Rambling: I want to build our own house.

First: While Sue, Will, Andrew, Lois and I were at the Greek Festival this weekend (which was essentially a large gymnasium filled with Greek food vendors. . .who can complain about that? Yummm), Will mentioned that we had comments on our blog and I TOTALLY missed them. So sorry, Amanda and Ben :) Your advice was very, very wise. I've been thinking a lot more about school recently and it's been really helpful.

Next:

Fall seems to always give way to contemplation and hope about the future within just a few weeks. Perhaps it's a process of accepting that nature as you know it will drastically change, but that you can look forward to something new. . .eventually. As seems to be the case for many people/couples after getting married, I've been thinking a lot about houses recently. This is an inopportune time to think about houses, what with their rental rates being so high around here and Andrew just starting grad school, but that doesn't stop me from scheming about them. I call this scheming 'planning', because planning sounds more adult.

Why a house? The idea of a house might be more exciting than an ACTUAL house. Or my excitement toward ACTUAL houses may stem directly from the idea of what a house can mean, as opposed to from the financial investment, physical structure or social stature. There is measurable convenience that comes with them, but more so than that a house seems to encapsulate the concept of being rooted. They could be considered a monetary burden, but I conceive of that burden as being more of an anchor. You have a place. You have a base. It's your personal island and castle surrounded by a sea of shared spaces and compromise and in some cases estrangement from the results of your creative output.

I've been looking at blueprints for Tumbleweed Tiny Houses for a while now (~two years) and my love for them has not diminished with time. TTHs is run by a guy named Jay Shafer who designed, built and lives in his own 89 square foot home. He has two sorts of homes he designs--tiny homes and small homes. His tiny homes are mobile and range from 65-140 square feet. I'm honest enough with myself to know that we could never live in a space that small, but his small homes are more to my liking. They range from 261 to about 900 square feet and are designed with small-space living in mind.

Some of the people I have mentioned it to in the past have said that we would get tired of living in such a small space, but I disagree. Andrew and I currently live in a tiny apartment (my guess would be about 600 square feet?) and my only complaints about it are that the kitchen is too small and that we don't have a yard. I think Andrew feels similarly. Otherwise, I feel like we fit really comfortably into the space we currently have, which consists of one bathroom, one office, one living room and one bedroom. It prevents us from compiling too much crap, it encourages us to physically spend time in the same spaces (not that this is a difficulty), it encourages us to spend more time outside of the apartment.

With that in mind, my scheme for the future is as such: Buy a decent plot of land (half acre? Acre?) near enough to the city of our choice to satisfy our need for convenience. Get the plans for the B-53 house. This is their largest house at about 860 square feet. Next, build said B-53 house with Andrew and the aid of  consulting contractors as needed, using sustainable materials and environmentally friendly appliances/electronics/what have you. Put up fence. Move stuff in. Eak out a garden plot. Build chicken coop. Release dogs into the yard and Roman into the wild (only joking). Sit on porch sipping lemonade.

Obviously this plan wouldn't be more seriously explored until both Andrew and I have worked through grad school and we've found a place to settle down that works for us, but the general concept is really exciting. I would love to learn how to build my own house and take the time and energy to create it just the way we want it. That way it's really OURS. We know what effort went into it because it's our own effort, we know the consequences of the materials through research and have lovingly shaped each space with intention and thought. I'll look at that corner and remember the process that went into creating it, look at the sink and value how it functions so well despite the struggle I went through to install the bugger.

One of the parts I relish most is figuring out where we need to be financially to make that sort of investment of funds and time. It's like scratching a mosquito bite or peeling sunburn skin--strangely satisfying. Building a little house like that costs a lot less than building a large house, but you'd need the plot of land as well as wiggle room for the inevitable extra costs that would sneak in. Still, though, looking at building it in Utah, a half-acre to an acre lot would be about $50,000, and building the house with our own two hands would end up costing $75-90,000. Add in yearly maintenance costs, taxes and the like, and if we prioritize this enough as the choice we actually want to make, when we reach the point of making about $60,000 a year total (which I know is VERY little between the two of us, but Andrew is in philosophy and I'm currently slated to work for non-profits, so I'm trying to be realistic) we could potentially make it work. That's pretty cool.

Dreaming about the future is awesome. It makes that nebulous mass of time-yet-to-come seem both full of possibilities and slightly less uncertain, as though when we get there all of the thought we have put into possible outcomes will open up the doors to a sum greater and more fulfilling than the pieces we have imagined.