My family and I own about 19 acres of land in the mountains of North Carolina. My husband and I bought it along with my parents about seven years ago, and the plan was to create a sort of family compound with two houses, gardens, sheds, and maybe some livestock. My husband and I and our daughter went ahead and moved a singlewide trailer onto the property, and we have been living in it ever since. But my parents (who live in another singlewide trailer in the next town over, on a rented lot) never got around to building their house. Things just kept coming up, and there was never any urgency to get the project started.

Well, now it's becoming urgent. My dad is in poor health and requires care nearly around the clock. I've been driving almost every day to my parents' house to help my mom care for him, and it's causing a strain on my family's schedule and finances. It would be much easier on everyone if we lived next door to each other. Plus, Mom is paying out hundreds of dollars a month on lot rent and storage fees when we own our acreage free and clear. With the extra expense of my dad's medical bills from his recent six week hospital stay, this is not sustainable. It's time to make moves. Instead of building a house, though, Mom's going to have their mobile home moved out to the land.

And then, because my husband and I are about fed up with our metallic housing arrangement, we are going to build a new tiny-ish house (not small enough in square feet to actually qualify as a tiny house, but still very small. We also eventually want to travel for a few months out of every year, and we feel that by slimming down our possessions and getting into a housing situation that requires less year-round maintenance, this will be an easier feat to accomplish.

As with any property improvement project, this is shaping up to be a major undertaking. But we are up to the challenge. Our goal is to have Mom and Dad moved into their mobile home here on the property by the end of November, and for our tiny-ish house to be built and move-in ready by next July. Here's what has to be done over the next 10 months.

First, this lot needs to be cleared of its proliferation of vegetation.

This is where Mom and Dad's singlewide is going to go. My husband and I are tackling the mowing and weedeating this week. Once that is done, we can have the well and septic contractors come out and determine where the utilities are going to go. Then we'll rent a machine to grade out a nice site for the trailer. Shouldn't be too hard. You can't tell by the picture, but this is a relatively flat piece of land. In fact, it's probably the largest flat section of land on the whole 19 acres.

Next, we need to haul away some junk and build an open-air shed for our building materials.

This is Mom and Dad's building site, from a different angle. Up until about a year ago, a huge pole barn sat here. Anticipating the eventuality of needing to build or bring extra housing onto the property, we had it torn down (because, like I said, this is the only good piece of flat land on the property.) The people who tore down the barn took most of the materials to build their own barn, but under all this overgrowth there are several 20-foot-long and 90-year-old black locust poles (black locust lasts for like ever) that will make excellent materials for whatever projects are ahead. There are also several piles of old barn boards, some usable and some not so much. There are six lengths of tin roofing sheet. And there's some random junk that just got pulled out of the barn and was never taken off to the dump. So. We are going to use a couple of the locust poles and some of the tin to make a covered area to stick the rest of the materials in so they won't deteriorate as fast. And we're going to haul away the last of the junk. That's on this week's agenda, too, but might get stretched out into next week.

When we rent the bulldozer for grading out Mom's building site, we're also going to use it for a few more projects around the property.

The biggest of which will be tearing down this old, derelict house. It was built in the 1930s, but by the time we purchased the property it had a massive tree through the roof, three years worth of water damage and black mold, and was entirely unusable as a domicile. We used it for storage for awhile, but then it got too moldy even for that. So now it's just sitting there looking sad. Coincidentally, our tiny-ish house is probably going to go either where this house currently sits, or right in front of it, so tearing it down is a major component of our final plan. I imagine some of the building materials can be salvaged, like the metal roof and the wood in the front of the house where the water damage didn't reach.

Over the winter, we will purge.

We've collected a lot of useless stuff over the years. During the cold winter months, when little work can be done on the property, we will consolidate our efforts into sorting through belongings and getting rid of everything we don't need or love.

Then, in the spring, we will build our tiny-ish house.

This is kind of the style we are going for. We're going to try and find a gambrel roof shed kit like this, but longer. 12x28' is what we're hoping for. I've been busy drawing up the floorplans for the last two weeks. It will have a small bedroom for my husband and me, a combined living/kitchen area, and two lofts--one for my daughter's bedroom, and one for my writing space. It will be the first time I've ever had my own dedicated writing space, so you can probably imagine my excitement. The house will also have a bathroom, but it will be built onto the side, rather than taking up part of the limited floorspace of the main house.

After we build the house, we'll have to spend a few months getting it ready to live in. Plumbing, electrical wiring, porches, lofts, stairs, cabinetry, etc., all must be built, and we're not professionals. Plus we have to work. So it won't be done overnight. Our target move-in date is July of 2018.

We're going to move this box truck, put a roof over it, and turn it into a studio for my husband.

It's not falling over, it's just parked on a slope! My husband currently has a room in our mobile home for his music and recording equipment, but when we move into the tiny-ish house, that's not going to be feasible. We racked our brains trying to come up with a solution, before discovering one right under our noses. This box truck is actually a perfect size for a little studio workspace. We will move it down the hill to sit behind the tiny-ish house. We plan to build a roof over it to prevent leaks and also to muffle weather noises for sound recording purposes. And of course we will have to put in electric wiring and ventilation. Right now, the truck is used as storage for tools. But we have another place we can store tools, that is much closer to our eventual tiny-ish home site...

This shed will become our tool and potting shed.

Right now, it just houses a bunch of crap left behind by the previous land owners. We've never cleaned it out to use it since it's kind of in an inconvenient location from where our trailer is set up. BUT! This shed is really cool. It has two compartments. The back section has a solid wood floor, and it's a fairly spacious area, so that's where we'll keep our tools. We just need to put in some shelving and pegboard. The front part has a dirt floor, and some workbenches and shelving built in already, so I'm envisioning that as a little potting shed.

And finally, when that huge list of to-dos is accomplished, we can sell our old metal sided singlewide and be rid of the damn thing forever!

I mean, I appreciate it for keeping me warm and dry all these years, but I'm seriously sick of living in a metal box. If you've ever lived in an older mobile home, you know that they tend to have the worst layouts and horrible space economy. That's why I'm designing the inside of my tiny-ish house very carefully, to ensure that every inch of space is used thoughtfully and efficiently, and that there is a place for everything that we'll need or want to bring with us.

Like I said, we've definitely got our work cut out for us. I'll be keeping you updated on our progress over the next year.

---

---

I love you, Steemit!

Hi! I'm Leslie Starr O'Hara, but my friends call me Starr. I live in the mountains of North Carolina and I am a FULL TIME WRITER who doesn't wait for the muse to show up before getting to work! I write humor, essays, and fiction here on Steemit and elsewhere.

Upvotes and Resteems are Amazing!

@lesliestarrohara