Five years ago today

Five years ago today, we stumbled into our new home, exhausted beyond belief. (For a review of that chaotic period of moving from our old place, see here, here, and here.) Honestly, we felt that move took a couple years off our lives. It's one of the reasons we've concluded we're never moving again, barring unforeseen circumstances.

We (mostly Don) have made endless improvements during the last five years. He graveled the driveway. He built a pantry and built a library. He installed the wood cookstove. In the barn, he's built two shops (the one Older Daughter uses for the woodcraft business, plus his "man cave"); built two storage lofts above those shops; built a storage room; and built a feed box for the cows. He addressed some enormous plumbing woes in the house (at which time he also built an outdoor shower) and we had a 500-gallon propane tank installed. He did some much-needed deck repair work. We had a massive yard sale to offload things we no longer needed. We fenced in a corral for the animals, fenced the pasture, and (obviously) got cows. Don partitioned the house, including a separate entrance and porch, for Older Daughter's quarters when she took over the woodcraft business. We fenced a yard for Darcy, began the installation of a comprehensive garden, and planted blueberries and peaches. He built a woodshed and installed a roof-runoff system for rainwater collection.

And this doesn't count a plethora of smaller projects, most of them accomplished by Don: Building gates, repairing a clothes-drying rack, installing fairy lights on the porch, improving a jar washer, making a shelf for holding cook books, random graveling projects, trimming an overgrown grove of trees, things like that.

This past year we (mostly Don) accomplished yet more projects. He built a deck storage room, as well as all the shelves, movable shelving units, and doors it required. We continued to build up the garden infrastructure, including the critical component of super-dooper high deer fencing.

Don built a cheese press. He started building an awning for the barn. He built a calf pen and milking stall.

We subdivided the main pasture. We fenced the sacrifice pasture.

This doesn't count for endless smaller projects Don has accomplished in the last year: Building and insulating a well house, building a door for the well house, installing a sturdy floor in a shed we hope to someday turn into a guest house, building a box for the tractor to transport stuff, building a haybale-moving platform, building a large firepit, and rocking in the corral.

And, of course, there's our writing: Dozens of articles, several inspirational romances, and our self-published indy romance.

So yeah, we've accomplished a lot in five years. No complaints.

Four years ago today

Four years ago today, we stumbled into our new home, exhausted beyond belief. (For a review of that chaotic period of moving from our old place, see here, here, and here.) Honestly, we felt that move took a couple years off our lives. It's one of the reasons we've concluded we're never moving again, barring unforeseen circumstances.

We (mostly Don) have made endless improvements during those years. He graveled the driveway. He built a pantry and built a library. He installed the wood cookstove. In the barn, he's built two shops (the one Older Daughter uses for the woodcraft business, plus his "man cave"); built two storage lofts above those shops; built a storage room; and built a feed box for the cows. He addressed some enormous plumbing woes in the house (at which time he also built an outdoor shower) and we had a 500-gallon propane tank installed. He did some much-needed deck repair work. We had a massive yard sale to offload things we no longer needed. We fenced in a corral for the animals, fenced the pasture, and (obviously) got cows. Don partitioned the house, including a separate entrance and porch, for Older Daughter's quarters when she took over the woodcraft business. We fenced a yard for Darcy, began the installation of a comprehensive garden, and planted blueberries and peaches. He built a woodshed and installed a roof-runoff system for rainwater collection. Currently he's in the process of building what we're calling a "demi room," which is an outdoor storage closet.

And this doesn't count a plethora of smaller projects, most of them accomplished by Don: Building gates, repairing a clothes-drying rack, installing fairy lights on the porch, improving a jar washer, making a shelf for holding cook books, random graveling projects, trimming an overgrown grove of trees, things like that.

This upcoming year we plan to finish building the garden (including high fencing against deer) and construct a chicken coop. If time permits, he may even build a separate dairy kitchen for when I start making butter and cheese after Maggie has her calf.

Never a dull moment!

Three years ago

It was three years ago that we stumbled into our new home, exhausted.

A dear friend once mentioned that it takes three years to really move into a new place, and she's right. It's taken us this long to settle in, decide what we need and don't need, get rid of the excess (via yard sale and donations), learn the lay of the land, and otherwise make order out of chaos.

We've started and completed an endless number of projects, made improvements, and dealt with plumbing woes.

