Living in a Small Space

When we get our land purchase finished and a well in place, the next thing to look at will be housing. We've already got a tent, but that's only good in nice weather unless you want really whiny kids. We also have the trailer that Steve built and we used to move across the country. It's built on an old travel trailer frame and has a plywood roof and walls with a double wide door at the back, a man sized door on one side and a window. It also has a pop up tent top with some sleeping space. So using that is an option. It would need some insulation, a waterproof membrane and roof covering and possibly we'd replace the canvas walls on the pop-up with insulated wooden panels. Another option is to build a small cabin.

Numerous plans area available for free or low cost on the internet and since many also include engineered drawings you can use them to get a proper building permit and do things legally. For temporary use or movable structures though the options are much more varied. One constant among all the cabins though, is good use of space. There are many creative ways of using your space well but the first thing you'll need to do is pare down your stuff so that you don't have lots of junk cluttering up your small space. Then you'll need to plan for making the most efficient use of your furniture and other fixtures. Here are some great furniture pieces in the video, and you can certainly take the ideas and make them work for you! We don't need to buy all expensive furniture to put in our tiny house, you can build good quality things yourself. Do a good job and you'll surround yourself with things that you love and appreciate. Anyways, here are some ideas:



Anothe place to look is IKEA. Especially in their discount section. You can't always find a deal but you never know what will be there. The nearest Ikea to us is probably in Moncton, there isn't one in Nova Scotia. So we'll be building from scratch. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm going to feed and water the chicks and then off to the chapel for our weekly craft get together. It's also Steve's birthday today so I'm going to write him a letter. And I'm reading The Hunger Games so I need to finish it and get on to our bookclub selection which is my choice this month. I chose By The Banks Of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Updating the blogs and sites

I'm spending a few minutes today re-doing the blogs (this one and Nova Appliance) a bit and catching up on what's going on in the world.

Hi World.

Laundry is washing too so I've got a goal to get 3 more boxes, tubs or bags or stuff laundered, sorted into either sell, burn or keep piles and re-packing the keep stuff or putting it into circulation. That should keep me busy for a bit. Also on the agenda....sort out one drawer in my dresser. Yes you heard me right, only 1 drawer. I'll see if Steve will do one of his and then we'll be on our way to having it sorted out by the end of the weekend. I'd also like to get 2 boxes from the storage area of our bedroom (piled against one wall) unpacked and sorted out into either keep and re-pack or sell. It's that simple. Garbage obviously goes out and there is no 'Maybe' pile, not today.

The pig barn is shoveled and manure relocated to a neighbours farm for use on his grape vines. Since we're moving and cannot use it I'm happy to see someone else get the benefit of it. His truck did get mired down so it was a fun family moment of getting the truck and trailer up out of the mud and back onto solid ground.

Since it's Date Night (Friday) I am planning something fun. Not exactly sure what yet since the kids are having a sleepover, but maybe dinner in bed with a movie and pizza for the kids. Anything other than pork!

We still have lots for sale so let us know if you'd like some.

So to review. The work for this afternoon is:

A. unpack, wash, sort and re-pack 3 bags/tubs of clothing/linens from the pile.
B. sort out 1 drawer in the dresser
C. unpack and sort 2 bedroom boxes

I'm writing this all down so that I'm accountable to someone. Thanks for helping me to de-clutter. I'll let you know how it goes.

Met a new friend online who lives in Nova Scotia so now we're giving some serious thought to the Annapolis Valley region. She's been very helpful answering all those weird little questions that come up and it's so hard to find the answers for online.

BIG NEWS!!

After a 4 month hiatus... we're back with news!

First off our daughter Nicole's new book is officially out today. It's selling so well already that it looks like she's going to get 2 more book deals out of it so YAY for them! And great for us readers!

The book is great. Go have a look at Amazon

Here's our big news.

It is with heavy hearts that our branch of the Faires Family announces the following... we're moving. We're excited too but there are so many unknowns and so much work to do that it's a bit nerve wracking. I hate moving. And we are still looking for a new place to call home.

Where are we going you might ask? Well, it looks like the choices are narrowed to the maritimes of Canada or somewhere here on Vancouver Island. We would like to stay around here because of the ease, costs of moving, established business, kids in school etc. but that will largely depend on finding a suitable home that's affordable. This property we're on sold for the greatly discounted price of $470k. Buying it in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia it would have cost about $80-$130k I would imagine. Maybe less. Since we want to settle down and NEVER MOVE AGAIN we are looking to start over with our own place. Even if it means you get another year of following my blog through the start up phase from building a travel trailer to breaking ground on a home or root cellar, we hope you'll stick around and let us know what you think about the whole thing.

You might also be wondering why on earth we would move after doing so much work here for a year and a half. And the simple answer is that the owner of this property has sold it. Yes, after saying that we could stay for 10 years he up and listed it, sold it, and now we're moving. What I didn't mention were the problems with him killing livestock and other destructive behaviours.

Living here has been 'the best of times and the worst of times'. But we are sorry to see so much hard work and planning go down the tubes. Still, we did learn an awful lot and practical experience is a valuable thing in this day and age when we think that reading something in a book or online means that now we know how to do it. These amazing tools we have should be there to guide and inspire us, not just give us an inflated sense of our own skills and resourcefulness.

Ok enough of the rant. I should nip it in the bud and get out my roll of packing tape and garbage bags. Our over stuffed house, garage and workshop have to be essentially paired down to the point that everything will fit into a 12x8x6'6 trailer just in case we find the perfect place and do move east. This is going to be the mother of all garage sales, the likes of which Hilliers has never seen!

We'll let you know how our winter projects shape up, namely building a trailer, finding a new home, and de-cluttering the house.