It's Christmas, and Still No Deck

We spent the better part of the Christmas weekend (while the kids were with their other parents) working on the deck and garage.

Alan's carpentry skills are paying off.  Poor man is trying to finish this massive project mostly on his own.  I have my hands full with the domestic tasks out here.  I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, though.

Even though it was warm, I was very, very glad for my new Carhartt socks .  They are comfortable and warm.  I love these things!





At the end of the day, we cooked crab and lobster on the Camp Chef out front and toasted each other with a glass of champagne.  Merry Christmas!

The Bunkhouse/Den/Garage/Mancave

I'm not sure what we're going to call it yet, but the garage that we originally bought to store the tractor is going to become a workout facility and guest room.  It's already my laundry room, but I've been waiting for Alan to finish a more permanent hook up.  

Permanent means a drain that stays in place so I don't have to use the swimming pool hose out the door.  I'm still using garden hose hookup to the outside of the building.  I'm sure we will do something more permanent in the long run, but in the meantime, this works great!

Even in December, clothes dry quickly in the Oklahoma wind.

I love hanging my laundry outside.  I can do 3 extra large loads in half a day here, but it takes me a full day at the condo because of the drying time.

Alan has insulated about half of the building and hung bead board.  I am going to try to finish varnishing it by January 1st so that we can use the building before Mae has to go back to Charleston.

We hope to get an exercise bike from Alan's mom and dad for Christmas.  We just don't think Alan should go running here.  He'd have to run with the gun!

Some folks were pretty skeptical when I said I saw mountain lion tracks down by our creek last year, but they believe me now after the multiple sightings in Oklahoma. Here's a story about a mountain lion found on the highway near Minco.

Honey, We're Going to Need a Barn

We're using the garage for laundry and wood working.  Now with the UTV (which can't be stored in the girls' room) we are out of space.

As I have said before, if we come up with an idea, it's only moments until we are acting on it. The minute after Alan said maybe we should get a barn, I'm on Ernest's website looking at the horse barn he sells.

A couple of weeks later, we had complete the purchase and were waiting for a call from Eagle Carports.

Again, Kenny Sexton came to our rescue.  He graded a flat location for the barn behind the power pole.

This image is distorted for some reason.  The door in the center is 10'.

I'm going to give Eagle Carports a mixed review.  Granted, we changed our minds and wanted to add another roll-up door, but that was 10 days before the construction was scheduled to begin AND they agreed to do it.

But when the contractors, who drove up from Texas, arrived, they didn't have the door and didn't know anything about it.  When they called the company, they were told to reschedule and had to drive home at their own expense.  It didn't seem right to me.

Finally, they returned and started work the week before Christmas.  Alan hadn't noticed that Kenny had moved the markers, so when the men started building, they were building the barn at an angle to where we located it.  Although they weren't happy about being told to pull up the materials they had installed, they did start over in the right location.

He gave the workers a small gratuity for making the modification which was a smart thing to do.  The last thing you want to have is a bunch of disgruntled workers who have already been penalized by the company.

In the end, I am happy with the barn and irritated with the process and communication.

Rethinking the Garage Door

The look on Stephanie's face told us to rethink the way we were building out the cabin.  The loft idea wasn't going to work.  So instead, we had Joe finish the small garage room with bead board.  It is now the girls' bedroom.  The only trouble is that we can no longer imagine pulling the UTV in over the fuzzy purple rug Stephanie uses at night when she likes to lie down with her book in front of the heater.

Steph likes to drive it, but she doesn't want it in her room.

Even worse than the lack of practicality, heavy rains from the south leak in and run across the floor if we aren't prepared with towels ahead of time.

Joe Terpstra said he could install French Doors back there, but it was going to be several weeks until he could get to it.  I'm crossing my fingers for good January weather when he shows up to do the project.

In the meantime, Joe said to hang plastic sheeting from the door to prevent water from coming in.  While this has been more effective, it still hasn't prevented all of the leaking.

The Floating Deck and Sidewalk

A tiny house with a large covered front porch and an even larger back deck.  The back deck will have an outdoor kitchen since the kitchenette in the cabin doesn't have a stove.

We hope to celebrate Thanksgiving out here with the family, which means we need to start on the deck immediately.

The ground is rock solid from the drought this summer.  Digging is nearly impossible, but the floating deck system we saw at Lowes looks like it will work.

Here's a link to the website where you can get plans and calculate the supplies you need.  We ordered composite from Perkins Building Supply to match the composite that Joe Terpstra used on the front porch.

Stephanie using the front loader to bring composite over during the sidewalk construction

Alan constructing the sidewalk

The front porch that Joe built.

We believe the "weekend project" touted by the website to be somewhat misleading, though.  IF you build a small deck, and IF you have 2 men with some basic carpentry skills it might be a weekend project.  We bit off a much larger project since we wanted to get up out of the mud.