This year is, we pray, the year we'll get back on our feet to establish the same level of self-sufficiency we had in our old place. We're actively moving toward getting cattle. The garden is about half complete. By the end of the summer, we hope to have a chicken coop in place as well.

So yes, it's taken us three years. But that's okay. We're here for the long haul.

Two years ago today

It was two years ago today that we dragged ourselves into our new (to us) home. It was dark, it was raining, and we were beyond exhausted.

After the rigors of moving twice in two months (first moving into a rental, then moving into our current home) we vowed never to move again. What a chore!

But that decision has actually been good for us. It allows us to make long-term plans.We've accomplished a lot in two years, with lots more to do.

But we're not in a hurry. After all, we're never moving again, God willing. Twice in two months was plenty.

A new housemate

Sorry for the silence, folks, we've had a busy month! Let's back up a bit and catch you up on what's going on. Grab a cup of tea and prepare for a long post.

Older Daughter has been wanting to take over the tankard business. She grew up with it, after all, literally before she was even born, and it's a sure-fire business she can run while living rural.

Don is more than eager to hand it over to her. He's been wanting to retire from the woodcraft business for a long time anyway, and if Older Daughter wants it, it's hers. She's been doing the assembly work, gluing, coating, etc. for years, but hasn't worked the tools. So during the summer of 2020 (before we moved), she apprenticed with Don to learn that unfamiliar part of the process.

Then we moved. Older Daughter rented an apartment in another town, got a job, and all was chaos for a couple of years. Now that things are settling down, she's been itching to get busy on tankards.

And then problems started cropping up. She can't just move anywhere and set up shop. Her apprenticeship on the power tools was two years ago, so she needs guidance until she refamiliarizes herself on the equipment. Plus, the tools are in our shop – it's not like she has a shop of her own. The logical solution was for her to move closer and work in our shop.

The big thing that was holding us up was housing for her. Our new location is so remote that rentals are nonexistent. We racked our brains trying to figure out how to get her a place to live, to no avail.

At one point we thought about building a guest cabin on an unused piece of ground near our house. Two things prevented that: One, the cost of materials kept climbing and climbing. And two, we were on a time crunch. Her apartment lease ran out at the end of May, so she needed to either extend it for another six months, or find a place to live near us. There was no way we could build her a place inside a couple months (and that wasn't even factoring in all the rain we've been having!).

We talked to some folks who run a business building sheds and small barns, and explained we were looking for housing for an adult daughter, and was it possible to retrofit one of their larger sheds into a "tiny" home? The answer was yes, and they quoted us a fairly reasonable price. But by the time we counted in the necessary materials to turn the structure from a shed into a home, the costs were ratcheting up again – concrete foundation, insulation, sheet rock, wiring, plumbing, running pipe to the septic system, hooking up water and electricity....

The costs and hassle kept mounting, especially once we realized we were essentially building a second house. We didn't have either the time or money for this. Back to square one. What to do?

Finally, with time running out on Older Daughter's apartment lease, we had to make an outside-the-box decision: She would move into our home. Our home is a three bedroom, two bath, 1400-sq.-foot place, and we only used the two smaller bedrooms for overflow storage. What if we partitioned that section into separate "in-law" quarters?

The more we thought about it, the better a solution it seemed. It would give Older Daughter privacy. She would have a separate entrance, a bedroom and sitting room, and a bathroom. She would use our kitchen and laundry facilities. A new hallway door would keep her cat, Frumpkin, on her side of the house.

Older Daughter was fine with this solution, so we got to work partitioning the house.

The first thing to do was sort through the overflow items in the extra bedrooms. When we moved in, Don took one room and I took the other. Giving these rooms up gave us the impetus to take a hard look at what we really wanted to keep and what we didn't. We stored some things in the barn, found spaces for other things in the rest of the house, and made an enormous pile of things we'll be putting up for sale later in the summer.

This is the short hallway leading to the back bedrooms. On the middle-left is the bathroom, on the middle-right is the pantry. Don's aim was to build a door right in front of the bedrooms.

Here's the new hallway door, installed (mostly).

He also got to work in "his" room, cutting a hole in the wall for an outside door as well as another hole on an inside wall to give inside access to the bathroom.

(Yes, the shocking fluorescent-green paint was here when we moved in. The previous owners had some interesting tastes in paint colors.)

