A little over 2 years ago we moved out onto the hill in an RV.  We aren’t finished with the house yet, but making progress.  Enjoy these pictures of the build progress!

Today it looks like this, but it has taken a LOT of work to get it to this point, and a lot more work to do before move in time.

 

Its been way too long since I’ve written a new blog post, and I really lapsed on updating the progress post from 2019.  The Year of COVID has been interesting to say the least.  This year has been challenging, yet rewarding.  Deb had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in late 2019, then had a 5 week round of radiation therapy to start the year out.  I spent 14 weeks on unemployment due to the COVID shutdowns before being called back to work.  I can’t say I was out of work, because I spent 6 days a week getting infrastructure in place, buying and setting up an RV, and getting moved out of our rental house and out on Serenity Hill in an RV.

Getting Moved Out and Settled In

In February 2020 we finally got the water meter installed.  Once we had a permanent water supply the electric co-op agreed to install a meter and temporary power for us.  March 2020 was a very busy month.  We built an 8×12 shed to house our refrigerator, freezer, washer, and dryer.  I rented a trencher to bury the water lines and the electrical feed for the RV and laundry shed.  Another necessary item was a sewer line to connect the RV and laundry shed to the septic tank.

Due to rain and soft ground the septic install couldn’t take place until toward the end of May.  Shortly after that we had a 12 x 36 garage building delivered for storing the furnishings for the house.  It costs about $50 more than renting a storage unit and I’ll have the building for a workshop once we get in the house.

June 2020 was a busy month.  We moved the RV out and hooked up utilities, then installed a fence for the dogs.  Then came the move out to the property.  At the time we moved I only had 3 columns up on piers and a big pile of timber waiting to be installed.  It was a crazy month, and being on temporary layoff due to the Covid shutdown of the plant ended up being helpful.  Mid July they called me back to work.  I finished cleaning and emptying the rental house when I got off work at 4AM.

Mid October 2020 HR handed me a severance package because corporate changed the plant mission and shut down 2nd shift.  While not unexpected, the timing came about 6 months earlier than we had been lead to believe.  At that time all the foundation piers were ready for timbers but only 7 of 30 timbers were in place.  Progress really picked up when I was no longer having to report to a 10-12 hour a day job.  I worked 12 days and was off 2.  I searched for another job for almost a year.  The only places interested in hiring me were for Maintenance Supervisor positions  requiring 60+ hours a week.  Maintenance works a lot of weekends and most holidays.  We opted for me to start my Social Security early and make building the house and developing the property my full time job.

RV Living Challenges

Living in an RV has been an interesting experience.  We have now gone through two summers and two winters in the RV.  While it is certainly smaller than a house, we have adapted pretty well.  That’s with two adults, two big dogs, and two cats sharing space.  I’ve had to dumb down cooking due to the small kitchen and lack of storage space.  One of the unexpected expenses is not being able to buy food in bulk sizes due to the lack of storage compared to the house, but that is only temporary.  It seems there is always something to work on, which isn’t a surprise with a 99 model RV.

Fortunately we are connected to county water so we don’t have to deal with the water tank.  I do so enjoy dumping the black water tank every few weeks, but fortunately it doesn’t take long.  The RV is slightly downhill from the sewer line leading to the septic tank.  I had to install a PVC line above ground from the RV.  Since it is between the RV and the laundry shed I built a bridge to cross it.

Building the laundry shed was one of the keys to making long term RV living less difficult.  Instead of having to run to a laundromat we can do laundry whenever it suits us.  Much more convenient, and much more affordable.  We also have 2 refrigerators and the deep freeze in the laundry shed, so we are able to buy frozen foods in bulk for convenience and savings.  The RV has a large fridge, but it won’t hold enough for a week of cooking.

While we have adapted pretty well and worked out how to get by in the RV, we sure do look forward to the space and convenience of the house.  RV living requires a lot of compromises and decisions about what you need on a daily basis.  Having on-site storage and the laundry shed makes life a lot easier.  We really enjoy living in the woods and being able to work every day on the house and the homestead.

