Teeny Tiny Love

I spent a good portion of Sunday surfing the net.  It all started when I was looking for rehabbed RVs.  I found some great examples of really well done RV rehabs (more on this another time).  But looking for these things led me to so many interesting people, websites and topics!   This could easily spin off into 12 separate blog posts.   The things that kept coming up in my RV home surfing were topics like living off the grid and eventually I got into tiny homes

The type of house I'm most attracted to personally, is a smaller home.  Who doesn't love a charming little cottage?  Or a studio apartment in New York City?  Our house right now is only about 1200 square feet.

Have you all seen the tiny Tumbleweed Houses?  I'm sure you have, they're huge right now (Ha)!  Jay Shafer, the owner of the company was on Oprah a year or two ago and I've been fascinated ever since.  Jay lives in an 89 square foot home that he built himself.  Here is a video of Jay's home:

 

Jay's designs start at about 65 square feet:

source

and go up to 874 square feet:

Source

Source

 

I don't think I could live in 89 square feet, but the last two are darling and I dream of having one plopped in the middle of the woods or on a clear-watered lake.  I wish there were some interior photos of larger two houses, but I can't find any that I can copy.  Just click on 'source' below the photos and you can see floor plans and computer mock-ups of the the interiors.  The first photo has actual interior photos.

As I was playing "follow the link" to all of these little homes and the people who live in them, I found a site called Little House on the Trailer.  The builder of these homes envisions them as a "care cottage" for either a person who needs care but wants the independence of living alone or a care giver who needs their own space but wants/needs to be very near the person they are caring for.

The really cool thing about these homes is they aren't so extreme like the 89 square foot tiny houses.  While those super-tiny houses are cool, I can't imagine lounging around in one and being comfortable for very long. These are homes that are more....."heirloom" is the word the builder uses. You can have a real sofa in them and there are sweet little details built into these homes, like mini fireplace mantles:

 Here's the kitchen in this house:

Here's another one of the Little House on the Trailer homes.  It has a bedroom and a loft area for sleeping:

And yet another!  This one was built as a guest house:

Aren't these adorable?

Here's a video of the builder talking about his cottages:



So.
How small could you go?

Chilly

It's darn chilly here today....the high is 47 degrees.  And it's rainy, which is NOT cool because I started washing windows yesterday and I really wanted to finish today.

Even though I just washed them in the spring, they need another scrubbing:

Much better.

How often do you wash your windows?

Finally my cooking aversion has left me!  Yay!  

I'm making chicken stock with all of the bones I've saved from roasted chickens and I also use the rinds from the spent wedges of Parmigiano Reggiano.  See it in there? 

I threw a few sprigs of thyme and parsley from the garden:

I'm also going to make Ina Garten's Beef Bourguignon.  I don't know about you, but Fall isn't official until I make a double batch of that and some French onion soup.


Doing anything special today?

Hiding My Face In Shame.

I just got a comment from MJ about that night I made Hamburger Helper for dinner.  


I should first tell you about the time I asked MJ which jarred Spaghetti sauce she uses.  I was just curious, because I just found one I really liked (Classico Four Cheese).  

She didn't answer me right away.


In fact, she got very quiet.  

I almost thought she didn't hear me, so I was going to ask her again.....but when I turned to look at her? I noticed kind of a hard, pinched look on her face. 


The words that sputtered out of  a shocked MJ's mouth?  

"I don't swing that way."



Me serving my family "the helper" is going to put an enormous strain on our relationship.  I swear I'll never do it again, MJ.  Pinkie swear.

Closet #2

Oh, my sweet, sweet friends.....this is not pretty.  I have no pretty pretty pictures for you today.  No sir.

But you know what I DO have for you?  Pictures! (They're just not pretty "after" pictures :)  My brother and sister gave me their old camera!  And for a 10 year old camera it takes great pictures, I must say. 

So, I'm starting in on the office closet.  When we last talked about it, I had tried to remove the old shelving and fixtures and the "cedar paneling".  There was swearing.

It looked like a freaking hamster cage in there.  My camera pooped out, so I have no actual photographic evidence of this, but trust me.

I did find a photo on Google of what the "cedar paneling" looked like.  Feast your eyes:

I was taking care of my favorite baby one night and Zuddy surprised me by doing a demo job on my fugly closet.  He didn't even tell me he was going to do it!  I went in the room the next day to do a stare-down with the closet and plan my attack when I saw this: 

Sweet.
Baby.
Jesus.

Need I talk about the emotions that stirred inside of me?  I was giddy with happiness because the paneling and fixtures were gone, yet pissed off that it still looked so bad.  Oh, the confusion!

I sat on these emotions for a week and tried to come up with a plan of how I was going to get that glue off.  Sand it?  Messy.  Skim coat it?  Messy and it will never get done because I still have a whole kitchen that needs to be skim coated.


Last week I got together with my dear friend, Hilary and showed her the closet and she suggested putting up bead board instead of trying to get off all of the glue and patch all of the holes.  Genius!  I love that girl!

So, save for the bead board and the hanging rods, I'm going to finish the closet just like the Noodle's - with shelving floor to ceiling on both sides of the closet.  Here's a shot of the sides: 

Here are some shots of Noodle's closet.  The side with the shelves (we still need a few more of these): 

  

And the side for hanging clothes: 

 

Incidentally, my favorite baby?  She's 7 months old now!  Feast your eyes: 

I love her.  So do Zuddy and Noodle.  I'm lobbying to be her nanny.  

Michelle is getting sick of me lobbying to be her nanny. 

She's very happy with her going to her cousin's home daycare and being cared for by her granny and cousin. 

Whatever.  I'm not going to stop trying.  She's my baby, dammit.