The Cat Is Out of the Bag

The Hotel on Block 46, in Whitefish, MT
(photo credit:  Flathead Beacon)

Well, a few months ago, I hinted that "Something New" was coming.  Now that my current employer has been notified, and my new venture has an inked contract, I can tell you, too:

I will be leaving my current employer as of January 15th, 2016, in order to pursue a new career in Finish Carpentry with my dear friend and pastor, Charlie Frederico of Berean Bible Church of Kalispell.  Over the last 2½ years, having been in very close contact with Charlie and his lovely family, I have learned that he is truly a man after God's own heart, a skilled "tent-maker" in the ministry, who pours all he has into every relationship, every task that the Lord sets before him.  I look forward to furthering our friendship and brotherhood in Christ as we labor together with our hands.  This will also represent a major shift in another area...

For the last 4+ years, I have been working in vocational fields that are somewhat outside of my personal interest.  In 2016, I will begin to get my hands on WOOD on a regular basis... and get paid to do so!   :-)  (See my portfolio here)

Those of you who know me well can imagine how elated I am at the thought of this.  Charlie and I -- and a few others -- will be installing all the doors, windows, cabinets and trim for the 89-room Hotel, pictured above.  We should be done in the Summer, then moving on to the next project.  My hope is that this line of work will afford me (God willing) the flexibility to begin building our house in the Spring.  I will admit that I am a little nervous about doing carpentry for a living -- I really want to do it well!  But as we are fond of saying: "It ain't rocket surgery!"  :-)

I praise God for every opportunity He brings... and for every trial He allows.

A Decision, part 2

(Image from StoneMill.com -- posted here for inspiration's sake :-)

Well, in my last post, I mentioned that Something New is coming, and it is.

But this is not that.

This is something else.  This post has to do with our home building plans.

In my post back in February ("A Decision"), I wrote about the decision to take out a construction loan to build our home.  Well, it seems that we may have to go a different route, given certain financial obstacles that are proving repeatedly difficult to overcome.  And so, we are grateful to God for this "trial" (James 1:2-4), for it will compel us to build with little-to-no debt, but requiring great resourcefulness.  I am truly thankful for the necessity of having to go this route.  Why?  Because once our house is built, we will own it free and clear.  We will not be beholden to a 30-year mortgage.  And in America's current economic landscape, that may be vital.  (Perhaps I will not be enslaved to the 40+ hour work-week, for the rest of my life, after all?  That'd be good.  :-)

A few things of note:

• Montana's "building code" requirements are extraordinarily minimal; so while we will strive to build everything "to code", we will only be bound by excellence of craftsmanship, within the bounds of frugality.
• We already have water (a well), electricity and phone/DSL going to the property.
• We have always had our sights set on heating the home with wood, since that resource is abundant at the property site.  That decision remains.

In summary, here's how I see things unfolding, Deo Volente:

1. We will install a septic system and a (mostly-finished) basement.
2. We will temporarily roof the basement and live there, while we plan to build our timber framed home above it.  The basement will be 1,280 sq.ft... which is at least 200 sq.ft. larger than the place we have been renting (!) for the past 4 years.
3. All former rent payments (and all other available resource$) will go toward purchasing building materials, prioritized by immediacy of need.  Building materials (both purchased and gathered/salvaged) will be stored in a timber-framed barn, which we will build on the property (near the 40'x80' garden), as a "test build" in preparation for building the home.
4. Once the Timber Frame House Plan is complete, and the timbers designed and fashioned, the frame will be constructed, clad with SIPs and roofed. (Timber material will have been harvested from our property, milled and stacked.)  Basement occupancy will continue, until...
5. When interior walls and flooring have been framed and clad, the family will "move in", and continue with the "finishing touches".
6. Estimated completion time: 5 years from start date.

This is all I have time to write... thanks for reading, and we'll keep you posted.

