Downsized and Happy!

 

The title says it all!  It has been a heck of a ride but we did it!  Now we are beginning to enjoy our new home.  Phone photos are the best way to show our summer. 

June 8th, 2015, this is the depressing reality of our new outdoor space.

First splash of primer on the old kitchen walls.

The kitchen/living room wall comes down.

Bedroom floor after carpet is removed.

 Ceiling braced before header beam installed.

The beam is up…loving the open space!

    

Meanwhile, back at the old home, piles of unwanted stuff start accumulating. Our criteria for keeping something:

1. Do we love it?       2. Is it necessary?

Our first look at the new floors. Wow!

David removing hinges.

Rockers relocated from old porch to new porch.

The painting begins!

And ends.

The Escape finds new parking.

  Our furniture arrives.    Bellhops move us.

The new fridge arrives….now we can eat!

Princess moves with us…still looking for her new home.  Sheba, the Siamese, finds perfect loving new owners. Sylvester, the camping cat, adjusts to his new smaller space.

Small improvement to back yard.

Woods behind the house.

Our daily walk.

David enjoying our first outdoor meal. (Two days ago)

Before photo…spot for our storage building.

And now.  It is being built as I type this post.

We will resume camping soon!  Heading to Knoxville next week to get the Andersen WDH and hope to camp a few days before returning home. Rally time will start the end of September!

My goal for this post is to document our summer and to give hope and inspiration to those who are continuing to downsize.  We are living in 3 rooms plus a bath and utility room, less than 975 square feet, and I have never been happier!  There are absolutely NO REGRETS!

Yes, it has been a roller coaster of emotions…picking every object up and asking “do I love this?” But the rewards are huge! 

Good luck to all..go after those dreams!!

Panic! Can We Do This?

 

The renter moved this past weekend.  Decided to go take a peak at our future home and came away shell-shocked!   It’s not that it was left in a bad state.  It’s just the reality of what must be done.  It’s got me wondering if we have it left in us?

I know we can make it into a lovely place to live….a place to call home in between all our ramblings.  But are we too old and too tired to make it happen?  Would it just be easier to take the house off the market and enjoy the results of all the cleaning, updating and the beautiful blooming yard?

This is the back yard of our future home.

This is our present backyard.

And we will have three closets in our future place, of which, currently, one has no doors.

The move has felt so right until today.  After returning home, I found myself just sitting, dumbstruck, with the reality of what we are doing.  I look at all the popular tiny houses and say, of course we can move into 900 plus square feet.  But??  Can we handle doing it?  The actual move?

Painting must be done before we can put down new floors.  And a major redo from the driveway must be performed as there is mud everywhere.  Not sure what kind of professional is needed to fix the mud problem?

We can do it…just having a temporary breakdown today.

Need to get into the new trailer and Escape for a few days!

Speaking of the Escape.  We are working on finding the right weight distribution hitch and a tranny cooler and monitor for the Tacoma’s transmission temps.  Just about got everything else ready to go.

The house showings have dropped off this week.  None in the past 3 days.

The daylilies have started blooming….these aren’t current photos but the flowers look the same as a few years ago.

After rereading this post….thought I should explain for newcomers that we are downsizing from a medium size house to one side of a duplex that we own.

And back to using Windows Live Writer.

Quiet Time on the Bay

It’s quiet in the campground with all the little eggs gone.  Some monster sized rigs have come in to take their place but it’s been so cold, everyone is holed up inside.

We went to bed early last night after spending all day inside.  Fixed an indoor meal of spaghetti and leftover chicken, splurged on a chocolate pudding cup and hot chocolate and jumped under the covers by 9PM.

Woke up hot this morning, threw off a layer of blankets and reached for my phone.  36 degrees outside according to the Weather Channel, how can I be hot?  Checked the temp inside and the gauge said 48 ⁰ .  I guess it’s the JC Penne’ comforter because the only place that’s warm is buried under the covers!

This is our last full day at Fort Pickens Campground and the weather station promised abundant sunshine!  Not sure if it will be warm enough to kayak before we leave….and the bikes remain packed in the back of the truck.  I’m thinking maybe a long hike to the fort and back?

Tomorrow we’re heading east along the panhandle to join friends from home who are camping (for the month) at Mexico Beach.  Not sure what to expect but they’re fishermen, well, she’s a fisherwoman!  Hope to learn a little about Florida surf fishing.

This has been a great place to camp, just wish it had been a little warmer.  Noticed that next weeks temps are all in the 60’s!

 

 Notice the big grins!  A frequent sight among our Casita group.

 

Unidentified orange flower… thought it might be Florida rosemary but the petals are not right.                                                                        

         

 

                                              

                                            Sunset over the gulf

 

                                                                                                  More unidentified flowers.    

Some locals showed me a path close to the nature trail that led out to the bay.  Although I was not too far from the campground, it felt like I was in my own private world. 

The rest of the pictures are from that walk.

                                                                   

                                                                      Jellyfish

   Dead Octopus

 

 Little black balls with a tar-like feeling.  Wondered if it was from the oil spill?

 More sea creatures???

Pensacola Bay front

 

                                                              Sand Pipers (?)

Don’t know if we will see much more of the beach after this week as most of our plans are for the interior of FL.  I have loved this ocean time.

Life Between Trips and Harrison Bay State Park

We have been back from the Cherokee rally for over a month, a month without a camping trip!  Life, including bad weather and sickness, has conspired to keep us home.

It's strange how I switch gears after a few weeks in the house.  All the things that never seem to get accomplished, now they haunt me. So a few things have been done.  Started cleaning out the office and it was so bad.  Stacks of paper were on every surface and on the floor, boxes of more paper.

It's the shredding process that slows things down.  Why does our name need to be on every single piece of paper?  I want to throw it all in the garbage.  I think of living in the Casita, what would I save?

When we are off traveling in the Casita, I cannot imagine being home.  Home disappears from my mind, ceases to exist unless someone calls with a rude reminder of responsibilities.

Now, after a month at home, I can't fathom giving up the house that has the morning sun shining into the kitchen and reddish gold leaves falling in the backyard.  

That being said, I am still ready to head south as soon as the holidays are over.

We have been doing a little work on the Casita....got another good coat of polish on it and we have installed a new propane regulator for the gas tanks.  Our fridge has not been working on propane and someone mentioned that maybe we should replace the regulator as it was over 10 years old. We are not the handy dandy types but we did manage to get it installed. 

There's a small difference in the stove flame but the fridge is still broke on propane.  The next step is to take it to the local rv refrigeration guy.  Sure hope it can be fixed as new fridges are $$$.

The weather here has been gorgeous for the past two days.  I took advantage of it yesterday and visited Harrison Bay State Park....wanted to see if the campground had been updated.

Harrison Bay is the oldest state park in Tennessee turning 75 years old this year.  Unfortunately it is overdo for a makeover.  The old bathhouses are kind of grimy and the only open loop in winter was hilly with few level sites.  But the park sits on Chickamauga Lake and has miles of shoreline.  Great for fishermen and boaters!

The marina.

                   This is loop C which is closed in the winter.

                                Some winter residents.

                           View from one of the trails.

A little more info: sites are not reservable, only first come.  Winter rate is $16 which includes water and electric.  Mileage from Chattanooga is about 16 miles.

We camped there in our 13' a few years ago but did not manage to get a waterfront site. I think we'll try again in the spring.