Category Archives: Building a Home

From planning to completion, here’s our journey in building our house on the homestead.

Water, water everywhere…

…and hopefully safe to drink!

The well is in!

O. M. Goodness, we are so excited!

If you follow us on facebook, you’ve probably been keeping up with our well journey, but if not, here’s a quick recap. It took them three days of drilling and several more days of prepping the well, having to go down 461 feet, but we hit good pressure water. The water down there is flowing at about 60-70 gallons per minute, and the well head (how high up the pipe the water is being forced by the pressure) is at about 230. So half the pipe is filled with water. This is a very good thing.

Drilling in action

They put the pump in the well last week and I didn’t even know it. So I didn’t have the generator and storage tank down there for them. So they came back today to hook everything up.

So. Very. Exciting!

That’s water from our well!!!

WAAATERRRRRR!!!!!

So, since we’re not set up to run water to our house, (because, you know, it doesn’t exist yet), we are just going to pump water into our 250 gallon storage tank to use as needed. Also, we’ll be able to run a hose from the well directly to the trailers to fill tanks and barrels. That will be so nice.

Of course, all of that is providing we can drink the water and don’t need to do anything extra to it. We have to flush the whole system for a while, then send some samples in to the state lab to have it tested. So far it looks and smells very clean. We’re hoping and praying that it is drinkable as-is. That would just be absolutely amazing. And of not, if it has some high mineral we have to filter out, we can deal with that, too.

Our set up

So right now the pump is controlled by the breaker, which is powered by the generator. When the pump is on, it fills the tank, or alternatively can be diverted to a garden hose.

We are working on getting gravel delivered over the next couple of days, then we will begin constructing a shed around the pump and tank, etc. The Pump House will hold the well pump, holding tank, generator, and probably the laundry washing machine, too, for now. This shed will provide the insulation to keep the tank from freezing. Although, we learned today that our water is actually a bit on the warm side. Not sure if that’s because it just naturally stays that warm that far under the ground, or what, but today when we were flushing the well, the water was decidedly warmer than the ambient temperature outside as the sun was setting. But then, it IS November. At any rate, the fact that the water is not frigid will help keep the tank from freezing as easily. That’s our hope, anyway, as the overnight temps are supposed to drop into the 20’s this week. Brrrrr.

So that’s it for now, folks. It’s a monumentous day. And a huge step forward.

We have WATER!

Doing Well

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As the title of this post suggests, we are doing well. Things are coming along and despite some sadness recently, we are progressing on the house. Our plans are in the corrections phase and we are anticipating getting to start truly building in September.

But the title of this post also has a double meaning, because we are also doing THE well! That’s right, we have our well permit and the drilling company will be here next week! Today, we rented an excavator and Pops is digging out the hillside where the well is going to go.

We had to rent such a big machine because it was the only one left in town! It’s the busy time of year. But the bigger machine means he can do the job faster. And by cutting the well pad faster, he has more time to do some other work we need done. So it’s win-win.

These are exciting times, people!

Oh, and what am I doing today while Pops is digging? I’m on fire duty.

It hasn’t rained here on the homestead since the week we moved here at the end of May. Things are very dry, and the littlest spark can set off a wild fire. So I’ve got a water sprayer handy, as well as a fire extinguisher, and any time he’s digging into the hillside close to the brush, I’m ready.

Kindof a boring job, but someone’s gotta do it!

Have a great day, folks!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

We have a house! Well…kinda.

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Our house was delivered earlier this week! Well, the outside shell of it anyway.

We decided a long time ago that we wanted to buy a steel building and use that as the shell of our house and finish out the inside. There are a myriad of reasons we chose to go with a metal building; fire resistance being high on our list. But also, the maintenance is low, it goes up very quickly, and we like the look.

And once again, we are so blessed in the family God gave us. My dad loaned us his flatbed trailer. Which we ended up not needing, but it was great to have it just in case. And my step-dad operated the fork lift. That was great. ‘Cause it would have taken waaaay too long for us to learn it and operate it.

So even though we don’t have a building permit yet, we do have a building. That building is sitting near our house pad in a bagillion pieces, waiting to be put together like a big erector set.

It’s totally awesome and a little bit surreal to see the pieces there with my name on them. We’re getting closer to actually building!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

The Heat is On

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Howdy, howdy!

