I thought I'd give it a shot on trying to explain life here. Just to clarify, our house is actually bigger than 600 sq. ft., it's probably closer to 680, but it started with 600. We moved into this place 12 years ago after moving back from a short stint living in Illinois, 7 months to be exact. We had a huge house in IL, almost 3000 sq. ft, 4 bedrooms, room to roam in the house and only $500/month. But Illinois is different than California so we hightailed it back to the best coast.
Initially we rented our cabin and after 2 years of renting, the owner agreed to sell it to us. Kristi and I were excited and scared as we'd never owned a home before. The cabin was built in 1936 as a summer residence so it's old, it had some rot, some sagging and lots of potential. The price was right, the cash came together and we bought it. Then started the years of remodeling. As money, materials and time presented themselves, I'd do upgrades. Since I'm not a rich man by means of money, I became a scrounger. Whenever there was construction going on nearby or if I drove by a place that had a nice full dumpster, I'd scrounge. I'd scrounge in the morning, evening, here in Santa Cruz or in a foreign town. The major things I was able to pick up for free were: bedroom doors, bathroom door, clawfoot tub, ceiling material, redwood beams/lumber, windows, bricks, decking, flooring, kitchen sink and more. Many of these items waited in my garage for years until I was ready to put the pieces together. I had lots of help from different generous individuals to get this place together.....Peter and Jana, Rob, John, Jon, Matt, Mark, Ryan and many more that I'm sure to forget.
So for the last couple of years we've settled down into 'normal' life in our house at 420 Tabernacle. The boys are growing tall, mature and I think handsome. There are drawbacks to living in a home this size, but I'm thinking that the goodbacks? outweigh the drawbacks and lead to fun and interesting times. I've never blogged consistently (or done much else consistently for that matter) or even tried, so hopefully I'll remember to sit down and write something.
Well.....have a great start to your year, be careful of your resolutions, keep it simple and enjoy.