It is much quicker to build a pole barn or a stick built house.  Since we are building a timber frame house with cordwood infill the process is much slower.  I can knock together an 8 foot section of stick built wall in a pretty short time.  Getting the cordwood infill in an 8 foot wide section of wall takes about 7-8 days.  Not to mention that during the freezing winter months cordwood installation comes to a halt.

Is RV living while building a house for you?  There are many pros and cons to living in an RV.  Here are some of the challenges we faced.

Pros

1.  Instead of travelling out to the work site every other weekend when off work I was able to do some work each morning when I got home from work.  Now my wife makes the daily commute to her job and I walk 25 feet to the house build site.
2. Being out on the property full time lets you get a much better idea of sunlight, wind, and rain effects on the property.  As a result I picked a different site for our future garden and did some drainage work.
3. You get to enjoy living on your property, which is why you bought it in the first place.
4. I am able to secure tools on location without worrying about thieves between trips out to the property.  They are much less likely to strike when there is someone there most of the time.  Our 2 big dogs have access to the area where equipment is stored, so that helps!
5. A coach type RV is built more rugged and better insulated than a trailer.

Cons

1.  Instead of travelling every other weekend to the property, the daily commute to work increased from 15 minutes to an hour.  That’s a lot of miles on a vehicle, and a lot of hours on the road.  It is worth it when I weigh out the increase in available time to work on the house.
2. Storage – RV’s, especially coach RV’s have a lot of storage, but you will have to pare down your dishes, utensils, pots and pans, clothing, and shoes.  There is also the issue of what to do with all your household goods.  We opted to purchase a 12×36 garage building rather than pay for a couple storage units off site.  We keep off season clothing, small appliances, and books handy there so we have access to them as needed.  Beats driving out to an off site storage when you want something!  The garage building will become my workshop when we move household goods into the house.
3. Laundry – unless you have a newer RV with a washer and dryer you will face the unenviable and expensive task of trekking to a laundromat.  Even if your RV has a washer and dryer it is going to be a compact unit that will have difficulty with jackets, sweaters, and linens.  For that reason we built an 8×12 laundry shed.  I insulated the shed and installed dry wall and a vinyl tile floor.  We fit a chest freezer, 2 refrigerators, washer, dryer, and laundry sink in it.   Above the washer and dryer I installed a wire shelf that also doubles as a clothes hanging area, so it is also our closet annex.  Having that makes life much easier.
4. Food storage – while our RV has a relatively large refrigerator, it is less than half the size of a conventional refrigerator.  This really cuts down on the amount of fresh produce and milk products you can have on hand.  We are able to supplement that with our laundry shed refrigerators.  The pull out pantry in the RV is roomy but there isn’t space to store bulk items.  This drives up the cost of staples considerably.  If you are a bottled water drinker, you are going to find it interesting to figure out where to keep your cases of water.
5. Food prep and cooking – there is minimal counter space available for food prep.  As a result I don’t use as much fresh produce in my cooking as I would like simply because of the lack of space to clean and prep it.  I’ve had to change how and what I cook because the propane stove doesn’t have the space or the BTU’s of a home cook stove.  Baking is also a challenge with the smaller oven because it won’t accept a standard size cookie sheet or 2 round cake pans in at the same time.  We limit baking to pizza, brownies, blondies, and roasting potatoes and vegetables.
6. TV and internet – the largest TV that fits in our RV is 24″.  Satellite internet is currently our only option.  We opted not to have satellite TV because we didn’t want to spend all that money.  We use Netflix and Hulu when we can get fast enough internet to actually make it watchable.  If you blog or do social media it can be challenging to get a fast enough reliable connection to do much.  Sometimes I can’t get Facebook to load on my computer for days at a time.
7. Space to stretch out is at a premium.  Our RV has a super slide that expands the living and kitchen areas.  The living area has a love seat with 2 recliners and a center storage console.  The dining table, which also can double as a bed, can only seat 4.  Space considerations really limit entertainment options.  We do have a picnic table and outdoor seating area, but depending on weather and time of day that may not be an option.
8. RV’s are meant for taking trips, not long term living.  Using an RV for full time living takes a toll on it and as a result there is always something to fix.

