Assortment

Little Plans

 

Square in the middle of the holiday full, I took a jaunt down a small side trail. You might remember the recent purge that was undertaken here a couple weeks ago. I blame that for this. Get the shed & larder set to rights, and, well, the next thing to do is make a good thing better. 

I'd conceived of a larder a long time ago, what with the amount of food we go through here, and our penchant for harvesting & preserving our own. I've got pantry shelves inside the house for the everyday, but there's simply no room for the hoard in there. So a larder was thought up, a place outside the house that could hold a cool year-round temperature for all the canned and dry goods we'd like to keep.

Turns out, there was an empty, damaged shed on the property that was the perfect size. We moved it (by chain hooked onto a truck bumper) to a handier place, and hired a carpenter friend to fix the broken places. We painted the floor with gray porch paint, and had grand plans to double-insulate it, plank the inside walls, build shelves from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, and line the perimeter with bins for onions, potatoes, apples, and squash.

Those grand plans are still just as grand, and they are still just plans. How is it that the larder money is gobbled up by something else every single time? Sigh. Once again, the larder finishing has been moved to next spring. 

But, wait.

Isn't it often true that when big plans can't, little plans can? Something of a mean-time solution seemed just right.  

 

Enter a salvaged bi-fold door (here leaned against the back shelf in the shed, awaiting it's new life).

Side note: The shed holds our camping gear, outdoor gear, lawn chairs, potting bench, tool bench, off-season clothes, Christmas decor, and our library. I was recently asked where we keep sports equipment. See the gray bin there with football pads inside? Ta-da! 

 

With hardware removed, the bi-fold doors, paired with simple brackets, became impromptu shelves for the larder, perfect for keeping the canning jars and food preservation equipment off the floor and orderly. 

 

Below the shelves are stacked wooden crates (yes, those wooden crates), ready to store pantry supplies that can take a winter freeze. The vintage yellow can holds a 50lb sack of flour. Baskets & bins that hang from the rafters are regularly employed in the garden in summer. 

After this little shift, the not-yet-finished feels pretty good. 

 

Wishing you a calm, settled, holiday week, friends!

 

 

Have you been looking for a tastefully designed, small house plan that lives large? You may just find what you've been seeking in the newly-released Shelter Collection - four small floor plans designed for gracious living in 900-1400 square feet. Peruse the study plans & building plans here.

 

 

With What You Have | 32

 

Words about contentment inspired this series that celebrates ingenuity, creativity, and resourcefulness. Join me in the comments and share what you've done with what you have.

 

 

Eighteen pounds. That's how much fruit I didn't know I had. But, sure enough, at the bottom of one deep freeze there was a nearly-forgotten stash of rhubarb; in another there were the endings of the strawberry haul from summer; then with a what-the-hey, I grabbed a bag of sour cherries, too, thinking one bag snitched from the frozen hoard slated for future cherry pies wouldn't hurt any of us. 

Into the stock pot it all went, in a 2:1 ratio with granulated sugar (a kitchen scale is a blessed thing), two lemons' worth of juice, and enough heat beneath to keep it rolling. Cooked down to a thick, luscious, ruby-red jam (no pectin or food coloring necessary), it was all I wanted to eat (by the spoonful). 

Then, poured into hot jars (I fresh-wash my jars, then keep them on a cookie sheet in a 225 degree oven until I'm ready to fill), filled clear to their necks. I set a hot lid on top, finger-tightened a ring over that and placed the jars in a deep kettle of hot water. Sunk an inch beneath the surface in their water bath, eight jars at a time boiled there, covered, for ten minutes (always check your altitude for processing time). Out of the kettle and onto a cloth-covered counter to rest they went, to the tune of a delightful popping percussion as the jars cooled & sealed. 

 

Twenty-four jars. That's how much jam I now have, ready to pile onto the pantry shelves. But also?

Ready to gift away. 

No one can argue that a jar of jam doesn't have a simple beauty of it's own, but there's no better time than Christmas to add some fancy. Juniper snipped from the pasture's trees, last year's ribbon, and some twine saved from a previous gift did the trick.  

 

 

Do what you can with what you have. 

 

P.S. If you're interested in home canning, you can find more information here and here. Please research and follow safety guidelines when preserving food.

