(My house thinks it's tiny so please don't burst its bubble)
I have no medical updates for you until at least next week, so I thought I would make this week about our house. How we built it, our budget, interior pics, how we've learned to organize in a small house, future plans and why I don't want a bigger house...ever.
Let me start with a little background. Clayton got cancer, his back got worse and his kidney issues were ongoing. George and I realized I needed to stay home with Clayton full time. This meant we were down to one income and the life we had pictured that most of our peers were living just wasn't going to work for us. So I got inspired and got creative. I decided we were going to build a house for $50,000 on family property. Everyone laughed. But we did. We did 95% or more of the work ourselves with help from friends and family.
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| You can even see my mom in this picture helping us to raise our first wall. |
We have now been in the house for two and a half years. In that time we have completed a few projects on the house but still have lots to go. When we designed and built the house, we had planned on adding on in a certain area down the road. Since being here, I have really embraced the idea of living tiny. As is, our house isn't technically tiny, but it is small...especially by today's standards. George still wants to go with our original add on addition which would give us a final total of about 1400 sq ft, but I want to keep our footprint as small as possible. Currently our house is 1000 sq ft...and I LOVE it. So for now we are still brainstorming a long term solution that meets all of our needs.
Why do I love a small house?
-Less outside maintenance
-Less inside maintenance
-Forces you to clean out and prioritize
-Forces you to organize in order to make the most of every space
-More affordable to build
-Manageable to DIY
-Low utilities costs (bad electric bill for us is $133)
-I want for my family and myself to explore the world around us and not be bogged down by a large mortgage and large house full of responsibility. A small house allows for this.
So for us what was designed out of necessity became a huge blessing. During the planning process, there were larger plans and two story plans and lots of others; for cost reasons though we had to narrow our plan down to a point at which we agreed there was little doubt that we could do it within our budget. Of course, we could have gotten a traditional bank loan and built something more substantial, but bank loan or not, my goal was never to have a substantial house. My goal was always to build a house we will have paid off in a short amount of time, to build a house that allowed us to live more comfortably on one income and to build a house that allowed us to have more income for Clayton's expenses since we knew it was unrealistic to rely on fundraisers forever. That said, a small/tiny house was never in my plan either and not something I would have chosen had it not been necessary. BUT now, I love living small and will NEVER live any other way.
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| Inspiration Pictures |
After two and a half years I can say I feel like we accomplished our goal. We have no real complaints about our house or its design. It has been perfect for our needs with Clayton specifically. We have been able to pay off the credit card debt accumulated from building. We will have our house paid off in seven years maximum. We have been able to continue working on home improvement/completion projects on a pay-as-you go basis. And most importantly life on one income while accumulating Clayton's medical bills got a little less financially stressful. So here is to life goals and striving for a debt free life!
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| Toddler Rachel giving her best woot woot! |
I thought I would start with the room everyone is most excited about...our closet! Please note my sarcasm. Really, I'm starting with it because it finally got some love yesterday after nearly two and a half years. We literally have not had a clothes rod all that time. We had two rolling clothes hangers a friend passed on after their renovation to their own home. Having a proper hanging rod is SUCH a breath of fresh air. I just want to go sit in my nice clean organized closet and admire it. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Our modest master bedroom has a bathroom off of it and two "closets". The original long-term plan was that we would have two very large his and her closets that would be the storage for the whole house beyond just clothes (think hobby supplies, golf clubs, etc.). The short-term plan was that we would share a closet for now and the closet with a window would be Clayton's temporary room. Note that these "closets" are 7x9. I felt this would be sufficient for Clayton for now since his old room was just slightly larger at 10x10. And this set up was best for all of us. With Clayton's little room right off of ours, he can see us when he goes to sleep and we can easily hear him through the night (listening for respiratory issues). This has been ideal for all three of us. And as George just said last night, in spite of Clayton's room being small it is set up in a way that makes it feel larger...or at least like it isn't lacking anything. While our current set up is still a short-term plan, it has been exactly what we needed now. And it has also been great in allowing us to modify our long-term plan; which as of now, keeps the one closet a closet forever and Clayton's current room will be modified into the space of the eventual small addition we will do. Very small addition still couple years out.
Back to the forever closet...
When we moved in it was quick. Like we got the certificate of occupancy and bam, we were in. There was still LOTS left to do. Including the closet. You'll see in the pictures that the closet is about half primed and a quarter painted because that's as far as I got before we moved in. So for the longest time it looked like this...
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| These two pictures are after I started cleaning it out Sunday. |
Along with the laundry room, it was the catch all space for everything. Between that, Clayton liking to take toys in there to play and George's hunting stuff everywhere, I rarely ventured in. I mostly used a chair in the bedroom to throw my clothes over or stack them on. No joke.
Why am I showing pictures of my messy closet? Because this is real life and we are real folks. We have real messes and real unfinished projects and we are really uninterested in pretending our lives are more than the work in progress they are. No mom (or dad) should ever feel shamed into having to feel like her house needs to be perfect or she's failing if it's not. This is not Better Homes and Gardens, lights-camera-action, this is real life.
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| And here is the real life mess cleaning out the closet made. |
We can now check clothes rod and baseboards off the closet list. We still have the following to work on:
-Add shelves around top.
-Paint walls
-Paint big dresser
-Permanent ladder leading to what will eventually be a climate controlled storage loft.
And then the closet will be done! So here are the progress pictures where things stand today:
I know...nothing special or impressive and sparkly. But it's a progress picture...and a closet. I'll post pictures of the final product when we get there; those might have a little more wow. And to answer the question some might be wondering...is that the only rod we will have? Is it enough? Yes. If that one rod is ever not enough then we need to get rid of clothes. So thats all for today. That gives the back story and gets the most boring room out of the way. Tomorrow I'll start showing you the good stuff.
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