A New Beginning

I can’t decide if I should try to figure out where I left off on MySpace or if I should just start fresh. Since it would take some time to figure out where my old blog got saved, and even more time to go through and figure out where I was, I think I’ll just go from here.

For the last three years, I’ve been working on building my own house.  I'm not hiring contractors and standing around pointing out this or that, endlessly changing my mind, turning my building loan into a colossal mortgage that will have my husband and I barely keeping up with our debt for the next decade or more. I’ve worked some in the housing industry and I’ve seen this done a time or two.

What I have been doing in shoveling dirt, mixing concrete, stacking block, laying brick, running pipe and wire, and even harvesting and fitting timbers. What I want to do is tell you about that, not to brag about how smart, or tough, or hardworking I am, but so that you can see that there aren’t nearly as many things a person can’t do as it seems sometimes. I certainly don’t expect anyone who reads my blog to jump up and build their own house, but if they do, it will be very cool indeed. But if even one of my readers feels encouraged to learn how to do just one thing they’ve been wanting to have done and does it for themselves… YAY!!!!

I’m very fortunate in that I live in a place where there aren’t too many government regulations on home building. This is good for me since I’m building for myself. I have to say, this would be bad if I was buying a house, since builders in this area can and do take shortcuts, compromising the quality, durability and even safety of the homes they build. In most parts of this country a person could not enjoy such freedom to design and build how he (or she) saw fit as I have and still expect to stay on the grid. And in some cases a person couldn’t get away with it at all.


So this isn’t going to be a how-to thing. There’s lots of that stuff on the internet. I know, ‘cause I’ve done a lot of my research on the internet, that and a crazy selection of old books found at yard sales, flea markets and used book stores. This is the story of the ups and downs of what even today seems like an incredibly crazy idea!!!!