Our Seven Month Anniversary

It’s hard to believe that this weekend we are in marks our Seven Month Anniversary at the Cabin On Huckleberry Hill.

October 21, 2016 was the day that we became full-time small cabin dwellers.

We have mentioned before that this major change didn’t happen overnight. Getting here was a lengthy process that we carefully walked through one step at a time. It did, in fact, take right at five years to get from our first yard sale to loading the last load that came with us to the cabin.

Downsizing is a monumental (and collective) task. Especially after years of stacking things up, storing things away, and being constant collectors of things. A lot of weighing and evaluating is involved in the process. A lot of discussion takes place. The process makes demands upon those participating that could be a real deal breaker for people. Both of us had to let go of stuff that we considered important to us.

Both of us had to make sacrifices to achieve our collective goal. Something like this adventure is a mutually participatory thing for couples. One or the other will have a tough time making it happen with an outcome of mutual contentedness for both.

Our downsize is not as drastic as it is for those that decide on a tiny house built on a tandem axle trailer or a pull-behind RV. Though not a wheeled vehicle, our cabin is still portable should there become a need to hire a roll-back to move it to another location. There is still a lot of flexibility in the mobility department.

12’ x 24’ with a 12’ x 4’ porch is still quite small.

These are the outside dimensions.

288 square feet inside minus the framing, finishing, added walls, appliances, counters, shelves, furniture, and a few etcetera’s equals something that is just right for an oldering couple that doesn’t look for reasons or opportunities to be in separate places away from each other. There’s hardly a day goes by that the two of us aren’t engaged in doing the small space shuffle. It’s a dance that you pick up quickly when stepping down from close to 1300 square feet to something as diminutive as our little cabin.

The porch needed screening the day we bought the cabin. We live in the woods in a climate zone that is perfect for mosquitoes and wasps. We have assorted varieties of both insect categories as well as an array of others. Some of the others sting or bite. Some are just aggravating nuisances. 

There was too much else that needed our attention so the project was put off.   

The initial design of the cabin didn’t take into consideration the idea of screening the porch.

Some measuring, cutting, and nailing was necessary to prepare the porch for the screen. I still have both sides of the porch to trim out with lattice strips. I make my own strips rather than buying them pre-cut. It took less than half of a treated 2”x6” to rip the strips that I needed to trim out the front of the porch and the door.

I built the door. Forget buying one ready-made that will fit. This is a purely custom door built to fit a custom doorway that is nowhere remotely standard on a structure where the original builders had no idea about how to use a level to check for plumb on the 4”X6” beams that support the loft and roof.

Making things work was part of the fun in the project.

We do, at this point, have a suitable sit-spot on the porch where we can watch the befuddled mosquitoes, wasps, and other flying creatures on the outside of the screen while we sip our morning coffee, listen to the happy birds, count the tomato sandwiches growing in our little garden, or watch the clouds in the sky.