Category: property

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aerieLOFT

aerieloft

I am coveting the aerieLOFT by breathe architects. This amazing 10′ x 11′ x 17′ tall curved structure has a screened front, sun shade, porch, and a loft big enough to fit a queen size bed. Solar panels, an inverter, and a wood stove allow this structure to be completely off the grid while feeling very civilized. A separate outhouse has built in water catchment, outdoor shower, sink, and composting toilet. It comes as plans or a DIY kit. We have the perfect spot on the property to spend our evenings gazing at Mohonk while the sun sets. You can watch a video of the architect (stick with it until the end to see the beautiful design for the door of the outhouse) over at Treehugger. via

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Was That a Snowflake!?

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OK, so despite the fact that I just saw a flurry of snow outside my window, spring is here and I am thinking about my upstate paradise. Please stop laughing D! It will be a paradise one of these days… Now that we have our little 10×10 up and running, it is time to carve out some outdoor space that is junk and poison ivy free. This weekend M&I will be going up to get the foundations of a deck in place for when Dad, Grandpa and maybe my Uncle Joe come up in a few weeks. I have big plans for this deck. At the moment when we break for lunch or for the day we don’t really have a nice place to sit, relax, and have a drink. The spot I have picked out is next to our tiny home (right off the sliding glass door) and under the shade of a few tress so we will be out of the heat of the sun. If you face in just the right direction you can’t even see all the of stuff scattered around. We already have an IKEA table and chair set we got on sale a while ago so I won’t be getting the lovely green chairs in my inspiration picture, although I have had my eye on them for a while so they may find their way upstate yet. picture via

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Kids, Don’t Try This at Home

I am a sucker for advertising. I like nicely designed things which appear easy to make. As you may have read on this blog, M&I are attempting to built the ReadyMade MD100 shed. Neither of us has any construction experience whatsoever, but they claim two people can build this in one weekend for the relatively small sum of $1500. A bargain! Maybe this would take one weekend if you had two highly trained, seasoned carpenters. And that is only if they have the site prepared (or are building on a perfectly level site) and have all of the material delivered and pre-cut. I hate to sound bitter here, but as M&I forge ahead with these plans, we are noticing a lot of things that were designed in the name of cheap instead of right. There is nothing 16″ on center, which means when we are interested in putting up paneling instead of the corrogated metal, uh oh, nothing is 4′ wide so we have to put in extra studs. Yikes, we have a significant snow load, the roof they designed may not be enough… sigh. I would like to thank my dad and grandfather again for coming out and helping until late last night. We got A LOT done. The frame is up, the roof has plywood, we even have some of the siding in place. We still have at least a long weekend of work ahead of us to put in the doors (one sliding glass and one steel) and to finish the roof (we still aren’t exactly sure what has to happen there) and finish siding the whole thing. I am not going to say don’t buy the plans if you have your heart set on one of these, but keep in mind, one weekend and $1500 IS too good to be true.

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Chattering Teeth

This past weekend M&I were upstate making our push to complete the ReadyMade before full on winter sets in. We have been camping the last few times we were up there so we figure we would pile on a few more blankets and all would be swell. Unfortunately it was way too cold for me to be camping and I was freezing the whole night. This coupled with a late start on Saturday meant we didn’t make nearly as much progress as we had hoped we would. The plywood floor is in and painted, and all the wood has been purchased for the frame. Columbus day we are spending most of the weekend having fun, but Monday our task is to make all the cuts so that next time we get out the nail gun (thank you Dad!) and start assembling. Anyone want to help?

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Dwell

I love Dwell Magazine. There is something in just about every issue that catches my attention and makes me happy we are just about in the position where we are thinking about buildings and how they will look. This issue had an article that was especially interesting to me. Apparently some crazy recent art grad decided to buy a house and totally redo it with the help of his dad. Oh and he did it all on a recent art grad’s budget. Lots of recycled materials, lots of thinking outside the box and lots of trips to the ReStore. Once the house was complete it didn’t seem right to plop in just any furniture so he designed and built pieces himself. Wonderful! You can check it out at Rural Theory, there is a PDF of the Dwell article and many more pictures. My favorite quote from the article is, “I didn’t want my Grandmother to feel like an astronaut when she visited.” I can’t wait to get to the point where M&I are picking out materials. Thanks for the inspiration, Blake!

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Floor Frame. Check!

This weekend was very productive. We finished the sill plate and floor frame for our ReadyMade shed! Yeah! This is really coming together. So far in order to stay on the property we have had to camp. I think I mentioned already that I am not much of a camper so I am super fantastically excited that our second building (the outhouse being the first) is coming along so well. This 10×10 room will have a futon, a small fridge and a bit of storage so that we don’t have to set up/take down our camping equipment every time we want to get away. We area also hoping that now we won’t have to eat every meal out. We have the plywood for the floor ready to go when we get up there again and we will be buying the lumber for the rest of the frame. We have also started planning what we will put on the exterior.

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Well Well Well

M&I found out some really great property news today. It seems that what we thought was a hand dug well is actually most likely a very deep recoverable well. What does this mean? For what we are hoping isn’t a lot of money we will be able to have water on the property. We already have plans for an outdoor shower with an on demand (tank-less) water heater. The news came from Mike, the gentleman who is putting in our foundation for a our sleeping shed. He wanted to know if we minded that he was poking around. Heck no we don’t mind! If you are in the Hudson Valley and need some work done, check out Arcady Tractor Works and Arborculture. 

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Electric Company

It has been a long road with many flaming hoops to get to this point, but it is official, we have electricity upstate!!! M&I are so excited. This opens up the door to so many possibilities and power tools and lights. I can feel it already, this is going to be the summer where we make more progress than we have in the 7 years since M signed the deed.

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Eye of the Beholder

We all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Yesterday when I downloaded pictures from my camera taken by various people, I have a concrete example of how this can work.
To me, our property looks like:Some how this same property looks like this through Kerri’s eyes:

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Wooooooo Weee!

This weekend we invited a group of people up to help us fill a dumpster on our property, and they came!! Fantastic. We not only filled the dumpster, cleared a large portion of crap out of two buildings, but we also built an outhouse for our composting toilet and even had a little fun in the process. I can’t tell you how much it meant to M&I to have such support from family and friends. Some of our favorite memories of this weekend: Being part of a fire brigade of book throwing with Dad and Grandpa (6 coming, can’t break the set!), Grandpa as “King of the Burn Barrel” with his apprentice Mark as Prince (it is a miracle we still have any trees!), M roasting the most amazing marshmallows, KB building the grill, Diane telling me “well, I don’t think we are quite ready to landscape…”, Mel taking the first turn in the completed outhouse, Kerri finding treasures when everyone else was seeing junk, Pete risking his life without adequate life insurance, and Dad making us all laugh when we were all losing steam. This amazing picture was taken by Kerri. I can’t believe she was able to capture such beauty in such a mess. Thank you to everyone that helped. We got more accomplished this weekend than we could have in a year with just the two of us. We can’t thank you enough!