We are putting the finishing touches on a 665 square foot house for our family of five. Here is the backstory. You may find Part 1 here.
photo source: Country Living
Inch-the-toes-forward, stab the darkness.
Nothing.
Inch-the-toes-forward-half-a-scary-step more, flail-stab the darkness.
This is what October 2011 was like for us. Because, even when you are sure you’re heading in the right direction, you’re pretty sure you’re not. Winter was fast approaching, and we were nearly homeless, save for some flimsy ideas that, in themselves, would provide little shelter when the snow began to fall. Beam and plank and nail, steel and glass are what ideas need to shore them up solid, and we had none of those.
A small space. Something small to live in for the next few turns of time while we saved toward buying land and building a house, this is what we needed. A stepping-stone dwelling.
At the risk of having Chris Farley as Matt Foley in Saturday Night Live's Motivational Speaker on forever-repeat in the back of our minds, we considered an RV. People do happily live in them (hey, if Matthew McConaughey can do it), and they are portable, which is helpful if you want to take it with you when you eventually buy the land on which you’ll build. But, in the end, an RV purchase was scratched from our list. We would be spending cash, and we had to spend well. A slow nose-dive of depreciation wasn’t what we were looking for.
Stab the darkness.
A cabin? Would this, could this be? Could we design a small cabin-house that would serve our needs now, and become the guest house in the future? Could it be of solid construction, full of character, and built to last a lifetime? And, seeing as how we were not yet landowners, could it be portable? If so, where in the world would we put it to live in now?
Flail-stab the darkness.
Let me just say that it is, in fact, possible to be hesitant and jittery, yet solidly intentioned at the very same time. We told friends and strangers of our unusual plan to live in a small, portable cabin that wasn’t yet built, on somebody else’s land that we hadn’t yet found. We ran ads in area newspapers, we prayed, we risked. We wondered if we were completely crazy.
Curiously, this was precisely when Time decided to kick back all loose and saggy-like, as if there was no impending move to be made. Complacent and uncaring, it mocked our efficient tendencies and smoked our neatly rolled, right-now reasons. Each day leaked away, and every possibility fizzled, forcing heavy exhales like a sharp slap on the back.
They say that things come together in the eleventh hour.
The eleventh hour.
For us, it had come and gone.
Update: You may follow the story to Part 3 here.
