Wednesday, September 10, 2014

First update in September!!!!!

Hey guys,

It has been way too long without an update! Time is just flying by working away on our little house. So for all of you just joining us, here is a summary of what has happened so far in the past year:

August-December 2013 Got interested in tiny houses. Decided we (husband and I) wanted to build one ourselves. We are both college students, him working full time and me part-time, so we thought this would be an awesome way to start our lives.

January-March 2014 Planned tiny house.

April 2014 Bought camper to tear down and use trailer for tiny house.

June 2014 Started tearing down camper

July 2014 Kind of got sidetracked with work and school. Worked a lot. 

August 2014 Tossed building tiny house on a trailer idea. Bought slightly bigger tiny house instead.

This has REALLY been a crazy year! First tiny house, then no tiny house until 2015, then tiny house, and then buy tiny house instead! Wow! We change our minds too much! 

However, we are in it for the long haul this time. We are renting until January and then we sign the papers to buy the house contract for deed. We will have it paid off in just 6 years! Not bad for buying our first house. It is costing us just slightly more than most tiny houses on a trailer cost to build. 

Okay so for some facts about the house that we are buying:

It is NOT a tiny house on a trailer. It is a (bigger) tiny house. It is 681 square feet. It has 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room, and a small enclosed porch type room. It also has a covered back porch and a front porch/deck- I say deck because it is pretty big.

This is a drawing of the layout of the house

If you look at the drawing, you can see that there is NO hallway. To get from the kitchen and bathroom to the living room you have to walk through one of the bedrooms. Not a big deal, but it is sort of unusual. However, there is no wasted space! This house actually has some pretty cool history. In the 1940s a woman named Lula lived here, and she built a small restaurant next to the house. It was called Lula's Country Kitchen. The building still stands and a loft has been added and it is now a shed. In that same building around the 1950s a fallout shelter was added. It's still there. It's pretty cool. When the door is closed it just looks like floor and you can't even tell it is there. You open it and find a set of stairs and the door at the bottom leads into the shelter. It's just a giant concrete cylinder set in the ground, but it is still cool. Funny story actually- When we agreed to rent the house we were not told about this, and I took my best friend to see the house. We didn't look in the shed when we originally looked at the house, so when she came to see it she wanted to go in. The door in the floor was not shut all the way so we saw the door and were too scared to go down there. We made D and T go down there first. It was empty! :) The house was originally a 2 room house, just the current living room and smaller bedroom behind it. It also had an outhouse, which is still there and still in working condition if we ever needed it (on a side note, it has 2 holes! High class! ;D). In the 1950's, the master bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom were added. The basement was expanded and the steps to the basement were still outside the house. In 2013, Mr. S added an enclosed porch/3 seasons room, and in doing so enclosed the basement steps inside the house, next to the enclosed porch.

One bad part of this house is that it is so old. We originally thought we had to patch a small section of roof, redo a closet, put in a window and put in carpet and that would be it. We were a little wrong. And this brings us to- what we have been doing in the past month!

So, first we decided to tackle the roof first. The previous renters had added a closet to the master bedroom by added 2 walls to part of the porch. The closet has always leaked. We thought we just had to get under an eave and put some rubber roofing on. We soon learned the entire porch roof was rotten, so we decided to get rid of the closet and entire porch roof. The door that was to the closet is now sealed up but tearing the roof down is still underway. We still have a covered back porch and enclosed porch, though. 

Onto the inside! We put in a new window to replace the broken window. Next spring, all the other windows will have to be replaced too but that is not immediate. We also deep cleaned the whole house and started painting today! We have to paint the living room and both bedrooms. The kitchen and bathroom are the wood paneling. Next week the carpet will go in and then we just have to finish tearing down the porch roof and wait for the gas to be turned on and we can move in! :) Once the paint and carpet is put down, I will make another update with a video tour so you all can see the house for yourselves!

Mollie

Oh yeah, P.S., can ANYONE believe how fast this year has gone by??

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