I am sitting here thinking back on how we came to be living in this tiny house of ours.
The story starts about 11 months ago.
It was December 10th 2013. My husband and I have made some big changes in our lives the last few years. We had made the continuous choice to pray for God's will to be done in our lives. That had brought about a lot of changes both emotional and physical. Along these changes my husband had been lead to leave his position at his work and work full time from home. He had wanted to do it for so long. This time last year we were working from home, we were very busy. It was a good business and my husband was very popular...but he turned to me and said..'I'm not sure this is what God really wants for us.'
We had prayed endlessly before he left his position and we knew we had made the right decision when he left..but it turns out, that wasn't where God had planned for us to end up.
So, once again we prayed for guidance and the Lord's will. We got our answer a couple of months later. On December 10th...my husband came to me and said he had found a house and he felt God wanted us to buy it. We had looked at a couple other houses but it just wasn't the right fit. This house however..it was God sent. It was a disaster lol but never the less a God send.
I did not even see it before we put the money down to hold the property. My husband had come up to look at it(in 4 inches of snow) and instantly called to tell me to call the realtor and put a hold on it. I did.
He took me up a couple of days later. The house took my breath away..literally. It smelled and was a mess. But then again...must 100 year old foreclosures are. lol It had a garage (if you could call it that), out buildings, woods, county water, cable access, was away from town, but not too far out. Everything we had prayed for in a house.
But..the best part?? We paid for it with cash!
We did not do anything to the house until after the first of the year. We climbed into the van with all of the children (they helped every step of the way) one snowy January day..and set to work.
We decided that tearing out the drywall and carpet would give us a good look at what we had to work with.
As I sit here I am picturing flash backs. I had a dead mouse fall out of the ceiling on my head. We found roaches in the walls and it was so dirty and gross. The kitchen plumbing ran through the living room on top of the floor. You had to step over it to get into another part of the house.There was a huge hole and leaking in the roof around the chimney. The original part of the house was clearly built well..the additions and later 'improvements' were not built well. The people who lived here before had clearly not taken good care of the house or the buildings and grounds.
That was ok though..that is why we were here.
We decided later that day that part of the structure would have to come down due to it being poorly built. My husband is a stickler for things being down correctly and the way it was at the time, just was not going to work.
We filled 3 huge construction dumpsters, took off three additions and gutted the entire house back to studs.
Popped out part of the original roof and put in four dormers(we had 5 inches of snow and it was -7 that day), put on a new roof..rebuilt two of the additions, put in all new windows, door(s), insulations, plumbing, electric. basically we have built a brand new house inside the bones of a 100 year old house.
I just adore the hand crafted solid oak beams in the original structure. The history of the house just fascinates me. My husband loves to build and I am a descent helper...so we were almost made for this. :)
The house started out at 1400 square feet..it is now just a little under 1000 square feet. Probably closer to 980 square feet.
We love this house. It has taken us 11 months of blood sweat and tears..but it is finally livable. At least parts of it. We moved in the second week of September and live in a little less than half of the house at the moment. It is a bit cramped but it is home. Every week we get more accomplished and the house grows in comfort and space.
We made a purposeful decision to downsize when we were looking for a house. Part of asking God to show us His will involved the decision to be debt free and to downsize and live minimally. We are still working on some of these things... and Lord willing we will accomplish all of them in due time. This debt free tiny house was a huge step in right direction for our lives.
It you had told me a little over a year ago that our lives would be as different as they are today..I'm not sure I would have believed you. The past year has been a roller coaster of emotions and changes. It was painful at times but progress is never painless. It is painful and new and makes you feel vulnerable. It changes parts of you that you never expected. This past year my husband and I have growled at each other, worked together. We learned a lot more about each others strengths and weaknesses and have grown so much closer. When one of us reached the point of breaking, the other was strong enough to pick up the other and move forward. Our family has worked, rested, cried and rejoiced together on this new journey of our lives. The children worked so hard to lend a hand and have grown so much this year.
I am so proud of my family and what we have accomplish with our tiny home this year.
I will be adding pictures to this post as well as keeping up with the renovation with posts from this point forward.
I look forward to sharing our tiny house journey with you all. :)
~ Lyndsay
No comments:
Post a Comment