All in all RV living while constructing our home has worked out pretty well.  We have made a lot of adaptations due to the limitations of the RV, but we are making the best of it.  Paring down to the essentials has actually been liberating, although we do cheat by having the garage building and laundry shed for storage and convenience.  We will certainly be glad to move into the house.  We haven’t decided yet if we are going to keep the RV and fix it up some to be able to take it on trips or if we will sell it for what we can when we get moved.  By the time we get moved into the house we will have had all the RV living we want!

The cliche says that the only thing constant is change.  That is so true when you are building a homestead, especially if you are working to make money to fund the build.  We can become so attached to and idea and a dream that when challenges come we lack the flexibility to respond and adapt.  The question for us is, do we want the dream badly enough to fight through the challenges?  The answer, after a lot of soul searching and discussion is a resounding yes.  So, we decided to change the plan.

Plan A

Plan A was to continue to live in our rental house and work on our homestead house on weekends, holidays, and vacations days.  Once we had a livable house, we would move in and finish out the house.  As weather permitted, we would continue developing the homestead.

• Garden
• Fruit Trees
• Chicken coop
• Pathways through the woods
• BBQ pavilion
• Garage/workshop
• Pond

Why a Plan B?

My employer decided to save money by cutting payroll.  That resulted in nobody to relieve me for my 3 days off every weekend.  At one point I worked 10 days, then had 4 days off.  That changed to working 11 days with 3 days off.  After the cuts I am now working 6 days with Sundays off.  While it is great to have every Sunday off (so far), not having the 3-4 day weekend every other week leaves me with almost no time to work on our home.

I won’t try to tell you that I accepted it gracefully when I found out I was going to work for my third straight weekend.  I won’t tell you that I was pleasant when I realized I would most likely work several more 6 day weeks.  Like several months more, except when the stretch of 7 day work weeks starts up.  My response was neither graceful or pleasant, and I’m not proud of that.  In fact, I was pretty upset for a couple days and had to engage in some serious prayer time to get my head right.

When I finished with my anger and disappointment, Deb and I sat down and did some serious thinking and discussing.  We decided that this is something we want, and it is something we are willing to fight for.  I heard a song with a line that really hit me – “safe is another word for regret”.  We have enough regrets in life.  Time to step out of safe.

Plan B

We have actually tossed this one around but were hesitant to go with it because it isn’t safe and familiar.  It will be challenging.  At times it will be frustrating and uncomfortable.  Since my work schedule is likely not going to change, we must make a change.  Time for Plan B.

As quickly as possible I’ll have the electric co-op come out and tell me where I need to clear a path for them to run power to my foundation.  Then I’ll schedule getting power in.  That will be nice because then I can use an electric cement mixer instead of having to finish out the build mixing concrete and mortar by hand.  After that, I’ll get the water put in.  I’ll do it that way because the electric co-op contractors have a history of cutting through water lines and leaving a mess behind them.  After the water will come the septic system.

Once we have utilities in place our plan is to purchase a shipping container and a used travel trailer.  I’d rather purchase a shipping container that we will use for years than to spend money keeping stuff in a storage unit (or units) until we can move it into the house.  I figure that I can cut a panel in the side of the container to bring in power, water, and a drain line so we can put the chest freezer, refrigerator, and washer and dryer in it.  It might be a pain to carry laundry from the trailer to the shipping container, but not as much of a pain as carrying it to a laundromat.  That hits time and the pocketbook.

Of course, I’ll have to expand the fence that we put in earlier so the dogs have space to exercise.  They are going to need it after being in a travel trailer for several hours.  Considering that I put up our existing 50 x 50 fenced in area in about 4 hours, that won’t be so bad.

