I Wish I Could Tell You It’s Boring, But It Is Not

By now you all pretty much know we moved out into the woods. When the journey began, we were not prepared for the transition. But we have survived and made a list of things that have to be done before the next winter. The list of just the basic needs that need to be completed is rather long.

Build a fence around the house and house landing to deter both the wild animals and the hunters from coming nearby. This has been fun so far, but the bear is coming too close for comfort. It is lazy so the fence will do its job.

Build fifteen storage boxes for firewood big enough to hold a harsh winters worth of burnable wood. I found a really cool example right in Spokane and got a good picture for reference. We are still collecting pallets and instead of stacking the wood two story, we will build a linear group of boxes that double for the fence along the road.

Cut all the curing wood, split, spray to deter bugs, and stack in the boxes. Build one more dry storage unit eight foot by eight foot with metal roof.

Save enough over the next five months to purchase 170 feet of ten gauge wire so we can plug in the thirty amp service to the tiny house. This will allow us to get a real refrigerator as well as wire up two of the rooms in the house for heat. We of course have learned to live a bit colder, but keeping the house at a cozy 50 degrees when it is freezing outside will keep the house from shrinking and expanding too much, as well as reduce costs. Electricity is the least expensive way to heat a house if one does not have free wood laying around to burn all winter long. Even with our huge stacks of wood this last year, we had to buy wood. Our stacks were green and everyone knows, you don’t burn green wood. It causes creosote to build in the smoke stack and that can cause a chimney fire. At the same time, one has to monitor a wood stove to keep a constant temperature, which keeps me home too much for my taste. I do like to get out and get some work done. At some point we will have the internet come right into the house, once we actually get a feeder box and all the Romex and such. For now though, I still have to hang out at the nearest wifi café to get work done.

Finish the bathroom. We of course built an RV style bathroom to get us by, but now we need to finish the walls of the real bathroom. With all my story telling, I decided not to tell the story about the most recent bathroom snake. Of course all you construction type people will think I mean one that clears out the pipes, when in fact, this one had rattles on the end of its tail and it cleared out the RV bathroom until my neighbor just happened to drop by while I was still outside screaming at the snake. The finished bathroom will have walls.  It will still be RV style, but with a great deal more style. It will actually look like a real bathroom too. The body has not waited but the mind has and I will be so much happier to have a bathroom that actually looks like a real bathroom and keeps out snakes.

Finish the kitchenette. We were recently blessed with one of those Pro Plus Nuwave cookers. Instead of worrying about a burner stove, I have gotten out my cookbook mind, dusted off the cover and thought of all the things I could do with this cooker. I do not believe we will need a stove in this house. This cooker will do it all, including boil water. What else do we need but a sink, that the kitchenette needs. Plus a counter top and a cupboard or two to keep the dust off the dishes.

Move the road. This one of course will take a year. We have measured and we have more ground to cover than we thought, it is just under 300 feet. I have completed eight 16 foot wide linear feet of the road so far. I know, it does not sound like much, but when you use a shovel, and half of your body does not work so well, it does take time. It’s worth the pain though, for the peace and quiet will be wonderful. The lack of annoying neighbors will also be a treat. Some things are worth working towards.

Mind you, this list is just to keep us comfortable if this next winter is a hard and long one as we are anticipating. It is by no means the whole list of necessities most people assume come with renting a house or apartment, we aren’t doing that, we are building hearth and home from scratch. It is a much longer list. It is a juggle to decide what has to come first. Electricity to the pole came first now the rest of the needs most people live with without thinking how the services and such actually got in the house, are in saving and planning stage. They move in, they call the service companies and within a few days the service is turned on. Not out here, everything has to be built in before we call any service company. I swear the next time someone says just call xyz and they will come out and turn it on I think I’m going to hand them a shovel and get my whip out. You know what will come next. Har, har.

Phone, water, sewage, garbage service, plumbing for the soon to be finished bathroom. Then there are the hard surfaces that help to keep out the mud and dirt. The pathways from where we park to the front door. Wood? Or will we do cement? It all depends on what I can find for materials. Free is preferred. But of course there is no such thing as free, there is the cost of gas, as well as effort and time. These too have to be factored into the gleaning process.

Then there is the road to be moved. Every day, I take my shovel and bucket and move about 50 shovelfuls of dirt here and there in anticipation of building needs, even in this mild winter I had to use a long pick to break up the frozen earth to continue with my everyday goal. To move the road, it is going to take a lot of shovelfuls.  

Take that necessity, water. There is no such thing as running water out here; it’s not even walking, we are still carrying it to and fro. We have however witched the land and know where the well should be situated to get fantastic running water. Now one of the goals is to save for this need. To dig a well one must get a permit, the witching should have been done, you know where the well will go and then the process can begin. In theory anyway. Beginning costs are around six thousand and can grow from there. You have to pay as you go too with this particular project, and cannot use a credit card. That is a bit of a deterrent. Especially when one is not rolling in money. We don’t do credit either, for that is a serious hole to dig out of, we do have a credit history and once we took stock of the money we were giving to the credit card companies, we realized we were giving up about 30% of our income. What a waste of money. Credit is a trap most people should not get into. Hard work and using the money you do have effectively is much more satisfying. Amazingly enough we have all the toys most people have, they just aren't as big. But they are paid for and that is a huge stress reliever.

