Big News: We Are Buying a Home!

It is funny how things manage to work out. You go through life and have a dream and can see in your mind’s eye how it will play out. For us, it meant saving and working hard to buy land on Prince of Wales island to homestead and live out our little self-reliant lifestyle. Or, better yet, buying a home there on a large chunk of waterfront property. Then life steps in, changes things up.

We are buying a HOME! More specifically, a duplex on a 3rd of an acre. Sure, it isn’t the ‘home of our dreams’ but who ever really gets their dream home on the first try? For us, we look at it as something even better than the dream home because of the overall investment of having a duplex. It will help propel us to the home we really want to have on Prince of Wales Island. Enough of that for now, on to the new home!

It is an upstairs/downstairs set up with each unit having 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. Nice closets in each room, a laundry room, and a large covered deck to play on! We will be living upstairs and renting out the lower unit. The upstairs unit needs/needed a LOT of work! When we walked in, there was evidence of work being done everywhere and needed to be cleaned up before we could start digging in. All the floors were down to subfloor but thankfully, there was already linoleum to put down in the kitchen and bathroom. There are new windows throughout (hooray!) and some still needed the trim put up, which was also already there.

The water and sewer systems are OFF GRID (yay!) and I can already tell a huge difference when I run the water. Instead of chlorine or other chemical smells that come out, I now smell nothing. Just clean, filtered water! The tank holds 20,000 gallons of fresh rainwater. While we thoroughly enjoy it, there is a large snafu that will be our top priority and that is the water tank itself. The foundation of the house IS the water tank. There is a vapor barrier and vents of course but the risk for mold, rot, and mildew is much higher than anywhere else. For now, it has been inspected to ensure everything is good and any problem areas repaired but we are putting all efforts into getting a water bladder tank like this one but on a much larger scale sent up and installed. Once in place, we will be able to utilize the unused space for storage. Since it is water tight under there, it should provide wonderful DRY storage if needed.

We painted the entire place top to bottom and put down a layer of Kilz on the floor. Kilz is a heavier duty primer that is used often around here to help seal in wood, protect from mold and mildew, and cover up any stains on walls that scrubbing won’t get rid of. I highly recommend it, especially if you live in a high humidity area – it makes a difference! Before we put down another layer of subfloor in the kitchen and bathroom, we made sure the Kilz was dry and ready. We will live without carpeting being installed and just use remnants because taking care of the water situation is more important. We will have to put off getting a stove and oven put in as well because the electric isn’t right (110 plug, not the right kind) and we certainly cannot afford to buy a new one. We will have to also do without curtains and many other things that people take for granted. To us, it will make it even more precious when we can afford it several months down the line.

We ended up with a full dump truck of construction waste that went to the landfill and it made a big difference! Around the outside of the house were piles of wood from previous projects that were all cleaned up and now we can really see what we have to work with for a garden. As you can see, there is a lot of bushes that have taken over the sides of the driveway that need to be taken back. Mister Dreamer has plans with some other family members to go on a ‘bush slaughtering spree’ once the leaves have fallen. We get decent sunshine and there will be room for a cold frame or two but nothing near what I have had the last couple years with the green house. While it saddens me, I am looking forward to overcoming the challenges and using the vast deck space to container garden! I can already picture hanging baskets with various herbs growing all summer long. It will allow me to actually expand what I am growing and will make it much easier to harvest, dry, and put away for winter.

The possibilities are exciting, the responsibility is terrifying. Owning a home has a learning curve to be sure but being a landlord on top of it brings a whole new set of information and skills to be learned. Many of you have been with us for well over a year now and we hope that you will follow along with us as we make this new home work for us. You can be sure I will be blogging all about it and sharing pictures of our (mis)adventures!

If you have questions, feel free to send them to me on our Facebook Page, down below, or you can email me at akhomestead.dreamer@gmail.com.