REDUCED « Robin Writes

Here’s our general plan for the layout of our new place (note the two arrows—switch the supplies and storage sheds; I haven’t had enough coffee yet to aim for perfection):

It might be a little hard to read, since I’ve made a few changes—work in progress, you know—and we’ve gotten new and exciting information!

We’ve been having some issues with the house itself, particularly the size. It seemed to be, um, growing.

So I took a different tack. I wrote down the size of each room by the minimum needed. For example, our current bathroom (yes, we have only one) measures 5 x 10. That’s just 50 square feet (I can actually do SOME math!), so the only thing to add was room for the washer and dryer; our current utility closet is 4 x 7, or 28 square feet. Ergo, the new bathroom/laundry could easily be just 100 sq. ft., not 120.

I did this with the bedroom and office too—how much space do we really “need” in order to fit in the furniture we want to keep? Besides that, we’re thinking of heating and cooling costs as well as one of the reasons for the move: being outdoors.

And that means we’ll spend a lot of time on the deck and porch and garden and in the woods. So who needs a bigger house? Not us.

In the end, we had 640 square feet.

And THEN!

We found a local place that will deliver AND BUILD a 640 square foot house (on our concrete pad/subfloor) for just under $8000!

So our tent option/idea has changed—we’ll save at least $500 there—and the plan is to get that shell up in the spring/early summer. 2015. Then we’ll finish it out over the next year, or less.

Cool, huh?

We got some news over the weekend and, while we’re still working on the downsizing, we are starting to line up our costs for water, power, and shelter.

Here’s the big one, though: it’s time to find the property!

No, we’re not moving yet, but we wanted to get a head start so we can determine our needs, costs, and so forth. Instead of hauling everything out to the woods in, um, 23 months, we’ll start the building, etc., sometime in the next six months.

We’ve narrowed the location down to some 19 counties—don’t laugh, Missouri has a lot of them—south and west of St. Louis within about a two-hour drive.

What are we looking for, exactly? Ideally, about 35-50 acres, wooded; spring, live creek, electric to property line. Access, not landlocked. Oh, and affordable—like $50K, tops.

Believe it or not, something like this isn’t hard to find. In fact, there may be too many to choose from . . . But hey, it’s a start! Once we’re completely ready, we’ll narrow it down to a few in each area and start looking, in person.

And after we actually purchase the property, we’re going to start putting up the outbuildings and, if nothing else, will have a great place to camp over the next two years. Er, 23 months . . .