Visual instructions for
the phone cord housing.

Now, this afternoon we will be working on the land line. Who knew after fifteen years without a land line we would have to put one in out on the property. 

Cell phones do not work on our mountain unless you are at the very top. We are not at the very top. We are responsible for getting the equipment in the house and the line to where the box will attach itself to the outside of the house. 

Unfortunately, that part of the tiny house is not built, so we will have to put in some framing to support the line. This means we will build a portion of the wall. I will show you a picture, it is rough, we know, and that part of the tiny house will be built this summer too. It’s not a very big area, about eight feet by twelve feet. I did say tiny, did I not?  I bet you thought it would be a matter of calling the service company, nope, we have to put in the line.

Anyway, there is my update on my job. As you can tell, there is not that much to do. Snort.

Huge Tiny House Needs A Storage Unit

When we began this venture, who knew that we would decide that the Huge Tiny House would really be enough. But as we finish each project we are finding that we are adapting to the size. Every day we reassess what we need to keep in the house. Often at the end of the day we have a big bag to take to the donation center, as well as a rather large bag of just old chemicals, and useless stuff that never should have been in the house in the first place. Things like the dollar store gifts that have come our way over the years. Thoughtful, absolutely, but the only purpose these things have served, has been to fill up the nooks and crannies in the house, for they are never used. Then there is the guilt of throwing away a gift that went unused. Yesterday, as I sorted several shelves in one of the two main closets in the house, I found a set of Old Spice aftershave my husband had been gifted at least ten years ago. I made the mistake of spraying the cologne to see if it had turned. It was a blunder with consequences, it had turned and I had to open the door for two hours to get rid of the smell. There were also at least fifteen bottles of unused shampoo, one of them was from my husband’s stash before we got married. That was many years ago, but still it was saved, for we were both taught you should not waste anything.  Never opened, I doubt the shelf life of shampoo is fifteen years. You know where it ended up, in that garbage bag.

This behavior, does come from being a junker at heart, a collector of vintage, and of being restorers and resellers of collectibles. That can bring habits of saving everything, it is also taught behavior, when you have parents that tell you not to waste anything. Better to learn to not buy wastefully I think, but that took a lot of time to learn. We are finding that we both are getting pretty good as recognizing the worthless stuffed between the memorabilia. It is fueled by the lack of space in our Tiny House, and the desire to no longer deal with old habits of tucking stuff away but not throwing it away. If you want to give me a gift, make it a packet of Heritage seeds, deer proof plants and sharp pebbles, I need rock for the new road. Just send me a baggie full of this size: everyone and soon my road will be more storm proof. Har, har.

Now comes a serious endeavor, since we have not had any space to work with we have kept our things in storage for the last nine months. What a serious waste of money but necessary at least somewhat anyway.

Gracious as all those helpers were when we were suddenly thrust out of home and business, they did not know how to sort the chafe from the wheat, I was no help, I was busy putting my business on hiatus, as well as grieving for my friend who had passed, and so was distracted. I just told them to stuff it all in boxes and that is exactly what they did, stuff everything including the garbage can from under the counter, into a box.  

It is now coming home tomorrow. Before it gets into the truck, I will open the boxes to determine if they come home or not. I shall be brutal and slice out as much as possible. 

We have built an eight by eight storage unit right on the property. Or rather, we have built enough of it to use it while we finish building it over the next two weeks. But the stuff comes home tomorrow. We will keep the tools, and the basics. We will sort the stuff for trash, donations, re-sale and then keep only the barest minimum. Every stick of furniture that we have used over the years will be sold. None of it will fit in the house. We will have a separate sale for the collectibles. At the end of the summer, the storage unit will be converted to a Tiny House for guests. Separate from the house, we will eventually tie them together with decking. For now though, it is pretty ugly. Have I said? I am terrific with wallpapering pigs.

No not the real ones, but the beasts of mismatched materials will be hidden under an adorable façade once we get to that point. For now, this is the result.

No it is not pretty at the moment but the purpose is to force ourselves into getting rid of everything that use useless to this downsized lifestyle. Not having something completely secure, will make me get in there and get rid of everything that is just cluttering up our lives. We already re-homed my vintage couch, chair and footstool, now everything else must be down-sized.

Total cost? $28.00, plus tax. The posts are new, so are the structural two by fours used to put the array of doors. However, we picked them up for 70% off the original price. We also picked up the tar paper for a dollar at a garage sale and the serious cost of the chip board, which was $17.00. The plan is to put a thin decorative skin over it. We have collected most of that too, but it will not go on until the end of April. Our neighbors, they shake their heads at us, but they have figured out that just because it is ugly in the beginning does not mean it will not be quite nice once it is finished. As long as the foundation is solid, the core is structural and the materials are sound, it does not matter what it looks like.