  

Have you been looking for a tastefully designed, small house plan that lives large? You may just find what you've been seeking in the newly-released Shelter Collection - four small floor plans designed for gracious living in 900-1400 square feet. Peruse the study plans & building plans here.

  

On The Emotions of Downsizing

 

Sometimes, when readers send me questions, they beg to be shared, because in them is a broad wondering, the raising of a collective hand by many who are saying that's my question, too. From a reader named Cathy, here's one for all of us:

 

This has been on my mind for a while and I wanted to ask you....were you ever fearful of making such a huge change to downsize? Were you scared of missing closet space, a garage, and so on? As you know, my husband and I are soon to be making a change to downsize after living in our home for 30 years. I am excited, but a little scared at the exact same time...I was curious on the emotions you went through during your big change. 

 

Dear Cathy,

Yes. We were terrified, and went through every emotion in the book. Because, even when you are sure you're heading in the right direction, you're pretty sure you're not. Who in their right mind intentionally does what we were about to do? Who puts their growing family into a smaller space instead of a larger one. Would the idea fall to pieces? Would 665 square feet be enough? Would we be capable of living small? Would we fall to pieces? These wonderings, these fears, were very real for us.

Add to that the lack of precedent. Much as I tried, I couldn't find current documentation of a family of five intentionally living small. The beginning emergence of tiny houses at that time had produced stories of singles, couples, and the rare family of three living with less, but, I couldn't find anything about a family larger than that. From the beginning, like pioneers, we had to trust our idea, listen to our longing, juggle fear in one hand and hope in the other, and make trail.

The other very real part of our story going into living small is that we had just experienced an enormous financial loss, one that bluntly set us back to the beginning. Our once-perfect credit had taken a huge blow, rendering us unable to qualify for any type of loan (the propane company wouldn't even give us an account - not even when I explained that I didn't want an account, I wanted to pay in full for each propane delivery. They refused to service us. Thankfully, I found a different company who would take cash), so we literally had two options: build small with cash, or rent a small apartment. When we looked at it this way, the choice almost made itself. The cost of a garage, lots of closets, and extra rooms had been so deep for us, that the idea of living in a paid-for 665 square foot house was truly a beautiful thing. 

But, this little house would require things of us (read this through, and you'll see that the twins of finding & losing, hope & fear, and sorrow & joy are inseparable, each linked inextricably to the other in this life). This house would require off-loading. It would require giving away. It would require a reckoning. Needs shifted; wants changed. Perspectives were aligned along a new plane.

In anticipation of our build, we began to realize that we didn't really need all that we'd filled those extra closets with in the first place. A garage had been nice, but in the end, for us it wasn't a necessity, so we planned for a shed to take its place. On the other hand, stripping everything away would have been a disrespect to who we are. Sitting down and really listening to our hearts, our intentions, our desires, seeing the tangible interpretation of that, then making room for it in the little house was absolutely key. And in the process of naming the meaningful, we found that we were actually discovering ourselves instead of losing ourselves. We uncovered a definition of us that we hadn't really known before. One more keen & detailed; tailored. 

The blessed part of an anticipated downsizing, is that it doesn't have to happen fully and completely in one fell swoop. I would say, take it by steps (we still are). Begin before you need to begin. Discover now what is most important for you & your lifestyle. When I truly didn't know what to do with an item, I boxed it up and kept it for a while longer. Over time, the attachment would either wane or remain, then I knew what it's destiny was. The most recent purge we did saw us giving away even more of the things we thought we'd always keep. Layers, one by one, coming loose and falling away. 

One final thing: it seems that the prevalent thought in this current simplicity/downsize/tiny house movement is that living small, or living less is the goal. My feeling is that living well should be the aspiration. Because when you truly contemplate and understand what living well means on a personal level, there will follow a retooling of life, out of which will come a home that is right-size; big enough for your life, and small enough for it, too.  

 

All best, 

Carmella

 

P.S. If you haven't discovered them already, here is a series of posts about how we came to live in our little house. There are even more posts of little-house interst in the 665 sq ft tab at the top of this page.

 

 

Have you been looking for a tastefully designed, small house plan that lives large? You may just find what you've been seeking in the newly-released Shelter Collection - four small floor plans designed for gracious living in 900-1400 square feet. Peruse the study plans & building plans here.