By late April, Don was able to punch through the wall, getting ready to install the outside door.

Here's the door, ready to install.

With the door in place, we have plans to build an outside screened porch, but that will have to wait until the rain stops. Meanwhile Older Daughter can use the main house entrance.

Next, Don cut a separate door hole in the bathroom to give Older Daughter access from her sitting room (as well as the hallway). Here's the bathroom, before the extra door was cut:

 And after:

Installing the three doors (hallway, bathroom, outside) was all Don got done before his surgery, and of course he had to recuperate for a couple weeks before he could do any physical labor again. Meanwhile the clock was ticking for Older Daughter's lease to expire at the end of May.

So we pushed through and got things done (except painting over the awful wall colors – Older Daughter will have to take care of that on her own).

Here's "my" room, cleaned out and ready to become Older Daughter's bedroom:

(The shade of green in this room isn't as bad as the other room, but it's bad enough.)

While we were busy on our end, Older Daughter was just as busy on her end. She interviewed with a local business and got a job working 30 hours per week. She buttoned up her last job. She packed her belongings, giving away what she didn't need. She called U-Haul and reserved a small moving truck to bring her belongings to our place.

And then ... U-Haul screwed her over. It did precisely what it did to us when we were moving! She had booked a truck through the local dealership, literally a five-minute drive from her apartment. And what did they do? They told her – at the last possible second – the only truck available was in a distant city, a four-hour round trip away. Arrggghhhh.

Suddenly she was in a major quandary. She had friends who were coming over to help her load the truck, but there was no truck to load. She had to be out of her apartment within a day or two. We were too far away to be much by way of material help. I tell ya, my opinion of U-Haul, already rock bottom, descended into the pits of Hades after this incident.

Finally in desperation we called some friends from our old neighborhood. And you know what those blessed people did? They took an entire day, drove to Older Daughter's apartment, loaded her belongings into a large trailer, and moved her here. We can't even begin to tell you how grateful we are to these folks. (Harry and Bonnie, we're eternally in your debt!)

Moving day was, as always, wet. The area in front of Older Daughter's new door was a quagmire of mud. We'd hoped to unload many of her belongings through this door, but it was too wet to walk.

So, with Harry, Bonnie, and Older Daughter on their way, we improvised by laying down some of the old boards from when Don remodeled the back deck last fall. Worked like a charm.

Soon Harry drove up and expertly backed the trailer as close to the new entrance as possible.

Then we formed a chain gang to unload everything (except Don – he wasn't supposed to lift anything heavy yet, so he was in charge of making lunch). It took a surprisingly short time to get everything offloaded and make a jumbled mess in the previously empty rooms.

The next few days were chaotic as Older Daughter settled Frumpkin in, unpacked, unloaded, sorted, arranged, and otherwise dealt with the aftermath of moving. Meanwhile it rained and rained and rained some more.

Two days after moving in, Older Daughter and I took a trip back to her apartment and scrubbed it from top to bottom, stem to stern, in hopes she would get her full security deposit back. (She won't know until late June whether it worked.)

Meanwhile, Don's been creating a second shop for himself in the barn, moving all the hand and power tools Older Daughter won't need for the woodcraft business. While this was happening, Older Daughter started her new 30-hour-a-week job and so far is enjoying it very much.

She also offered an interesting form of rent. One thing she learned while living on her own is she enjoys cooking. (I don't.) However she also learned she doesn't like doing dishes. (I do.) So we've come up with this arrangement where she creates the most astoundingly delicious (and low-calorie – we could all stand to lose a few pounds) meals, and I clean the kitchen afterward. It's a system that is working divinely so far. Man, this kid can cook! And since I've never minded doing dishes, it's a perfect trade-off as far as I'm concerned.

So everyone is settling into our new routine and living arrangements. Right now the rain is keeping us more confined than we'd like. (A couple nights ago we had an intense storm cell move overhead that dumped about two inches of rain in ten minutes. It was some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen. Unfortunately it was too dark for photos.)

As soon as the weather breaks, Don and Older Daughter will get started building her porch, so Frumpkin can have a place to hang out in warmer weather. We keep getting calls from potential wholesalers interested in purchasing tankards, so Older Daughter's woodcraft business will be able to take off with a bang once she gets moving.

We'll keep you posted.

Woodstove in a manufactured home?