Having a shipping container onsite will also allow me to have a safe place to keep my tools and equipment locked up while we are off at work.  And I can keep things organized.  Ask Deb sometime how much I enjoy looking for things.  And how lousy I am at finding things.  Since it is something we will continue to use for years to come, we aren’t throwing money away on storage.

We have talked about moving into a travel trailer before, but didn’t pursue it.  We have a lab, a lab mix, and 2 cats that will go with us.  The thought of cramming us and them into a travel trailer is concerning.  It won’t be as comfy or convenient as living in our rental house.  That goes back to sticking to what is safe and familiar.  But then, the whole concept of clearing land and building a debt free home isn’t safe, so why cling to the safety of the rental house?

Pros and Cons

Pros

• We can work each day rather than just every other weekend
• When I do get days off, there won’t be 3 hours of travel involved
• Secure storage for tools and materials, no more toting them back and forth
• We can enjoy our woods every day instead of every other weekend
• There will be time to begin developing a garden area
• We won’t be paying out rent
• We’ve got a LOT of stuff to sort through and decide what to keep

Cons

• Living in a travel trailer with 2 dogs and 2 cats!
• Small spaces will require changing how we cook meals
• No more walk in closets for a while
• Did I mention it will be cramped?
• Travel trailers aren’t really meant for daily living, lots of upkeep
• Driving an hour to work instead of 20 minutes
• Dealing with the black water system in a trailer
• We’ve got a LOT of stuff to sort through and decide what to keep (its on both lists because we both see that as a pro.  We have stuff still in boxes from our 2007 move.)

All in all, the pros outweigh the cons.  We will have to figure out how to work around each of the cons and how to maximize the pros.

Accepting the challenge

All the prep and planning required to make this move out to the property is daunting.  As I find out when we can schedule the utilities installations I’ll have a better idea on when we can move.  Perhaps the best thing about reaching this conclusion is that rather than waiting and hoping, we are taking action and making it happen.  A lot of people will think we have lost our minds.  They may not be too far from the truth!

There will be challenges and struggles.  We have come through many in our lives.  But at least we will be moving forward, and we can continue to find ways to deal with the challenges ahead.

Remember, Safe is another word for Regret.

 

 

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And So it Began

Our search for land of our own began 7 years ago when we were living in Texas.  With the exception of a 4 year stint at Fort Campbell where we bought a home, we have spent our entire married lives living in either military housing or rented homes.  Deb has wanted a place of our own for years.  I was always hesitant to put down roots in a place that I didn’t really like that much where I was working a job that I didn’t really care for.  Finally back in 2011 we started looking at homes, land, and discussing what type of place we wanted.

One of the decisions we arrived at is that we didn’t want to live in a subdivision and we wanted no part of a HOA.  Through a friend at work, I learned of a place that owner financed land with a small down payment.  He also told me of a place that did owner financing, moving, and setup of repo manufactured homes.  That would be a start, and it would get us out of our rental house in town.  We looked at some land and it was mostly in the Trinity River bottoms.  Neither of us were keen on buying land in a flood plain and we ended up continuing to look elsewhere.

Making a Move

In 2014 I had an opportunity for a job that would finally put us in the area we really wanted to retire.  It would put us close to my Dad and Stepmom in their latter years, but the downside is that our kids and most of our grandkids would be down in Texas.  After a lot of thought and discussion, we decided to make the leap.

Shortly after moving we began looking at property and discussing what we wanted in a home or land.  One of my favorite places growing up was a beautiful lake near our hometown.  We spent a lot of Saturday and Sunday afternoons swimming at the lake or just driving around the countryside.  Naturally, that is the first place we began looking for property.  Unfortunately, reality sometimes departs from childhood dreams.  There was plenty of land available near the lake, the problem is that much of it was really rugged and challenging to build on.  Many of the lots had run down homes or trailers built right next to the road and the property was pretty trashed out.  A search on the web revealed a disturbing number of registered sex offenders and verified meth houses.  Time to rethink!

