My tiny house build

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facechicken
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Re: My tiny house build

Post by facechicken »

Well I finally got the old house sold (I guess all the papers are signed and all but not official yet). The new buyer and I haggled for a week before we came to a price, but at this point I am just glad to not have to deal with it anymore......didn't make all the money that I wanted to on it, but I made enough and I don't have to mess with it ever again. Now I can focus all of my attention on the new house finally. hopefully in December we will be really hammering away at the build, at this point it all depends on the weather....and around here it can be -40 or75 in December so we sill see :lol:

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by 712edf »

facechicken wrote:I am just glad to not have to deal with it anymore...... I don't have to mess with it ever again.
^^^^^^^
This feeling is Priceless! :dance

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by LAWFISH »

Im not trying to hijack your thread but we think alike. IM much older just turning 56 last month but its the 'MORTGAGE FREE" thing I have been chasing for fifteen years. I HATED having a mortgage. We ate 300K in 2008 with the housing issues across the country and sold a 600K home for 250K in 2013 as it never recovered. That said I was lucky and bought 175 acres in Idaho 14 years ago when it was cheap. I could never afford it today. I retired 4 years ago last june at age 51 (also lucky ) and decided to move on and eat that loss.

I had a partial pole barn build that I started on my Idaho property and I lived in my old fifth wheel for the first summer as I enclosed the pole barn into a shop for a work place and added a 500 sq ft cabin to the side, complete with kitchen and rock hearth. My wife and I had purchased a small flip home in a nearby town cheap and she and my daughter lived there and fixed it up.

We moved into this 500 sq ft which has a full bathroom and pantry in the shop and the wife slept on a couch while I slept on the floor on a blow up mattress for the first winter. We had no $ left after bills each month for two years. I added on 500 sq ft mud room and large bedroom to that cabin the following year out of pocket at a 5K cost total as I do ALL of my own building since I can not afford help.

So then we were living in 1,000 sq ft of rustic cabin living. I had torn down three local barns for access to free barn wood for cosmetic rustic lumber.

Then last year we sold off that home to become debt free except y 2012 cummins. I then sold off my 70 cuda vert for building capital. Then last spring we started this build. Im not into a tiny home as we want space. I hired a framer for the framing and concrete since I simply could not do it alone and assisted as a third helper. I also did not want to be 28 feet in the air. 12 years ago I added a two acre pond to this property at a cost of 4K. Its now 12 years old and the setting for the home.

I am now broke again and this house will take a couple of years t finish with my monthly pension. My cost to build this from foundation to roughed in was under 50K. Our next step is a 1400 sq ft wrap around porch, which is aprox 12K in material/ quality cedar decking ect and mono trusses for the covered porch are $3300 alone. But if you have little or no debt or mortgage then your MONEY GOES A LONG WAYS. Also negotiating with builders or who ever saves a lot. I am doing all the contracting stuff, plans dealing with the county and state ect.

So im figuring 50K more to have this home totally done maybe 40K. That puts this 2,000 sq ft cabin style build with 1400 sq ft of porch in the inexpensive class for a home. Its all correctly done in every aspect. I had a septic and well so thats not included in costs to build.

Most people let alone a wife wont do what my wife did to get where we are. My wife is a cancer survivor when she was 47, now 54 so our perspective is now different. I was making very good money and could have stayed forever but whats the point when your paying for a home out west were things are pricey.

Now what you see here is a debt free mortgage build on a 175 acres that costs me under $800 a year in property tax. We will raise most of our food and already grow a lot of it as I just dont trust a lot of the foods they are selling us these day. After someone you loves has cancer, you read what your eating more carefully.

This property has three building permits and its my dream to build my daughter each a home with the help of their husbands to get them out of the rat race and live more freely.

Now, that said I no longer build cudas, challengers and expensive cars that I did for 25 years and dont own any. Trucks up here are cheap and I will continue to find them and build them. I have a shop addition planned after the home as well as a barn. Next week I take possession of the only other thing I will make payments on, a 2018 Yanmar 359C. A 4x4 tractor. After last winter and our five feet of snow sitting here ( that apparently never happens) it almost killed me and my 43 year old cheap yanmar) Plus I am ag exempt and have cattle on here that I get paid for two weeks a year. I happy to claim that 2-3K in income to write off a ton of other things including this new tractor which will keep the snow gone, help create the orchards, fields ect in check and help with a cattle ranch down the road.

I think my point is you can do this at 36 or 56. You dont have to be on that hamster wheel of life thats seems to be never ending. As I type im in my fifth year of retirement and love it. I work hard daily for my wife and I. Had I started thinking this way at 36 instead of 41 I would be way ahead of where I am now.