Some time ago, a reader left a comment as follows: "My wife and I are thinking about retiring into a mobile home. It looks like that's what you and your husband fixed up. Are you satisfied with it? Is it sufficiently built to make a comfortable home? I thought you indicated you had a woodstove and I did not know you could put a wood stove or firebox stove inside a mobile home. Please comment. Thank you."

The following material was written mostly by Don.

Prior to moving into our current abode, we had very little experience with manufactured homes. During the transition between our old home and our current home, with got within a hair's breadth of purchasing a rather dingy (but inexpensive) 1970s single-wide installed in a mobile home park, just as a temporary place to live. The seller pulled out at the last minute so the sale never went through, but let's just say the inside looked like a 1970s single-wide.

 

However a few years ago, at our old place, we had some new neighbors who bought the property next door. They purchased a triple-wide manufactured home (they have a large family), and we watched with fascination the process of hauling in the sections and installing them. When it was completed and the neighbors toured us around, we were impressed with how bright and airy and beautiful it was. Clearly things have come a long way in the manufactured home industry, especially compared to that 1970s model.

Our current home is a hybrid, part manufactured and part stick-built (a large extension was added which we use as a living room). The original manufactured part was built in 1995, and here and there we can still glimpse some of the early décor (the back of a closet, under the bathroom sink, etc.) However over the years the home has been improved and decorated to look much nicer. Someone installed nice laminated flooring, the walls are a decent neutral beige, they remodeled the kitchen and bathrooms, and the appliances were upgraded (a mixed blessing). During this remodeling, in addition to the stick-built extension, they also added two beautiful porches facing north and east. As a result, it doesn't look like a manufactured home at all.

Since moving in, the first major indoor project was building a spacious pantry in an underutilized corner, which gave us a double bang for our buck: pantry inside…

…and a library wall outside.

The second major indoor project was installing the wood cookstove. When we moved in, our home had two heat sources: forced-air central heating, and a pellet stove. Clearly these are useless during power outages; and power outages, we've discovered, are not uncommon. A non-electric heat source was an essential improvement.

Anyway, back to the reader's original question about installing wood heat in a manufactured home. The answer is yes, it can be done – with a few provisos.

Firstly, if you want to install a woodstove in a manufactured home (or if there's one already installed), you should contact your insurance company to find out what their requirements are concerning the installation. Manufactured homes differ structurally from stick-built homes in a variety of ways, so you need to make sure everything is compliant with state and local codes.

The most common requirements are:

• The woodstove must be rated and approved for use in manufactured homes. This means the stove model has been tested and is in compliance with HUD Standard UM-84 (a metal tag will be affixed to the rear of the stove attesting to this compliance). An approved woodstove will have a separate air intake vent to the outside, to allow exterior air into the firebox during combustion. The reason for this requirement is because most manufactured homes are built fairly air-tight, and installing a woodstove without a separate air intake vent may result in carbon monoxide buildup.

• Most approved woodstoves have a built-in heat shield attached to the rear of the stove. This is probably due to the limited space in a manufactured home.

• The woodstove must be mounted to the floor in such a way that, should the home be moved at some point in the future, the stove will remain in place.

• The woodstove must be installed in a way that meets standard state and local codes (proper pipe spaces, pipe types, distance from combustible materials, Class-A pipe through the ceiling and roof, non-combustible heart pad, etc.).

It's worth noting that some insurance companies may object to allowing a woodstove to be installed if it will be the principle or only heat-producing system. Some insurance companies may also require an inspection of both the woodstove and its installation by an agent or specialist. Some companies may even require the stove to be installed by a licensed professional. This is in addition to whatever state and local regulations which with you must comply. Don't forget to look online for specific installation information for manufactured homes.

Woodstoves in manufactured homes are not usually allowed in sleeping spaces (bedrooms). Also, because manufactured homes are usually so air-tight, it is often required (and recommended) to install a smoke and carbon monoxide detector.

We were able to skirt a few of these requirements because a significant portion of our home is the stick-built addition to the manufactured portion, and we installed the woodstove in that addition. But our insurance company still required us to provide photos of the UL tag on the rear of the stove, as well as photos (both interior and exterior) of the final installation and pipe assembly.

It helped that we have the same insurance company we used at our previous home, as well as the exact same model of woodstove we used in our old place.