It's amazing.  No rain all summer, then right when we move in, we're walking in mud.  The sidewalk which is now finished is wonderful.  It connects the two buildings.  I often go out in my slippers since it stays nice and clean.

The Cabin is Delivered

Our home sale is about to close, but we will not be homeless.  Our cabin was delivered on a hot August day with record breaking temperatures.

The dirt pile Joe created when he built the stemwall for the house.

We're not sure about drinking the well water because we haven't had it tested yet, so I drove into Carney to pick up bottled water for everyone.  Jeremy had his sons out helping but no one had packed water.  The temperature was 103 F and the work of setting the cabin on the stemwall required patience.

After an hour, I realized the water bottles were sitting in the sun, so I moved them to the shade of the building.  I didn't realize that Alan had been moving gravel into the area with the tractor.  Within 2 minutes of setting the water in the shade, Alan drove over them.  I heard an explosion of plastic and turned around to see him sheepishly say, "I thought it was trash."

I hate to doubt my husband, but a part of me believes the 10 year old boy inside wanted to see what happened when you drive over water bottles with a tractor.

Regardless, it was my fault for setting them there.  Back to Carney for a case of water.

By 6:30, the building was secure.  Jeremy and Joe (our carpenter) headed home.  We headed back to Tulsa to pack.

A Tiny House?

I've spent some time looking at sites like Mother Earth news for cabin and "do it yourself plans."  We are still plagued by our work schedule.  For the same reason we couldn't remodel the house by ourselves, we won't be able to build a small cabin ourselves.

I really like the Tiny House Blog.  It inspired me to think even smaller than the Field's cabin.  I went back to the Better Built website and started looking through the standard buildings they had.

We stopped by Better Built to talk to them again about just buying a standard building and having someone else do the finishing work.  I had a sketch of a floorplan for the 14x32 (the largest standard building they build).  I knew from my blog research that we needed to think through concepts like window and door locations as well as wiring.

This picture shows the "main" area of the building.  There is a dividing wall between the main area and the garage.  By increasing the pitch of the roof to the max they would allow, we hope to create a small loft for the girls sleeping area above the kitchen and bath.

The garage area is 10 x 14 and will house the UTV (which we PLAN to purchase, but haven't).  They are including a 6x8 door in the garage.  We'll also frame in a small space in the garage for the water heater.

We hope to have this in place by the time school starts.  We still aren't sure about whether the girls will attend a private school in Edmond or Perkins-Tryon.

A Log Cabin, or a Better Built Barn?

Our house is for sale and it's time to talk about building a new house out at "the ranch."  We've decided to quit calling it "the property."  I believe in speaking positively to achieve your goals.  Calling it "the property" means that is all it will ever be.

For two years we've been labeling wine as "ALDEN Ranch."  (I had hoped it would influence our ultimate achievement when we settled on the name back in 2009.)  Here we are, at ALDEN Ranch, without livestock and without a house.

We've toyed with building a log home and have had stacks of Log Home Living magazines lying around the house for years.

I've contacted a few companies featured in the magazine including Satterwhite which is very eco-friendly because they use dead standing timber.  I really like their concept, and some of their homes are beautiful.  I also looked at Coventry and a couple of others featured in the magazine.

I'm nervous about the decision. I'm not sure we can afford to do this right now.  With our home sale pending and an uncertain economy, I hate to commit and create more debt.  Quite frankly, the whole reason we are moving is to change our lives.  I know that we will work hard at the ranch, and I'm not afraid of hard work, but there is something so appealing about owning our land AND home.

I called Ernest at Better Built to see if they have done any custom construction and they have indeed.  The Fields family (of 10) have moved out of their Sapulpa home into a custom cabin  that isn't more than 800 square feet.

Jeremy arranged a visit and we stopped by.  What an amazing family.  They have 2 lofts (where the children sleep), a small kitchen, a bath for the kids, and a master bedroom with bath for Mom and Dad.  This looked like a perfect arrangement.

Unfortunately, the cabin has to be built on site because it is too tall to be transported on the trailer like the garage was.  They told us that they just couldn't build on site for us, and that they didn't have the staff to do the custom work.

We are disheartened and disappointed.

The Tractor Needs a Home

With the Kubota delivery scheduled, we've turned our attention to a garage to store it in.

We saw several buildings and a sign for "Better Built Barns."  I visited their website and discovered they were in Perkins (only 12 miles away).  We dropped in to look at the models.

We bought the 14x28 with a modification to include a mobile home door with a window to allow light in the building.  Ernest Strubhar is the owner (hope I spelled it correctly) and we worked with Jeremy.  They are wonderful people.  Jeremy is very meticulous and helped us with a lot of decisions including where to purchase gravel for a pad under the building.

We called Kenny Sexton, who lives over in Coyle, OK.  Kenny is also a wonderful person.  He's very helpful and not only took care of our gravel needs, he did some grading down by the pond so we could get across the bridge without charging us.