It's green. Literally.

Elizabeth Turnbull's new home has been painted a pale green, with slightly darker green trim.

The color is appropriate because Turnbull's goal is to make her little house as green as possible — in the sense of environmentally friendly and energy efficient.

Turnbull, a 25-year-old Governor's Academy graduate, is building her own portable house, which she's dubbed her Tiny House, on a flat-bed trailer on the school's Byfield campus.

It's 18 feet long, 7 feet 4 inches wide, encompassing a total of 132 square feet of interior room. The sloping, shed-style roof is 13 feet 1 inch above the ground at its highest point.

She started the project in early June. Instead of finding an apartment in New Haven, Conn., later this summer when she enrolls in the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, she plans to live in the house for the two years she will be studying to earn a master's degree in environmental management.

In addition to building her house, Turnbull is also working this summer for a Beverly design-and-build company, O'Neil Fine Builders, as a sustainability coordinator, researching energy-efficient and environmentally friendly construction methods and materials, so she's using those ingredients in her project.

The house needs to be substantially completed by early August, before classes start at Yale. A brief visit to the job site at the academy's maintenance complex this week shows evidence of progress. In addition to the paint job, the door and windows have been installed, the interior has been insulated and work has begun on putting up the inside walls of lightweight particle board.

The building's materials are a combination of new and used, purchased, donated and found.

"It has definitely come together in a wonderful but patchwork way," Turnbull said.

During the construction, she has held a series of work-and-party weekends for anyone who wants to show up and help. On a recent Saturday, about a half dozen people were doing various jobs.

Zack Manke was wiring the main electrical box before the installation of the three solar panels that will provide the house's power. Andy Vecchione and Carlyn Johnson, both of Newburyport, were attaching sections of the exterior wall, and Diane Houle of Amesbury was painting trim boards.

None of them knew Turnbull before they read a newspaper story about her project and decided to pitch in.

"It's really cool, watching it evolve," said Johnson, whose day job is working for a North Andover solar installation company called Nexamp.

"I always wanted to live in a tiny house myself," Houle said. "I love the idea of living in a small space. We should all be downsizing instead of going the McMansion route."

The making of Tiny House

This is the fourth in a series of stories on the Tiny House. The Daily News is following the progress of Elizabeth Turnbull and her green house until August when she and her new home leave for Yale University in Connecticut, where she will begin her graduate studies.

For more on Turnbull's project, check out her blog at www.turnbulltinyhouse.blogspot.com.