different texture. However, all that lava dust, it really messes with her, right? She has had a lot of eye problems, like her eyes get all red and goopy and swollen when she plays in it. Sometimes she'll throw up. Sometimes she has diarrhea. Obviously, it's not good long term. While we had the big pile, there wasn't much we could do about it. Basically, we had sort of a suspicion that this is what was causing her weird issues. So we covered it up with this piece of plastic that we had gotten when Wilcox Rock was in the concrete pad over at the Lava Creek building. And as you can see, we just kind of threw whatever we had on it, pallets and shovels and buckets, and it looks like a freaking trash heap. It looks awful. Our wind is crazy here, and it just ripped it the other day just out of nowhere. So we can't use this anymore. Really, the wind is the big issue, because even if your thing doesn't rip, you have to be able to hold it down on all sides. And it's a big area to hold down. So as you can see, we just grabbed whatever we could. That didn't work. So I have gotten a big tarp, a big heavy duty tarp. And then I got a bunch of these little mini auger stakes. And I'm going to go through all the grommets. I'm going to try to hold this thing down. And we'll have a good test the next couple of days because we've got some serious wind coming in. Anyway, if you're going to be storing scoria sand, especially this fine grain stuff on your property and you have dogs and animals, definitely cover it to keep them out of it because it's not good for them long term. It's not good for people either, but that's only when you're messing with it. And I'm imagining that you're not rolling around in it like Trona was probably. But she, you know, she's she really likes to do that kind of stuff. So we're going to try to get this covered up. I'm going to clean up this mess with the new tarp down and and try to get it secured for our crazy winds. OK, you can see we still have our original tarp laid down. That kind of helped us separate the red material from the black material. I'm going to leave that there just in case we want to have that flexibility in the future. And I'm going to try to cover the rest of it with this bad boy. Wish me luck. It's got a little bit on the edge here. It's just a little too wide for both sides. I'm going to push some of this in. That way we can get it all under the tarp. All right. All right. Now we just got to get it tacked down before the wind comes. All right. I'm going to want that a little lower. I think it seems like a good system. You put it in and then put that little grommet on top to hold it down. Well, that was way harder than it looked like it was going to be. And I thought I ordered 30 little loggers and I only ordered 20. So I had to really space them out on that side. I ordered some more. I would say they're OK. They're made out of aluminum, so they're really lightweight, which is good for transporting. But the tips broke off really easily in our sand. I had to pull a few up and then try to replace them. Getting it to go in exactly the right spot is really hard because it hits that dirt and it bounces all around. And then you got to try to pull and stretch it and get that little grommet through to the threaded piece. I really shouldn't be this tired, but I'm exhausted. I'm going to go get something to drink and cool off for a little bit. But I think, well, I hope that this will stay. Like, I think this is obviously going to keep Tron out of it. But the question is, will it stay in the winds? We'll find out. Good morning. It is like 530 and I just got up and I was like, hey, this is a great morning to go ahead and caulk the windows. It's like really cool. We didn't get rain last night, but a lot of people around us did. So everything is like cooled off and it feels really amazing. So this is the perfect time to do this. I'm going to actually tape off so that they have a really clean line because that really bothers me if the caulk is like really messy. So we're going to tape these up and get them ready for caulking. I don't know if you can hear it, but the birds this morning are going crazy. It's going to be really hard to get a clean line because the lava creek is so porous. It's really hard to tape off. It feels like it's going to go under the tape. Maybe it takes like a lot of extra time to do it this way. But it'd be good if I can get these two windows taped off since they're on the west side. This is a caulk that I have not used before, but it was recommended to us. So quad max OSI. It's supposed to be a lot better sealant. We'll see. I hate doing this because I never make it look new. But I'm going to try. Do you think that's the way to go? Do the vinyl first, because then you can smooth it out on the actual window frame. That way it gets a good seal on the vinyl. Smooth it out and then pull off the exterior tape. I know that in all the videos I watched on doing this, that they didn't have it all over them. But here we are. That's annoying, but on the screen, that's what I was