I will dress the pig up, for if we ever determine we have to sell, (NEVER!) pretty goes over much better than ugly, but serviceable will work for now. 

The Sunroom!

I am almost done with the Sunroom and I am seriously excited for I will be able to spend more time painting throughout the day. The Sunroom is my future art studio.

The carpet is next, we will be putting it over the vinyl. The vinyl was simply to protect the build throughout this winter, before it was enclosed. 

Here is a piece I’m working on at the moment, it is unfinished.

This is actually painted and not relief pennies. It is the background for an artwork to be called Extra Coin, for a customer who is the manager for a Bank in Arizona. 

It will also be my bedroom until that part of the Huge Tiny House is built. The bathroom has been roughed out, meaning we have the floor and the outside corners in.  But before we continue we need to build three storage buildings, a car port, two wood sheds and a walk path down to the cars. These are serious winter needs we cannot do without next winter. We have enough wood for heating for the next two years, but it needs to be split, stacked and stored so it dries properly. This effort will save us about $500.00 in heat costs.

Most of these will be made out of doors, pallets, and all the leftover bits and pieces we have on the property. Once they are all painted the same, they will look just fine. This is not a palace you know, it is a place to live. I just happen to be able to wallpaper a pig, I’m that creative with leftovers, if I say so myself, and the pictures prove it too.

We were blessed with a very moderate winter and we doubt one of those will happen again for several years. It made the sudden homelessness easier to deal with for it allowed us to build and be warm enough to get it done.
The other need is to get the bones of the new road in place. I have done three feet by sixteen feet of the road so far. Did I say I was using only a shovel? Well, we are also using a chain saw to clear the path, and a pick to get the stumps out of the way. We only have to move three tons of dirt by shovel.

Sure we could rent equipment but our budget does not include machine rental. But the road must be build and really, exactly how do you think roads were built originally hmmm? Anyway, this is my daily sweatin’ to reduce my weight method, and some things just have to be done.

The biggest problem though is the road that we will take away is a serious problem in the winter for the rest of the people going up the mountain. It was not currently, well cut for the traffic and it causes a serious problem just getting up the hill. Think, mud, ice and snow, there were at least three slide offs even this mild winter.

This concerns me for our neighbors and by moving the road, their ability to get to and fro will be made safer.

Some of the problems are, the road washing out in excessive rain, there is a stream that passes under the road which make the road soft and muddy. That grabs the vehicle tires and slows it down. It is a serious issue because extra speed is needed to get up the hill winter and summer.

Of course, the road is very close to the house and we want to rectify that. We do have twenty acres out here and the road actually went in two different places at one time, the shorter straighter road for some reason went out of fashion long before we bought the property.

Both roads were logging roads in the beginning. We are just going to clear the shorter straighter path and connect it to the road again. This will also give us a lovely front yard. This too is something to look forward to in the future.
Eight years ago we had nothing but hills, nothing flat, we moved two tons of dirt over a period of five weeks by shovel. This is where the Huge Tiny House ended up, who knew?  I imagine taking twenty weeks to move three tons of dirt is still possible physically, just wait and see, sometimes it takes me forever to do something but once I commit to doing it, it does get done.

Seven and a half months ago we were homeless, now we have a third of house, if you too are without, have hope, there is always a way. Look to your own skills though, don’t wait for someone else to help you. They will come along after you prove you can do it yourself and that you have a good attitude about it all. We have had some lovely angels come to us at every serious need. Unexpected blessings that have made musing at the walls an extreme pleasure. We love every stick of wood, the RV potty, the RV dump tank, the two by fours, the roofing, and the plywood sheeting. We love the metal roof, and the composite area too. The window views are more precious, the doors wrapped around the outside of the house may not open but they are open to interpretation and we ‘adore’ them. Snicker. The old fencing has been a wooden block to dust, and nosy drive-bys, the vinyl a slick and easy way to protect one of the floors as we built the room. Shelving, weeping tile, hosing for moving water away from the house, just enough in most cases for each part of the build, not even a leftover bit for each job. Our precious wood stove, a surprise that has warmed us outside and in from the moment it arrived.

With each gift, we stood wordlessly surprised at the love being given to us. So here, where I have been able to go back and think about what I would say, I emote and again thank all of you who have been a part of this Huge Tiny House. I remind you all, you are invited to come and see what we have done with your gifts, just send us an email before you arrive so we can put on the tea and have some cookies and a visit, while we show you around. Bring your own toilet paper and a sense of humor.

Heck bring a shovel and you can build some muscles with me, or leave some of your fat on the land* too.

Speaking of which, I have things to do, sweat oriented, got to go. Have a good day people, think positive.


• From the saying Fat of the land, meaning to share the best of our efforts, in this case though I’m talking about shedding the excess, it’s been a proud addition but needs to go, giggle.