House walls are going up...!!!

22 years ago

Well last fall the basement went in & was capped for the winter. Over the winter we put in the root cellar, cellar windows, cellar stairs, and cut wood for the house. After this weekend I am happy to report that my first floor is up and the rooms are framed out. We now have to cut the opening for the cellar stairs, build the stairs up to what will be our second floor, put the beams on (we want to see exposed ones so we are actually doing a layered type ceiling/floor over the first floor).......

this we hope to get done by the end of the first week of june.

We are both working. Tired but happy. It took 7 years of living in a trailer on this land to get this far but we own everything and have no mortgage. When our house is built we are already planning to give our son the trailer so he can do the same. Not bad for 2 restarters on marriage and life!

By the end of this summer our house will be up and roofed and basically sealed in so that we may continue to work on the inside bits like cupboards and closets over the winter. I must say it is nice to have the memories of people stopping by and just pitching in for an hour here or there. It is amazing the fondness everyone has for our place already. Food and beverages are always at the ready but otherwise...labor is free....as we pitch in for others as well.

I encourage everyone to live their dream. Our plan was for 5 years...it took us (or will by the end of the summer) 7years. But I also went to college full time during those years as well. So in the end we have our home and both fullfilling careers (maybe not that financially lucrative--but very satisfying). We stay flexible and change minor designs and add in different people's ideas as we go. It is making out to be a better house than we originally set out to build. Our gardens have grown as well.

Thanks for the cont. support to some of you out there on those days when I thought I'd go crazy living in a trailer in the middle of the endless winter days!

:D

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Comment (1)

chicken_lady
22 years ago
Congrats! You two should be proud of your accomplishments! Only two years over your goal...that's what we need to do is set a goal like that. We've been living in a 3 room camp for 18 years now. We started building "our house" probably about 15 years ago. We've had a capped basement about that long. We have drilled a well and put in a septic system (just in the past 5-6 years). The bathroom is in the cellar, as well as my "garden room" where I have a rack and light system to start my seeds for the flower and veggie gardens. It's also suppose to be my private space which doubles as "the guest room" for company that comes and stays for a few days, they sleep on the futon couch that I have in there. It's also the room where I winter my tender plants. There is also a room that we call our "root cellar" to store some of our garden produce. My OH is now doing another room that will be extra room for guests with another sleeper sofa and it will be the room where he can entertain his guests instead of using my room! I'm just hoping that we will have the rest of the house built before we are to old and crippled to enjoy it! :-( But for the moment I don't see it happening to soon, we had neighbors buy the lot west of us and start giving parcels out to all their family and friends and they have started moving in house trailers of all conditions. It was like being invaded after living here for 16 years by ourselves. Unfortunatly we live at the end of the road and when they left one of those dilapidated house trailers sitting in the middle of the end of the road partially blocking everyones means of egress from May until Sept and we insisted that they move it out of the way before snow flies otherwise WE would not be able to plow the road, we became the a** holes and bad neighbors. Well, that's gratitude for you, we are the ones that plow the road and pretty much maintain it (drag it in the spring, fill holes, etc) and we have never even recieved a thank you from them. Now their friends that they gave a lot to, have thanked us and even given us a few dollars to help pay for gas and maintenance. So we are on good terms with them at least. Anyways, when the lot to the east of us came up for sale last year we bought it (70 acres, giving us a total of around 85 acres) We will be paying for that for the next 14 years at least, but now we don't have to worry about an "invasion" to the other side of us! lol That will be about the time I could retire, so I don't know if I will ever get my house! Keep your fingers crossed for me! lol

Cathy
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