afraid of. This one looks better. This part that is annoying, because when you go back after you've taken the exterior tape off and smooth it, it just it's all in those cracks and it looks terrible. This is what I was talking about, like how it's just really hard to get in those cracks. When doing any of this detail work, one thing I really got to remember is most people aren't going to be standing up close looking at the caulking job. So it's going to be fine. Eventually, there's going to be a retaining wall here anyway. So you're never going to get close to that. The most important thing is that it's sealed and it's watertight now. So let the monsoons begin. All right. Seven o'clock. So I got to get to the place to go load up the truck with garden bed soil. Then we can finish this project. I feel like it's just lingered for so long. I will be probably caulking the window and door tonight, but you know, it might not make it in this video. Just know it's getting done. There's a lot to do today. So onward, seven o'clock. I'm making it on time. I must stay true. But girl, welcome to the garage that I wish was a shipping container. Today, we are we have one more thing that we really need to finish on these garden bed projects, which is to create shade and protection for the seeds. Adelaide really wants to do a lot of seeds. We did get some plants, but she wants to plant seeds and the birds here come and get them. So we need to make some arch forms. So they're called. I don't know. We need to make some low tunnel supports that we can put shade cloth on bird netting, whatever the season is. We need to be able to cover it when we need to. So I'm going to make a way to bend our half inch E.M.T. pipes. Ready? You know, you can buy pipe bender jigs that are metal or you can use scrap pieces of plywood and not spend a couple of hundred dollars. So that's what we're doing. I spent a total of zero dollars to build that. So I don't know how tall we want these to be and bend them up and get them in the garden. How does the math work on that? You're going to find out with me. OK. OK. Each of these E.M.T. pieces are half inch, but they're 10 foot long. So we're going to measure up 40 inches from each side. And that's where we're going to begin to bend our two foot arch. Does that make sense? This is roughly 39 inches from this point all the way here. So it's 120 minus 39. It's roughly going to be about should be 40 and a half, but we're going to go 40 inches. So we ran into a little snag. We started to think about the wind issue we have with shade. You remember the whole idea we had at the Airstream and how it blew it everywhere? And we got to worrying about the whole thing getting lifted up during a big wind event. So we sort of pulled everything off and we paused for a minute and we found some plumbing strap and some concrete anchors concreted each pole into the side of the lava creek. Makes a really good, super strong structure. We just weren't connected to it. So now we are. So now we're going to attempt putting the shade cloth on again. We spent a whole lot of time on the shade of this garden only to hate the way it turned out. Sometimes things just don't work out the way you envision them. And that is the case for this shade. But we have a house to build. So you know what? That is what it is. The shade is going to be up for the summer and we'll find a better solution another time. So this morning, we're going to go ahead and get the plants in the ground because we've got a nice selection of herbs that need to be planted. So let's get those in the ground. And then we'll worry about the shade solution another day. I know. Is all I ever want. Is you. Call your name. Fill the space. Evergreen is a color that never fades away. So why don't you leave? Is all I ever want. Is you. Do you feel it? Tumbling in your life. It's like a world of change. Tumbling and I get confused. All I ever want. Is you. All I ever want. Is you. Psst. Hey, if you're still here, we need to talk about fall events on the tiny, shiny homestead. So if you are bummed that you missed the Lava Creek build or the Hyper Adobe roof or the Lava Creek garden beds or the Hyper Adobe wall or the Hyper Adobe bench or the Hyper Adobe planters, well, you're in luck. We are planning the rest of the events for 2026, but we need your help. We need to know what events you want to come to because we can only do so many. So over at tinyshinyhome.com slash events, we have a poll. We have a whole list of events that we're thinking about doing. We want to know which ones you would be the most interested in coming to. You can go there and fill it out. It'll just take a few seconds. We would really appreciate it, and it will help us design and plan the events that most of you want to come to this fall or maybe even later this summer. I don't know, guys. We have a lot of interesting things we're going to be working on the rest of this year, and we can't wait to see you all. So remember, tinyshinyhome.com slash events. Fill out that poll, and hopefully we'll see you soon.