Boy, I’m horrible at keeping you all up-to-date. I keep procrastinating because there’s so many parts to our story I haven’t told yet. But I figure I should just go forward from here, otherwise I’m gonna get further and further behind. 🙂

So summer is officially here and the temperatures are rising. Where I sit right now, under the shade shelter we built, with the breeze blowing across me, it’s not too hot. Inside the trailer? Well, as long as the breeze is blowing through the open windows, it’s bearable. At least Bachan and Pagee have AC in their trailer.

We’ve been having quite the time keeping tarps on the shade shelter frames. The wind has been atrocious.

But we keep redesigning and rebuilding. And then it’s good till the next wind storm. And by wind storm, I mean literal hurricane force winds. Yeah, anything that’s not tied down – and even some things that are – gets blown off the mountain down into the canyon.

But that’s life up here. You learn to deal with it. You prepare the best you can, and trust God for the rest.

Our schedule is about to heat up, too. Our house plans were turned into the building department this last week! We have just a short month or two to prepare for the work to begin. And then we’re gonna go crazy!

Not that we haven’t been keeping busy. We finally got our shower all put together.

You may remember that our trailer does not have a working bathroom. So we’ve been washing up with buckets and wash cloths, or going down to Mom’s to take showers.

But now, we can take full on regular showers right here on the homestead! I’ll do a explanatory post on that whole system some time.

And speaking of my mom, she brought a TON of cherries from her trees up to gain some help in pitting them. Her and Princess Girl pitted a large refrigerator drawer full of cherries. Flower Girl helped by being the official taste tester. 🙂

The following day, the girls and I went to Mom’s to help her make jam and a couple cobblers.

The end result was 27 cups of jam using three different recipes, and two cobblers.

Life hasn’t all been hard work over the last month, though. I’ve had a little bit of time to relax here and there. A couple Sundays ago, I spent nearly the whole afternoon in the hammock.

The girl’s and I had an opportunity to dress in 1860’s clothing and join in a Civil War Days event.

And just the other day, amongst errands, we spontaneously decided to take our fast-food to a park for an impromptu picnic. (I learned that I feel less guilty about eating fast-food if we turn it into a picnic. 😉 )

And amongst all the work of settling into the trailers, getting our house plans turned in to the building department, and the myriad of other things we do every day, Princess Girl and I have been working at our summer job at least a couple days a week.

One thing I’m learning is that up here on the homestead everything takes more time. Because we are living completely off grid in an old camping trailer, there are extra steps to nearly every task.

Gonna make breakfast? Gotta gather up of the food and utensils and dishes needed to take out to the outdoor kitchen first.

Gonna go potty? Well, do your business, but know in just a couple of days, you’re gonna have to take care of that bag of poo. (Another post on that is also in the works, just in case you’re wondering. 😉 )

Gotta get something from the shed? You gotta walk all the way over there and back -several times usually – to get what you need.

But it’s a good kind of work and we’re happy to be here. As has been my mantra for the last several months, “the trade off is worth it!”

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Spring weather on the Homestead

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We traveled to Nevada at the end of March and while we spent most of the time at my mom’s house, we did get to spend some time up on the homestead.

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This is the main reason that we decided not to stay in the trailer while we were there. It snowed on us!

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But the girls and I went up to check on the homestead anyway. And had a bit of fun while we were at it.

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And three days later, nearly all the snow is gone. We decided to try “witching” for water in other places around the house pad to accommodate the change in location of the septic system.

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This is “Ahma” (my mom) using the copper rods. It’s amazing how they really do react when near water.

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Flower Girl loves trying new things and having “pickmicks”

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Yeah, three days ago and now it’s warm enough to play in the water. That’s spring in Nevada for you!

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Our little “lion” in her cage.

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And look what we found while rummaging around in our log piles (placed there back when my parents owned this property and tore down an old barn).

Logs!

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Y’all remember my post about the logs right?

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And here I have some sitting right there on the property just waiting for me!

Oh, the possibilities!

Digging Deeper

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YAY, YAY, YAY!

For those of you following along, you know we’ve been having issues finding a spot to put our leach field. And in the county we are building in, no leach field = no building permit.

