[dlskidmore]

Tempting to go for a bigger house. This place is 12 miles from work, along a major road, but is out of my current budget:

http://www.trulia.com/property/3010412550-5610-State-Route-96-Farmington-NY-14425

[dlskidmore]

We pulled up lots of carpeting when we moved here. The old hardwood is not pristine, but it is way better than the crud that was on top of them.

[dlskidmore]

What do you know, we already live in a crappy house that smells bad, only we have a 40 foot wide lot. We have no mortgage though, so we’re putting cash away for a downpayment. We’d be a lot closer if we could count on the equity here.

I don’t know about the state land. A bit foolish to buy new land when they can’t fund the parks they have right now?

[dlskidmore]

My water supply comes from Hemlock NY. You’re a bit further ahead than I, I hope to be where you are in a couple years. I have similar plans: sheep, market garden, maybe a small beefer, and some side businesses to bring in a bit of mortgage money.

[dlskidmore]

Great links guys!

[dlskidmore]

@Simple Living 20148 wrote:

In the end I think we will end up around 700-1000sq ft.

I keep trying to push the square footage down for primarily economic and energy saving reasons, but plans that meet all of my needs, hubby’s needs, the dogs’ needs, and future family members’ needs end up around 1500 sq ft. I’m leaning towards hiring an architect instead of buying any pre-made plans (I have no desire to study enough code to make my own plans to code) so we can get a multi-phase building plan. I don’t want to give up the dream home or the lower cost first building. I’d love to build a basic necessities house and add a master suite and great room later after the second child comes along. I’ve only seen the concept of a multi-phase building in two sites, one for yurts, one for foam dome homes. I’ve not seen any multi-phase building plans for traditional wood homes.

[dlskidmore]

@near horse 20141 wrote:

The downside – the “pressure” (even self-imposed) to get the new house built w/ limited time and resources. It took A LOT longer than I had anticipated.

Yeah, that’s the biggest factor. We could live in the city while building a house a half hour away, but if I get pregnant, we pretty much have a 2 year timer to get out of the hood into a safer, healthier place, even if it means a yurt for the toddler to sleep in. I’d rather give up the animals and live in a studio or a tent than expose a toddler to the trash, broken glass and drug paraphernalia on my sidewalk.

[dlskidmore]

@blue80 20130 wrote:

I heard a theory of how we all miss out because in society today, kids are put with their own age group through school, and rarely spend time regular time learning and living with a mixed generation group.

I don’t mind the off topic sides as long as we make it back to the beginning occasionally. 🙂

I keep pondering the question of schooling, and what would really be the best solution, I see pros and cons to public school, private school, and homeschooling.

If money was no object, I’d found my own private school. It would be an association of one classroom schoolhouses, each of which had one big-school facility, like a computer lab, chemistry lab, or swimming pool. You’d go to whichever school was in walking distance from your house, but a bus would be available to move kids between schools to use a different facility for an hour or two each day.

The next best thing might be to see if I can home school the kids and have them go into the public school once a week to experience gym and science labs. But that could be cruel, public school kids can be brutal to those who are different, if you’re not lucky enough to be considered cool-different.

[dlskidmore]

@blue80 20120 wrote:

At the end of the day, its your house. Nobody else HAS to like it!

Well, I started out this thread trying to figure out if I would like it. 🙂

@dlskidmore 20049 wrote:

What are the pros/cons of a small house? Any of you manage children of both genders sharing a room? Storage hints? Managing guests/holidays?

[dlskidmore]

@Scott G 20094 wrote:

Move into something you can eat & sleep in and that can be heated with wood, get a portable mill, and start building.

Yeah, the more we think about it, the more we think our first structure will be a garage. Maybe a canopy first, or if there’s lots of saplings about, make a hoop structure with a cheap tarp.

I think the presence of a woodlot will drastically affect my desire to build myself. If I can pull all the wood from my own land, especially if it’s hardwood, that suddenly opens up a world of opportunities, and multiplies the value of any tool I invest in. We currently have basic woodworking tools, but we’d need a portable mill for framing lumber & floors, and a planer for cabinetry.

But before investing in tools, I need to invest in a forester consult. I want every species identified, problem trees marked, and develop a real plan for harvesting. I’m especially interested in preserving sugar maple, oak, and chestnut for tree products other than lumber.

[dlskidmore]

The website is stubborn about allowing links to search results, but I was able to get a link to an individual animal:
http://gsaauctions.gov/gsaauctions/aucdsclnk?sl=31QSCI10184005

You can also go to http://gsaauctions.gov/ and choose Washington under Browse States.

[dlskidmore]

We have the mortgage free house in the city within easy driving distance of where we want to buy the farm. If we build our new house ourselves, it makes sense to live on site so it’s easy to manage working on it every day, but if we hire out building it seems like a lot of trouble to build a temporary structure and scale down our living.

I’m thinking of doing the wood framing myself, but having a contractor do the rest. Excavation, foundation, electric, and roofing at least I would hire out. I’m on the fence regarding plumbing, it may depend on building codes. The city where I now live requires a licence to do anything with plumbing. I could do siding, insulation, and drywall, but we’ll see how fast doing my own framing goes first.

[dlskidmore]

I’ve been reading about yurts. I don’t think I’m committed enough to move into one though. I could definitely see building one for other purposes.

It could be a semi-permanent building for weekend and evening visits out to the property. A place to have a meal and relax after doing some chores.

Construction headquarters…

Round structures are rather ideal for animal handling, it could be a lambing shed made from local materials…

Office…

Kid’s play area…

Camping equipment…

[dlskidmore]

@Stable-Man 20059 wrote:

The first plan looks doable, … remove that sitting area and make it into another bedroom.

There’s also that atrium, if designed for from the beginning, you could probably put a room there instead of the big open space that’s just annoying to heat. The atrium is cute and makes the place feel a bit bigger from downstairs…

There’s also our “modular building” plan, of designing an addition at the same time as the original floor plan. Design in a large social room and a master suite to be added later, and have the original master bedroom be a second children’s room. The hallway already touches the west wall, that seems the most doable. The addition’s ridge line would be perpendicular and come up over the existing roof. When the kids are toddlers it’s no big deal for them to bunk together. We’d have 5 years or so to save up for the addition after we felt stable enough for me to quit the day job and have kids.

Our original modular building plan has 4 stages, with the first being basically a studio, but the builder we talked to said to not even think of it if we held any debt on the place, it was way too unconventional a building to be approved for financing. (The idea is to reduce financing, but I don’t know if we can do away with it completely.)

A couple people mentioned yurts. Did you build your own or buy one? I looked at a vendor today, and found it way too easy to spend $40,000 in options on a 30′ Yurt. Looking around for DIY options, especially if I can end up with an existing woodlot I can harvest wood from.

[dlskidmore]

We can get by without a lot of what we have. A storage unit would be nice, an empty trailer or cargo container for all the junk we can’t part with yet, but we don’t really use 3 of the bedrooms in our home, or our living room, and half of the kitchen is storage rather than useful cooking space. We just need a bedroom, an office, a bathroom, and a kitchen, and enough space for the dog crates. We eat at our desks enough, we don’t even need a dining room or kitchen table. I’ve cooked huge multi-course meals in little apartment kitchens before I got my current big one. (Granted college students are more grateful for that sort of thing than in-laws, and don’t mind sitting on your floor to eat the nice meal.) A second bedroom and a second bath would give room for the family to expand a bit, which is one of the family goals to be helped by me working at home.

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