The journey of a trailer

I gave my dad a tour of my tiny home.

My uncle checking out the lay of the land before backing up the trailer.

All ready to go!

It took a couple of tries to get the trailer into the driveway. I am impressed. I had to back the trailer up a couple of times when we were driving it back to Montreal and we only ever backed it up in as straight a line as possible and that was challenging, getting it to turn a corner… not something I was prepared to do. I have the best family ever!

Step one completed. The trailer is in the driveway and ready for the next step.

The first of 2 tight squeezes.

Detaching a hitch is its own special skill. I did the easy part, good friends helped with the rest.

Heave-ho!

Through the fence.

Down comes the vine. Thanks for that go to my brother for cutting down the vine and my mother for allowing her vine to be cut.

And the trailer is in the yard!

For a little perspective, here is Michelle and myself in front of the truck. It’s a big truck.

And so it begins…

On Tuesday, drove through a rainstorm, picked up a trailer, discovered how amazing bungee cargo netting is, was reminded that people can be truly wonderful, spent 15 hours in a pick up truck and arrived safely home.  It was an epic day.

It was great to spend the weekend in Prince Edward Island.  I got to visit my friends tiny house build, they have made wonderful progress in the month since I was last there.  Their plumbing and electrical are in, the house is insulated – they went with spray foam, the roof is on and ready for the installation of their Kimberley Wood stove (I am a little jealous).  We had a wonderful visit and I got to feed and help herd ducks into their nighttime home.  Ducks are very funny.

My beautiful home in Prince Edward Island.

My house in Charlottetown is now empty of my belongings and ready for someone else to make it their home.  It has not yet sold but am confident that it will.  I love that house, it’s about 850 sq feet, I am the third owner and it was built by its original owner just over 60 years ago.  It has character, is in a wonderful neighbourhood and is in pretty good shape, for a sixty year old.

Now, I am back in Montreal, my trailer is in my parents back yard, and construction can begin.  Getting the trailer into the back yard was an adventure in and of itself.  I have an uncle who was a reservist driver in the army in his youth and he graciously came over and backed the trailer into a neighbour’s driveway.  Once it was in the driveway, we unhitched the trailer, and with the help of a dolly and some good old-fashioned heave-ho, we pushed the trailer around my neighbour’s house and through a missing section of fence.  Once at the fence we had to cut down a vine that was up against the apple tree in my parents yard and then it was pushed into the yard.  Check out the next post for a photo diary of the trailer’s journey into the yard.

Today, I cleared out my storage unit, purchased the supplies to start building my house.  Tomorrow the build begins.

Getting ready to pick up my trailer

My trailer is ready and registered and Tuesday I pick it up and bring it back to Montreal.  Getting ready for the trailer is its own adventure.   I bought a trailer dolly, jacks, registered my trailer, have arranged to have the path to my construction site cleared and ready for the trailer to be moved in. I have read about backing up trailers and rented a truck.

My trailer needs a 2 5⧸16 ball on the hitch.  I bought my own trailer hitch, I know that I will need a hitch again in the future and now I won’t have to worry about having the hitch work with the trailer.  A bonus – the hitches were on sale at Canadian Tire.

The truck is actually hilarious.  It is far bigger than I need to tow the trailer back to Montreal, but it’s all the rental company had that accepts a trailer hitch. My 5’5″ self is driving a Super Duty Ford truck, with a huge antenna on the back.  During the drive to PEI we were higher up than all of the other pick up trucks. While packing the truck for the trip from Montreal to PEI, I went to step out of the back seat, misjudged the distance to the ground and ended falling out of the truck.  I didn’t hurt myself, but find myself on my back with my legs up in the air, one shoe went flying into the bushes behind me.  It was pretty funny.  So a word of warning to those who are considering renting a truck to move your tiny home, if you get a Super Duty Ford, the distance to the ground may be greater than you think.

My Super Duty Pick Up truck!