Building my tiny house: Sheathing the walls

In my last post, I shared how we framed the roof. It was a completely new experience for me: dealing with mostly 2x6s, lots of angle cuts, and working predominantly on ladders. For my latest project, it was more new experiences! The A-Team sheathed the walls with OSB sheathing with a radiant barrier.

The reason I opted for the radiant barrier OSB is because the tiny house is small, and this seemed like a good way to get some extra control with controlling the climate in the home. The radiant barrier is supposed to repel the sun. Since a lot of the siding and roofing materials will be black metal, this seemed like a good choice.

We bought the first round of sheathing before we finished framing the roof. We purchased around 30 sheets. We did a second trip and bought 16 more. I feel like I’ve been to Home Depot as many times as I’ve been to H-E-B!

When applying the radiant barrier OSB, the manufacturer recommends installing the shiny side facing out on the siding and facing down on the roof. Having the shiny side facing out made home look like a Tesla Cybertruck. It’s… a vibe.

These sheets of plywood are not light and you definitely needed two people to properly move a sheet around. We started in the bottom corner of the front wall (the wall with the front door). We used A LOT of framing nails. During this project I got much more comfortable with the nail gun.

Once we installed a layer, we put in spacer nails to create a 1/8″ gap that the manufacturer also recommended. The higher we went up the house, the harder it was. Again, these plywood sheets are not light. It took us a whole day to get about 1/2 of the walls done.

We sheathed right over the windows, figuring we can cut them out when we’re ready to install windows. Our initial goal is to waterproof the house. This made things a little easier as far as measuring and cutting the OSB sheets. We did need at least one way to get in, so we did measure and cut around the door. Doug had a smart idea of putting up a sheet of plywood, tracing where the door was, and then cutting it out. Worked like a charm.

During the first day, it was super cold. Thankfully, Debby made us tea, and we had a tea party in my “living room.”

On the next working day, we needed to be able to reach the higher sections of the house. Luckily, Doug has a scaffolding set that we were able to use.

The wall underneath the gooseneck was probably the hardest part. The way the trailer bends up meant we had no wiggle room in getting a piece of OSB to fit. When we framed the house, we ensured there was a 1/2″ space to make room for the OSB, but it was a snug fit that needed a hammer and lots of patience to get in.

Once the walls were sheathed, we needed to add eaves. This has to happen before the roof sheathing because those pieces of OSB would lay on top of the eaves. These were a HUGE pain to deal with. We tried to get 2x4s that were straight, but Phil and Doug spent a lot of time ensuring they were even with the roof. Lots of screws. Lots of cutting. Lots of time spent on this painstaking activity. This day was not a fun day. Granted, I had a lot of time to play with all the dogs while Phil and Doug were working on this. I appreciate them 1,000,000% for their due diligence and attention to detail.

Overall, this was not my favorite project, but I’m glad I got to learn and experience it. I’m definitely glad it’s over. 😉 Up next is sheathing the roof and adding roofing paper and Tyvek house wrap to ensure the house is waterproof.

Thanks for joining me on this journey! Till next time…