It takes a leap of faith and friends will think your crazy but EVERY PERSON has has visited cant believe what we have done. And a few have decided to do the same.
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cabin and shop.
cabin and shop.
fresh eggs from my chicken coop.
fresh eggs from my chicken coop.
IMG_1010.JPG (35.9 KiB) Viewed 1672 times
Home build.
Home build.
IMG_1007.JPG (35.43 KiB) Viewed 1672 times
Greenhouse
Greenhouse
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Re: My tiny house build

Post by 712edf »

Good read Lawfish! Glad you got off the "hamster wheel".

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by Galevin »

Interesting thread. I’m on the other side of the fence and to many, not all, a mortgage can make you wealthy.
There are more millionaires due to real estate than any other means. And they certainly did not pay cash for all their properties. I happen to like mortgages as I have over 50+ with another 50+ properties (that once had a mortgage) now mortgage free. Not knocking the “mortgage is bad” or tiny home idea, just saying different strokes for different folks.
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Re: My tiny house build

Post by soopernaut »

As of now, mortgage interest is still tax deductible so you can either pay for your property a little at a time or all at once. You can invest the money you saved by not paying off your mortgage and earn a higher percentage of interest. I live in an area where I can get up to $10,000 forgivable loans every ten years if I finance my mortgage through Neighborhood Finance Corp. I think I'll be getting a new driveway next year, hopefully for no out of pocket costs. :dance

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by 712edf »

Galevin wrote:Interesting thread. I’m on the other side of the fence and to many, not all, a mortgage can make you wealthy.
There are more millionaires due to real estate than any other means. And they certainly did not pay cash for all their properties. I happen to like mortgages as I have over 50+ with another 50+ properties (that once had a mortgage) now mortgage free. Not knocking the “mortgage is bad” or tiny home idea, just saying different strokes for different folks.
I'm assuming you have rental properties, and therefore somebody else is paying for the mortgage? Yes, that beats working to get rich. But it has it's own headaches as you well know.

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by zachkennedy »

Although I like the idea, I just don't think it's for me. 30k is all you'd be in with land too?

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Re: My tiny house build

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so the people that are doing my foundation are at the place today and are about ready to pour the footer for the foundation so I thought I would post some before pics
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0417181935.jpg
the propert line basically runs from the outside of the tree on the left to the outside of the tree on the right...that little white shed in the background is mine and sits right on the line...I will be tearing it down and putting up a new one when the house is finished. The shed actually leans and all the wood is rotten...holes in the ceiling, or I would try to save it
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Re: My tiny house build

Post by soopernaut »

That lot doesn't look like a couple of acres, like you stated in the 1st post. How big is it?

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by facechicken »

its officially a lot and a half....no one around here would sell any acres to me....I tried for year and even over shot on price but to no avail. I know the lady that used to own the house that sat on this lot, she used to rent it out but the house was in bad shape so they turned it down....got a great deal on the land....the only land for sale I could find
Last edited by facechicken on Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by facechicken »

Today they are gonna pour the footer
0419181724c.jpg
0419181724a.jpg
0419181724.jpg
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Re: My tiny house build

Post by PwrWgnDrvr »

That's not "tiny" either......

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by facechicken »

well......my new neighbor just called me....while i am at work and asked for my builders phone number.....apparently her basement is flooding now......from something they did...... :pale

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by Hobcobble »

Hopefully..... just a tiny issue... :dance :dance :Thumbsup
Keep the pics coming. :salut

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by PwrWgnDrvr »

facechicken wrote:
Fri Apr 20, 2018 2:58 pm
well......my new neighbor just called me....while i am at work and asked for my builders phone number.....apparently her basement is flooding now......from something they did...... :pale
Very curious what that could be...??? As long as they stayed on your lot and she hasn't got any utility easements, doesn't seem possible.

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by facechicken »

That's what I was thinking also.....turned out they used her outside faucet (with her permission before hand) to wash off the equipment they used on the footer. The pipe running to the faucet apparently started leaking...its wasn't a whole bunch of water but it was enough to get the floor wet. When she called me, she made it sound like a lot of water....
Also, the footer is done
0420181732.jpg
0420181732a.jpg
0420181732b.jpg

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Re: My tiny house build

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They were ahead of schedule with the forming so they actually poured the walls yesterday also :dance
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0423181733.jpg

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Re: My tiny house build

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The inside of the walls will be a tall crawl space. We were going to do a full basement but that water tower in the background over flows from time to time and everyone around says that they get water in their basement, so I don't feel like messing with it plus the I really didn't want to spend the extra money ....with this setup, I can still get under the house to do repairs and incase of an emergency we have a storm shelter type of area

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Re: My tiny house build

Post by facechicken »

They took the forms off yesterday and they said I should wait a week before I back fill the dirt and next weekend I can start building on it :dance there was also a small well that split the property line with the neighbor that had the water damage (3/4 was on her side) so I went ahead and had them fill it in while they had all the equipment there
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