Little Birthday in the Woods

For her birthday, my Dear Bride wanted us all to do some work on our future home site.  So we all willingly obliged, cutting up some firewood for next Winter, and weeding the garden area.  It was a lot of fun, and the children all did their part.  Thanks, Uncle Dave Graham, for letting us use your tractor & log splitter!

The Firewood Production Line!

Every time we ask Ellie to smile, she also sticks out her tongue...

 

...See?

Wood stackin' & haulin'

Something New

 

Something new is coming.

Something completely different, but longed-for.

However, I must wait to announce it until all is "official".

Keep watching... I'll post the news as soon as possible.

A Decision

Years ago, when we began this dream of building our own home in the woods of NW MT, we soon became aware of a decision that would have to be made, which would affect many other facets of our life, for decades:

To mortgage, or not to mortgage?

We could build our house little by little, over the course of several years -- even decades (!) -- only as (or if) the cash became available.  We'd probably be living in an old single-wide trailer on-site as we built the house piece-by-piece.  Perhaps by the time our children had grown and had children of their own, our house would be finished...

-OR-

We could assume a construction loan/mortgage, take on the responsibility of paying it back over the next few decades, and enjoy the privilege of spending those next years in that house with our children, having made not only the house, shoulder-to-shoulder with our dear family and friends -- but also having made many memories, and having given them a crash course (pun not intended) in home construction.

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Now, perhaps I can hear the cries of "go debt-free!" from all the Ramsey-ites.  I don't disagree that being debt-free is a blessing.  Still, under the circumstances, the mortgage -- and finishing construction in under 1 year -- was the way to go, for us.  It was no small feat to bring our family of seven (now eight) from SoCal to NWMT.  We did it, in part, to pursue all the things we couldn't afford in the uber-inflated economy of California:

• wide-open spaces
• agricultural pursuits like chickens/bees/high-volume gardening
• no HOA telling us how to use our land
• hunting & trapping wild game on our property
• even the simplest thing of owning a dog, with room for it to run around on.

All these things center on having a warm, safe, dry and secure "home on the range."  To be constantly pushing back that dream of a "clean, well-lighted place" would undoubtedly frustrate and exasperate my family (Ephesians 6:4, Proverbs 13:12).

So wisdom was sought after... and received.  And then we acted.  We secured the most trustworthy General Contractor & Carpenter that the Flathead Valley has to offer, and we are currently pursuing a construction loan.  Please keep us in your prayers as we move forward, by faith.  I will post as much of the process as as I am able, here on this blog.  Thanks for taking the time to read, and may the Lord bless your days, as you trust -- and rest -- in Christ.

Budging Boulders

(An example of a "walkout basement", similar to the one we've been planning.  Ours will be a two-story house.)

(O.K., I know I'm a little late in posting this, but I'm trying to tie up some loose ends here at "A Different Legacy", so I figured I better at least post this entry.  I started writing it last Autumn, before the snow hit.  Much more has happened since this post was started, but I'll fill you in with another more current post.  Thanks for your patience!  :-)
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Lately I've been spending every available block of time (hard to come by!) over at the "homestead land", just digging-digging-digging, making sure we can accommodate a walkout basement foundation, before we are holed-up for Winter, drawing up the final plans.  So far, our prospects for a basement are good, and I have another foot or two to go, all around, to make room for the footing.  However, there are a couple of persistent boulders in the Northwest corner that seem to be comfortable in the place where they've been nestled for the last several thousand years.  Now, it is my job as a human to "fill the earth and subdue it" -- which means that either they go, or I go.  And, in the immortal words of the Bergermeister Meisterberger, "I am certainly not going!"

Since I didn't want to spend a fortune on blasting them out, I thought I would try a product I came across, and had ordered online:  Ecobust.  Check out the product info on their website.  Anyway, I drilled...

 

 ...and poured the stuff in the holes.

That was last Saturday.

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Update, 1/20/2015:

The EcoBust worked!  The rocks split into pieces, and I was able to dispatch them with only a little more effort.  The boulder work is not quite complete yet, but we are well on our way to having enough room for the walkout basement.  More to come, soon!