The Decision Checklist

1. Did we want to buy a cheap home or build our own?
2. Type of area/activities we want to be near?
3. Plans for the land?
4. What kind of land did we want to buy?
5. How remote and isolated did we want to be?
6. What kind of lifestyle do we want?

Did We Want to Buy a Cheap Home or Build Our Own?

Searches on Zillow, Realtor.com, Mossy Oak, and local realtor sites revealed no shortage of cheap homes.  Unfortunately, there is a reason they were cheap and the price would only be a starting point.  Issues with eaves, roofing, flooring, and utilities end up requiring a lot of work and a sizable cash outlay.  Fixing up a place that needed work would cost more than if we built from scratch!  Another issue is floor plan.  Nothing we saw matched what we had decided was important in a floor plan.  Since this home will be our retirement home, we decided to build our own.

Done deal, we would buy a piece of land and build our own home.  What type of home is a story for another day.

Type of area/activities we want to be near? 

After years of living in military housing and subdivisions, we knew that we wanted a place with elbow room.  My wife grew up in town and always felt that was where she would want to live.  People change over time, and she finally decided that she also wanted a place with some elbow room, space, trees, and privacy.

We both love being in the outdoors and enjoy camping and hiking.  Her family vacations as a child revolved around loading up the pop-up camper and going camping somewhere for a week.  My family spent a lot of time driving through the Ozarks and visiting places in the Mark Twain National Forest.  We both wanted to be near areas where we could get out and enjoy nature.  Go for a swim, go on a float trip, go on a hike, just spend some time in a beautiful place without having to drive for hours.

Plans for the land?

Initially we thought of a property with enough space to grow a small garden and perhaps have a few chickens and rabbits.  Our priorities changed as we discussed our retirement years and the type of life that really meant the most to us.  Living more in tune with nature, less consumerism, sustainable living, responsible stewardship became more important.  We decided that we wanted to buy a place that would have enough room for livestock if we felt so inclined.  Bottom line, we didn’t want to get the bare minimum space and not have room to expand if we wanted.

As a result, we decided that something in the 3-5 acre range would be best.  It would allow us to have a garden, and have a chicken coop and/or rabbit hutch that wouldn’t be right next to the house.  We could start with a small garden and have the flexibility to expand.  Funny thing is, we bought 5.3 acres and Deb wondered what we were going to do with all that land.  As we worked on clearing trees and developing the house site, she began to wish we had MORE space.  When the 5.9 acres on our north border became available, we decided to buy that too and ended up, so far, with 11.2 acres.  Now, if only the 6.3 acres on our east border doesn’t sell before we get in the position to buy it too….

What kind of land did we want to buy?

Deb and I both love the rugged hills and beautiful vistas.  Nothing like a piece of land with a view and a pond or stream.  Deb’s left hip had been bothering her for a couple years, and it became necessary for her to have a hip replacement.  In the next 3-5 years she will probably end up having her other hip replaced.  Build a home and garden on rugged acreage is definitely feasible.  Getting around it with a bionic hip isn’t so easy.  Neither of us could imagine trying it with two bionic hips!  They take care of the pain and restore lost mobility, but they just aren’t made for land best suited to billy goats.

We looked at some cleared land, but really wanted wooded acreage.  We didn’t want rugged hills, but we didn’t want flat land.  And we definitely didn’t want to be in a flood plain.  The narrowed our focus to wooded acreage with a gentle slope that would be easy for us to navigate as we age.

How remote and isolated did we want to be?

In the early stages of our discussions, we thought about buying remote land far away from the rest of the world.  Sounds romantic, and for some people it is the best place in the world.  We considered things like the fact that we will be working for the next 6-7 years, getting to church, spending time with family, access to medical care.  Remote wasn’t practical for us.  We began searching within 20 miles of the town we wanted to be near that would meet the other criteria that were important to us.

With retirement approaching, we didn’t want to be so remote that we didn’t have fairly easy access to stores and medical facilities.  We don’t need to be near a big city, but would like access to the basics without having to make a day trip.

