Our Little Home

 

So, here I go... Here is the most recent picture's I have, to bring you on a tour of "Our little Home".

 

You know how everyone always says to "finish your projects before you move in, or they'll never get done"? well that's true... hence the Scaffolding still hanging out in front of my house.

 

Our Front yard and deck overlooking the river...

 

 

 

                                   First floor... What you'll first see when you open the door

 

If you sit on the little couch you will be looking at where I'm standing to take the couch picture...

 

 

A quick turn to your left...

This is our Table/bar... Every piece of furniture in this house(except the green dresser upstairs) was made by us... The table top was the door to the old camp...

 

 

Another quick turn to your left...

This is the view of our little kitchen. It's a one man kitchen, but Andrew and I have mastered fitting the two of us in there, with minimal arguments...

 

 

See, all the way to the left??? That is one of the first gas stoves/ovens ever made... We found it in my grandfathers basement, cleaned it up, and put it to use again! It works great!

 

Here's a closer look...

 

 

 Isn't This a cool original design for a kitchen counter/ sink counter? We thought it up, argued over how to make it, argued while making it, and well... made it! The curtain covers the sink base... Just a burlap bag from CBD some thread, a stick and some rings... pretty awesome!

 

 

For roughly $200 a year, this little wood stove heats our house...

 

 

Let's go upstairs( keep in mind this is the floor we added) to our loft...

P.s. These stairs are as steep as the look, and are really just a home made ladder we call stairs... Yes, I have fallen down them!

 

 

I'm just going to do a 360 degree turn for ya's...

 

 

 

So that is the tour of "Our Little Home"...

 

 

 

 Oh wait! I forgot to show you the bathroom! The most important room in the house! (at least it is to me)...

 

 

Yes, that is right! OUR BATHROOM IS A PORTA POTTY!!!

 

 

 

 

It gets better! This part my husband didn't want on here and I said "babe, I have to be real with people"... His response to that was " Isn't there such a thing as being too real?"...

 

 

Any way, in my attempt to "be real with people", This next picture is what we pee in at night... Mostly because I'm afraid to walk through our already wooded yard, to an even more wooded area to get to our "out house".

 

My "Evening John"

 

 

 

At the finishing of "Our Little Home" we moved in, two weeks after we got married, and started what we now know to be "quite the adventure"!

 

 

Two weeks prior to our moving in to what was the "best little home in the world", here we are... In sheer bliss... Excited for the adventure before us!

 

All I can do is Laugh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief History Part 2... Building our Home

I left off with "waiting for my true love"... So anyway, we met! He was a customer of mine, and attended the same church I did(although I never saw him). A mutual friend of ours decided to play match maker and not to much longer we... GET HITCHED!

So, let me take you back a little bit further... When we got engaged the February before we got married, together we were $54,000 in debt! School loans, Two truck payments, credit card debt... The whole shebang! We had great plans to get an apartment in the city and have fun being newly married! One day I'm walking in the woods behind my parents house, asking the Lord "Lord where will we live?" All of a sudden I see this!

That's right... I see this! The little run-down camp my Father and mother lived in while they built there "Real life house" when they were our age! I'm thinking to myself "NO WAY!" Lord, this can't be you! Now I've known the Lord long enough to know He's alittle crazy sometimes, and most likely this is exactly what He is telling me! WHAT THE??? So here, in the woods, our building journey began...

Let me show you around the place the Lord was telling me was going to be our home...

                                             This is a picture of the back wall of the camp...

The Kitchen...

Standing by the "back wall" looking at the entry-way...

Standing in "The Kitchen" looking at the entry way wall...

So there it is! All 300 square feet of it... My Father and Mother lived in this little camp 27 years ago, for 4 years, with two kids(my older sister and I) and a bunch of beagle puppies! Oh, and did I mention, they had no electricity, running water, or plumbing!

We had from March, 2010 - September 2010 to rebuild our new home! Yes, that is... 7 months! Scary, but when the Lord tells you to build something, you better pick up the hammer and built it!

Andrew working at the Coast Guard 2 days on 2 days off, 3 days on 3 days off, and me working 5 day a week from 4:30Am-1:00pm, we started building!

First we had to tare everything down to the original studs! The walls, the floors, the entire roof! Oh yea...Let me tell you about this! There were carpenter ants, and flying squirrels in all the walls, floors, ceiling, roof... EVERYWHERE! We would pull down a piece of urine filled sheet rock and thousands of ants would fall on our heads! We would pull down a urine fill wall, and flying squirrels would dart out at us... Two words... Beady eyes! 

Everything torn down, we start to replace all the plywood, and rotted beams... Keep in mind we have no idea how to build a house, so we made ALOT of mistakes along the way...

We also decided that unlike my parents, we couldn't live without a second floor. We decided to add an extra 190 square feet to the camp by building up, and making a loft...

The beams for the second floor go up, and the nail gun becomes my new best friend!

New beams, starting the plywood... over 30 trips to Lowe's already made...

A couple trips to the ReStore in Portland, we found all our new windows for under $200!  That's 6 almost brand new windows, and one that I refurbished! Sweet!

Second floor almost built... Roof here we come! DAD HELP!

Let me tell you... My dad, Andrew and I, put that roof up, and it had to be one of the freakiest things I've done... Next time we need some harnesses!

At this point we are making our way into August, which is knocking on the door of September 11th... Our wedding date! All hands on deck!

Thanks to my Dad, Uncles, and almost husband we get it all closed! Then the trench digging begins... Not that I'm a Deva or anything, but I'm going to have running water!

There it is... The 8 foot deep trench, with ALOT of BIG spiders, and little frogs, and roots all over the place, that the men decided would be a great place for me to hang out! "your the smallest one here Elizabeth" they said, as they sent me to, what felt to be, my grave... I had spiders in my hair, I stepped on and killed probably 30 little frogs, and got scratches all over my body from the freshly sharp roots! Although terrifying, I prevailed! I was determined to have running water!

Put the pipes in the ground, covered the ditch up, and there's my sexy man looking like he's the one that was in the ditch! whatever, "a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!"

The exterior almost finished, about 3 more weeks to go, and$ 7,000 into it(cash I'm proud to say), Now it's time for the interior! This is where I come in... Being creative with all the scrap wood, doors, windows, whatever I can get, I will make this little place our home!

My next blog will be on the interior of our home, with pictures and the finished product!

Have an amazing rain filled day!

Elizabeth Garcia

Brief History Part 1... How we met

I have been a blogger for one day now, and I'm ready to through the computer out the window! Trial and error Elizabeth... Trial and error. So, I'm trying to figure out how to right my blog. I'm thinking I should start in google search... "How to be a good blogger", and see what my friend google tells me to do! For now, I'm going to start with some breif history... I'll start with Andrew...

Andrew, one of the most gentle beings on this earth, with more grace than I've ever experienced, was born and raised in California... That's right, he is a true Californian. After traveling all over the world with the Coast Gaurd...Doing all sorts of adventurous things... He read an "outdoors" magazine, which told him that Portland Maine was one of ten most adventurous places in the United States! WHAT! Anyway... So he tells the Coast Gaurd "move me to Maine!".

 Meanwhile ,there is a girl named Elizabeth working at starbucks...

Yup, That's me! Barista by day, street musician by night... working my tail end off to pay for three years worth of student loans... Yes, that is three years because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I dropped out and learned guitar. So I'm doing my thing, being a cool barista, surfing, playing music on the streets, seeking Jesus... Living the life basically, waiting for my "true love".

It all began here... My life as a Wife. The role I thought would define me... Would create me, and make me into everything I've ever wanted to be... and well, although not in the way I pictured it... it has!