a year in review

It has been nearly one year since my last update. It has been a hard time for us. David did find another job, but it pays $3 less per hour. I am still looking. Our debt has increased, we are now in default on our mortgage, though that should be remedied soon. Keeping our food budget under control continues to be a struggle, the debt is such that until I'm working we cannot eliminate it. My weight is up another 30 pounds and I'm fairly certain it is my obesity that is keeping me from job offers.

After extensive research, my tiny home dream is on hiatus as long as we live in SE Wisconsin. It is nearly impossible to get zoning that would allow only a tiny home on a property.

Disheartened.

paring down

I've been blogging for almost six weeks about my tiny dream and the realization that I must get rid of my stuff is finally sinking in. I once said something to the effect that I would miss seeing my things in this house, but I finally realized, that even if we never make it to a tiny house we can live much smaller than we are in our 800 sq ft house. We have a lot of things we never or basically never use. If they were gone, after the work of getting rid of them, I'd never notice.

There is in fact a sizable amount in our basement that we are holding for a big garage sale next May. Since we have an abundance of free time and a shortage of money we are considering getting the jump on that with craigslist/ebay/jbf. It might help get that debt down and keep us floating a little longer.

Also the idea that we may need to move into our in-laws house and rent ours to avoid undesirable financial effects really has me thinking about what I would need to take with me, and by extension what will actually fit in the tiny house. Aside from some crafting things for me and some woodworking things for David if it doesn't fit in the tiny house we don't actually need it. I'm loathe to store a great amount of unnecessary things so why store them now?

If the best I can come up with is, "Because it's work to go through everything" well, that's just not good enough is it?

reflections on moving

Sorry for the posting break, but it's been a busy week. David's brother is entering a phD program two states away. So with a family of four, the youngest being 3 weeks old, obviously there were some things he asked for help with. So this week I've been hip deep in toddlers and babies, plaster repair (I'm the best drywaller in the family), trash picking up, carpet cleaning, screen replacing, etc..

And in the midst of it all I was thinking about my own home and the little projects that build up when you own an old home. I think about all the awkward spaces and scraped together solutions. Those add charm and character. One of my problems with new development these days is the lack of quality in the finish work, but also the squareness of it all. Homes today are built like the big box stores they come from, because darn it that's easy.

Easy perhaps, but never interesting. Oh, they may try with crown molding and tray ceilings, but true character in a house is hard won from people living in them and working solutions around problems only to create a new problem 20 years down the road, which may make them question why they ever put that there... You see? There is an organic life to old homes that I cherish.

Without wasting too much space, how do I achieve that feeling in my tiny home from the start?