What kind of lifestyle did we want?

Determining how we wanted to live had a huge impact on the type of land that would be suitable.  We wanted land with enough space to have room between us and neighbors.  We wanted enough space to have a sustainable permaculture garden.  Space for a chicken coop if we decided to go that way was important.  Since we really enjoy relaxing in our above ground pool, there has to be room for that!  I love smoking meat and want a detached BBQ pavilion.  No more having the smoker right next to the back door and bringing smoke into the house.

We wanted to have enough room to make a few trails to stroll through our woods.  Building a fire pit retreat found its way to our wish list.  We wanted a lot wide enough to build in a location where the house wouldn’t be easily seen from the road.  Private, but not isolated.  And we didn’t want to be in an area with junked up places all around us.  Determining what kind of lifestyle is important is vital in picking out the right kind of land.

We’ve got LAND!

In the end, I stumbled across an add on Craigslist for  owner financed wooded acreage.  A local developer had bought a few hundred acres and opened it up.  He ran county water lines, and had the plat accepted by the electric utility and the county.  In the next year the county will be taking over road maintenance.  He gave directions to get to the property, gave some details, and invited us to go check it out.  There was no high pressure sales pitch.  Just told us to go look at it and if we saw something we like, come to his office and we will talk.  I like that approach because I detest a high pressure sales pitch and will walk away in a heartbeat.

We walked several properties and decided on the one we wanted.  The properties have some deed restrictions that actually make them more appealing to us because they will (hopefully) prevent the kind of things that made other areas unappealing.  Deed Restrictions is an ugly phrase to most people setting out to homestead because they want to do whatever they want on their land.  Problem is, the people around you can do the same, and that could get unpleasant.  We made sure that the restrictions didn’t keep us from doing any of the things we were wanting to do on the land and signed the dotted line.

Making it work

My job doesn’t leave me much free time because I work 10 days and get 4 days off.  This gives us every other weekend to get out there and work.  It is challenging, and at times frustrating because things take time.  Of course, it also gives us time to refine our plans and hopefully waste less time.

Rather than have a dozer come in and knock everything down, we cut trees ourselves.  I’ve left the bigger oaks in logs 9-14 feet long to use as posts in our cordwood home.  I’ll mill hickory logs to use in making cabinets and furniture.  The rest of the oak and hickory we have been cutting up to dry for firewood.  Other brush was burned.  Whatever doesn’t make timbers for the frame or firewood will be laid out to make hugulkulture beds in the garden.  Our initial site for a drive and house changed slightly in the fall and winter when could see the land better.  It really is best if you can see the land, sun, and weather in several seasons before you put down something permanent.

People who have been out to our place love it.  We love to spend time there, even if most of that time we are working our tails off.  Some people get it, some people think we are crazy, and that’s okay.  This is our dream, our adventure to do our way.  Mistakes will be made, amazing things will be learned, and great people will be met as we go along.  At the end of the day, we will have built our dream our way, and it doesn’t get much better than that.  Hope you get to make your dream happen too!

 

 

Disclosure: I sometimes earn money or products from any of the companies mentioned on this site Learn More

Serenity Hill Homestead

Welcome to Serenity Hill Homestead, our little piece of paradise!  We are Bob and Deb, a couple who has been married for over 39 years and counting.  For most of those years we either lived in Military housing or rented a house, sometimes good, sometimes not so good.  One of our desires has always been to find a place where we want to settle and develop the place of our dreams going into our retirement years.  For us, it isn’t just about a house to live in, but a place where we live in harmony with the land and enjoy what it can provide for us.