We’ve rented large pieces of equipment, dug numerous holes, and spent several thousand dollars trying to figure this out. With no luck.

Until today!

We dug another test hole for our leach field today. (And by “we” I mean we paid for it and set it up, but my mom was our representative since we are sitting in Oregon right now.) This time in the fill dirt of our house pad. We didn’t even know that was a possibility till the engineer told us.

Look at that beautiful, easy to dig in dirt!

The backhoe got down to 13 feet no problem and the engineer thinks there will not be an issue putting the leach field in that location.

Praise God!

Now, there are still some issues to work out making sure that we can put the length of field in in the area we have available.

But for now, I’m praising God that we have even gotten this far.

‘Cause it’s one step further than we’ve ever gotten before.

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

More Delays

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We traveled to Nevada this past weekend for a convention we go to every year. We used it as an opportunity to get some work done on the homestead.

The previous hole we tried to dig (but couldn’t get deep enough with the backhoe we rented) was still full of water from the last rains a week ago. This did not bode well for perk tests.

But we decided to rent a bigger machine to dig through the hard ground for our test trench for our septic system. My parents coordinated renting an excavator and Pops dug the hole while we were on the day-long drive down.

Got down significantly deeper (7ish feet) before hitting bedrock, but still not as deep as we needed to go (13 feet). It took Pops all of 30 minutes or so to dig the hole, and since we had the excavator for a whole day…

Pops used it to do some leveling for us.

Our house pad is significantly larger and more usable now.

All of the scraped earth in the pic and even back behind the trailer is new usable space!

The next day, Hubby was able to be there when the inspectors and engineers came by. The news was decidedly not good. The ground doesn’t “perk” at all.

Which means we have to start all over.

Meet with the engineers.

Find a likely looking spot.

Rent the equipment.

Dig the hole.

Do the tests.

And pray it works!

And we’re only in Nevada this one week before we go back to Oregon.

And then it snowed 9 inches.

I’m so frustrated with the roadblocks we keep running into with building this house!

WHY?

Why did you send the snow NOW?

Why this week?

Don’t you know how important it was to get lots of work done while we’re here?

And then I remember all the times he has taken us in a different direction from they way we wanted to go and it has turned out better than we had ever planned.

So I hang onto God’s promises that it’s all gonna be alright, and instead of asking God “why”, I am now saying, “Ok, God, I’m excited to see how you’re gonna work this one out!”

And in the mean time, I am enjoying the fact that we brought our snow gear with us and the girls had a great time playing in the snow today.

And knowing That in just a few months, we should be living here full time!

Unbuilding a home

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As we plan and prepare to build our house in Nevada this summer, I feel that we are quickly unbuilding our home here in Oregon. We already sold off a lot of the larger pieces of furniture.

Emptiness

We are having a yard sale this weekend to hopefully get rid of the bulk of everything else we have stacked in the garage.

The girls’ bunk bed is dismantled in the garage waiting to be sold. Princess Girl took the whole thing apart with very little help from us. She is going to be such a huge help when we build!

She even patiently let Flower Girl help with a couple things.

So now the girls are sharing one dresser (the other is being sold) and sleeping on their mattresses on the floor.

Toys have been downsized to a few favorites. Some have gone into storage, most have been donated to charity (No, I don’t want to fight with a three year old over selling her toys in the yard sale. Better that they are just out of sight, out of mind!)

The living room has a couch and coffee table in it. Nothing else. And the coffee table is going bye-bye this weekend. The dining area has a table, but no chairs. The family room and kitchen are the most furnished rooms in the house, since we do still have to live here. But even they are sparse.

And it feels good! Not just the knowing that we are returning home soon, but the emptiness itself. The space. The uncluttered feel. When our family of 4 moved in with Bachan and Pagee, we had to fit our stuff in on top of their stuff. I needed an area for school/crafts/work, so we squeezed it into a corner of the living room. It worked, but it sure felt cramped.

Since Hubby works from home, he uses our bedroom for his office, which means his desk, etc is in our bedroom. It works, but it sure feels cramped.

And since he takes up extra space in the bedroom, there’s really no space for any of my stuff. So I keep all my clothes in the girls’ room. It works, but, you guessed it, it sure is cramped.