We don't profess to be experts in manufactured homes by any stretch. However we've been very satisfied with the quality of construction of our nearly 30-year-old model. It's warm and well insulated, lends itself to remodeling projects (such as the pantry), and in all respects makes a cozy abode for a couple of semi-retired empty nesters.

One year ago today

A neighbor came over today to give us a Christmas card. While chatting with her, we realized this is the one-year anniversary of arriving here at our new house.

How well we remember that day! We were exhausted beyond belief from moving and driving. We dragged a mattress into the empty bedroom and collapsed for the night.

We've come a long way in a year! Dog yard, woodstove, pantry, shop in the barn, library, meeting neighbors, finding a church, settling in. We have endless plans for this upcoming year as well. So far God has been good to us and we're so happy to be here.

And one thing's for certain: We've never moving again, if we can help it. Moving is tough.

What a year

One year ago today, Don and I took possession of a rental house and started the process of moving from our beloved home of 17 years into a temporary residence.

Moving into the rental was slow business. It took many trips to transport our household goods, including a lot of jars of canned food. Fortunately the rental house – a sweet little 1920s bungalow – had a built-in pantry in the basement which I quickly filled.

So much has happened in one year!

We were prepared to stay in that rental for six months (the term of our lease) and spend the winter looking for a suitable piece of property, but God had other plans. On November 11 – less than two weeks after moving in – Don saw a listing for a home that looked like it fit most of our requirements. He drove up to look at it on November 14, liked what he saw, and made an offer contingent on a well inspection.

Meanwhile, during that early part of November, we had a chaotic time of crossing paths with our home's buyers. We were moving out of our house into the rental, they were moving in. They're lovely people and were very generous in letting us store some farm and shop equipment in the barn until such time as we had a permanent place to move to.

So after all that work, we ended up staying in the rental less than two months while we moved forward with the paperwork for our new home. And then, on an exhausting day just before Christmas, we left the rental behind and moved here.

This last year has been spent making improvements to our home and property, writing books for Harlequin as well as various magazines, and otherwise getting our act together.

So yes, this has been an unbelievably eventful year. What will be in store for us over the next twelve months? Who can say?

All I can say is, what a difference a year makes.

Unique use for the box truck

Do you remember the 26-foot box truck we bought to help us move?

In mid-July, we sent the box truck away with some friends. It needed some repairs, and the husband (a brilliant mechanic) is just the guy to do it. He had some delays before he could get started on it, but no one is in a rush and the truck is in good hands.

Which is why we howled with laughter when we got an email from these friends yesterday. It seems their daughter was turning 16, and the family decided on a socially distanced outdoor movie party ... using the side of the box truck as a movie screen!

What a perfect venue!

Decorating the walls

In our old house, before we made all the improvements prior to selling, we had lots and lots of oversized thrift-store prints on the walls.

While they were chosen because we like old-fashioned rural-themed prints, their real purpose was to hide the 11-foot-high walls, which were very ugly. That's why we had nothing short of a gallery of oversized prints.

Naturally all these prints were packed up and put in storage during the two years it took us to fix up the house, sell it, and move to our new place.

A few weeks ago when we opened the box truck after emptying the storage units in our old town, the prints were among the first things to come out. What fun it was to see them again! Like seeing a bunch of old friends.

But we also knew we couldn't use them all. Our new home is much smaller, nor do we have 11-foot ceilings in the living room as in our old place. Bottom line, it was time to assess our prints and determine which ones to keep.

So we wiped them down to remove the dust, and spread  them all over the house to get an idea of which ones we wanted to keep.

For a little while, our place resembled an art gallery.

Complete with canine art critic.

Eventually we got everything sorted, and Don installed hooks on the walls for hanging. We each selected a print to hang over our respective desks...

...and other prints are scattered around.

Eventually (probably over the winter) we're going to remove the upper kitchen cabinets (since they're too high for me to reach anyway) and that will allow room for artwork on the kitchen walls. So we stacked some of the prints aside for this purpose.

Other prints will eventually get hung on the bedroom walls.

We have one large print that will get hung in the larger bathroom...

...and we put a smaller print in the smaller bathroom.

With the exception of a signed print by the wildlife artist Sir John Seerey-Lester that I bought long before Don and I even met (probably worth about $250)...

...not one of our wall hangings has any value whatever. We just like them.

It's the little things that make a house a home, y'know? Including pictures on the walls.