After many years of fruitless searching, I finally found a job near the area we wanted always wanted to live – the Ozarks in Southeast Missouri.  We began our search for a homestead site near a lake that has been a favorite place since childhood.  Unfortunately like so many things that we think are great as children the reality doesn’t match up later in life.  The land for sale in the area was pretty rugged and would have been costly to build on.  The very rocky soil is a challenge for gardening.  There are no codes, so a lot of really trashy places have popped up, and when I did a search for known meth labs, many popped up in the area.  To top it all off, Deb had a hip replacement a couple years ago and just isn’t up to rugged terrain anymore.  We both had to realize that it wasn’t going to be the best place for us.

Making a List and Checking It Twice

After regrouping, we sat down and did a checklist of what we wanted in a property.  We also discussed finances and made a checklist and plan for paying off debt and boosting our savings.  Then we began searching for a place that met our needs.  We found a newly opened area with nice dead end gravel roads and county water already in place.  The area has gentle hills and is very heavily wooded.  It is 10 miles from Current River, a part of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways,  and near several Conservation areas.  After roaming around several of the lots, we found one that met our criteria and we decided to make the leap.

Our initial purchase was 5.3 acres and Deb wondered what in the world we were going to do with all that land.  As the other lots began selling and we spent more time on the property we began discussing purchasing the 5.9 acres on our north border.  A couple months ago we signed the paperwork and expanded Serenity Hill Homestead to 11.2 acres.

Slow But Steady

To date we have cleared a curved driveway, area for garage, house, and septic system.  We used to have to park our car on the grass at the bottom of the hill and tote everything up to where we were clearing because the red clay soil up close to the driveway location was too soft after a rain.  When we finally got the drive and house areas clear to the point we called in an excavating contract it was celebration time.  Getting that culvert and drive in was a big milestone for us.  The topsoil is soft and ruts easily, so I had him put a layer of clay and gravel on the drive.  It has hardened to the point that even after torrential rain we can drive on it with no problem, and when dry a dozer doesn’t leave tracks on it.

In August we had trenches dug for our foundation footings.  Another exciting day!  Now comes gravel, rebar, and concrete.  Once we have the footings in place the electric utility will run power to it so we won’t have to purchase a generator to run power tools.  More money available for building supplies.

As soon as we get a livable house we will be moving to the property.  Once we get there, we can begin developing the rest of Serenity Hill Homestead.  In the meantime, we are getting rid of a lot of “stuff” we have accumulated in boxes in the basement.  No need to move things we haven’t used in years and boxes that have remained unopened through 3 moves!  Mind boggling when I think about it.

The Homestead

What are we building at Serenity Hill Homestead?

• 32 x 40 Cordwood home with shed roof, full length porch, and lots of windows
• 25 x 30 Cordwood garage/workshop
• Forest garden utilizing hugulkultur beds
• Chicken coop and possibly rabbit hutches
• Fire pit and picnic area in a small clearing about 150 feet from the house
• Pond, approximately 1 acre
• Walking paths with seating to just enjoy the woods

We are doing most of the work ourselves and hiring out work that requires equipment or expertise that we don’t have.  Our goal is to have a mortgage free home since retirement is just a few years away.  Some people think we are crazy, some people are excited for us, and some people don’t know quite what to think.  Everyone, it seems, has ideas about what a home is or what it takes to build a home.  When you do something outside that box they don’t know quite what to think.

But then, that is us in a nutshell.  We have always done things a little differently than everyone else.  We value different things than most of our friends and family.  Life is too short to spending it trying to impress other people, best to spend time doing things that make you happy, enrich the lives of those you hold dear, and create wonderful memories.

More to come.  We hope you enjoy following our journey.

 

 

Disclosure: I sometimes earn money or products from any of the companies mentioned on this site Learn More

Carving a homestead out of 11 acres of heavily wooded land and building a cordwood home with our own hands.  Our goal is to be mortgage free, hassle free, and live in harmony with the land and what it provides us.  Serenity Hill is a name that more or less found us, because that is what owning our own piece of land after almost 40 years of renting houses has brought us.  It is lots of hard work, sweat, and sore bodies, but it brings us peace and contentment.

We hope you join us as we build our home, gardens, pond, and decide what food critters we are going to raise.  We look forward to sharing our dream.