So as we downsize our lives once again to fit into 240 square feet, I am once again reminded that we often carry around too much extraneous stuff in our lives. And that the more space you have, the more you fill it up.

So, once again, I am finding the downsizing process liberating. And while most of the stuff being sold in the yard sale is Bachan and Pagee’s, there are quite a few item of ours as well.

And it’s all rather exciting since it means we are moving soon!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

The most comfortable rain boots

Moving right along

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Our small remodel project in the kitchen is almost finished. And we’re so excited! We should have done this when we moved in nearly 2 years ago!

Just a reminder, here’s what the ceiling looked like when we started.

We cut into the drywall and pulled that soffit off the ceiling. You can see pictures of that process here.

We got the new sheetrock in place.

And did some sanding to make the old stuff meet up with the new stuff. And my man is absolutely amazing! I was anticipating tons of dust all over the kitchen from shaving down the sheetrock. Hubby got the rasp from the garage and started thinking. And came up with an ingenious solution. He taped the rasp to the end of the shop vac! With the corner attachment, it almost seemed like it was made for it!

It worked great! Very little dust all over the kitchen!

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We finished the sheetrock…

…then hired a professional to come in and do the taping and mudding and texturing. We have some experience in that department, but not much. And since it needed to match the existing ceiling, we decided to leave it to someone with much more experience than us.

And he did an amazing job!

Now that it’s dried, you can’t even tell the difference.

And last night Hubby (with Dad’s help) hung the upper cabinet and the mounting bracket for the microwave. This afternoon they will finish cutting the hole for the vent, and get the microwave hung. A friend who is an electrician is coming this afternoon to finish the electrical stuff and we’ll be done!

Just in time to move. Of course.

But, really, I’m ok with that. Since doing all this work means that we’re actually in the process of moving back to Nevada. I will gladly do anything I have to do to make that happen.

And speaking of moving…

Dad went and signed on the dotted line for their trailer they’ll be living in while we are building. It is so very nice!

It’s a brand spankin’ new 34ft Springdale. It won’t be delivered for a couple weeks, but it is designated as sold to Dad.

Not our actual trailer – picture found online

Not our actual trailer – picture found online

It has two huge slideouts. Mom’s hospital bed will fit perfectly where the couch and dinette are currently. There will still be one side of the dinette for people to sit when they come to visit. And there is a second “bedroom” in the back where Dad will put his computer, etc. It will also have a couple bunks for the girls if they need a nap during the day or want to spend the night with the grandparents. I’m a little bit jealous because this trailer would fit our needs exactly. But we only paid a 10th of the price for our used one with no slideouts that Mom and Dad paid for theirs, and it works just fine. And we’ll be so happy to live in it again after thinking for so long that we wouldn’t get to.

Not our actual trailer – picture found online

The thing I’m really excited about Dad and Mom’s trailer is the outdoor kitchen.

Hubby’s and my trailer (with the girls of course) will be parked on our barn pad, which is about 0.2 miles from the house pad where Mom and Dad’s trailer will be parked (not enough room for both). As you can imagine, we won’t want to be running back and forth between the two for snacks, lunch, etc. Or when the camp cook (ie, my mom) comes by with lunch, it will be good for her to be able to finish up prep without having to bother Hub’s parents in the trailer, especially if Mom is sleeping.

Hmmm…OK, how are we going to keep all the Moms and Dads straight in this story now that we are all going to be living in the same town and we will be super involved in each other’s lives?

Ah, I know, Hubby’s parents (who live with us) will from how on be referred to by their grandparent names. Hubby’s mom is Bachan, and his dad is Pagee.

I may on occasion refer to my mom as Ahma (the girl’s name for her), and my stepdad as Pops (my name for him). And my dad will simply be “my dad”.

Got all that?

Good. Neither do I. 😉

But hey, it’s a good problem to have. Not many families are as close as ours. It will be wonderful to live back in the same town as the rest of our family!

Castle Rock Homestead

Off-grid homesteading in the high desert of Northern Nevada.

Category Archives: Building a Home

Water, water everywhere…

Doing Well

We have a house! Well…kinda.

The Heat is On

Spring weather on the Homestead

Digging Deeper

More Delays

Unbuilding a home

The most comfortable rain boots

Moving right along

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