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The joys of starting from scratch
July 27th, 2009
Hi, thanks for visiting! My website’s current focus is all about the home we are building. I want to share what I am learning about affordable property development, and housing alternatives. So if you have a question or comment, please ask away!
Determined to have a warm home by this winter, I have spent the past several months developing a basic homesite from a patch of raw land. Not something I have done before, and as a young woman it is a constant struggle not to get intimidated by the job, the building inspectors, and other authorities. As per our local building authority, (the RDN) we have to have a septic system and a potable water supply. This has taken several months to organize. And this combined with getting power to the site has eaten up most of the budget.
So we decided to go for a mobile home. We ended up getting one for next to nothing, just the (high) cost of delivery in fact. It had been mostly gutted and I am excited about starting fresh and leaving the world of narrow hallways and little rooms behind. We are going to go for an open floorplan. The only interior wall being the bathroom. Our bed will be out in the livingroom for all to see! I guess you can call it a bachelor-trailer.
After a tramatic move onto our foundation (earlier post), the renovation and repair process is taking a lot of time. Our “free” mobile needs a lot of work and as we peel off the layers, we are finding many suprises lurk in the ancient crevices of 1979. But there are things I really like about it as well, like the steel chassis it sits on. Having a bit of solid steel under your feet is a comfortable situation.
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Bowater Backhoe services saves the day!
July 18th, 2009
We searched long and hard for a mobile home to put on our foundation. There are many out there if you know where to look. Private sales generally come from either trailer parks that are closing down or mobiles on personal property that have outlived their usefullness. We found ours through a house moving company, the Pridy Bros. The owners of the mobile just wanted it off their land.
Unfortunately I was very disappointed with the service we got from the house movers. Despite charging twice as much as a regular mobile home moving company, they didn’t include leveling the home.
Not to mention they got their truck stuck in the ditch within 5 minutes of being there!!
Since the Pridy Bros. had not brought the proper equipment, we had to get our excavator to come out in the evening to save these guys from being forever stuck in the ditch. Then they abandoned their truck and let a backhoe push the building into position, complaining the entire time.
I still sit up in the middle of the night suddenly angry all over again at the Pridy Bros.
George of Bowater Backhoe Services ended up pushing it singlehandedly up a dirt road, with the help of some neighbors. Thanks George!
photos were taken by Sean Fenzl photography.
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Contemplating concrete
July 18th, 2009
strip footings for a mobile home.
