Our Next House #1

Our next house will have exactly one doggie door. It will lead to the mud room. This way, when Spring hits and coonhound mix digs a hole under the fence for doberman mix to sneak out through, both of their muddy little bodies will be effectively barred from the house until they've had a date with the detachable shower head.

This mud room will not be ceremonial, no sirree. No pretty hard woods, carpets, and paintings for us, that's for the entry. The mud room will be entirely tiled with a drain in the floor. The coats and shoes will live in a freestanding coat closet and shoe bin that can be closed when the shower head comes out. Every bit will be washable and/or bleachable. The shower head will have sufficient hose to reach all around the room and sufficient water pressure to reach the farthest wall. The mud room will include a shower/bath and a utility sink.

The mud room will be separated from the main house by the pantry and laundry room. Both will also be tiled and bleachable. This will be for ease of unloading the Costco bounty (without taking shoes on and off eternally) and washing off whatever the muddy dogs did to my poor work clothes.

The "Our Next House" Series

Custom designing and building our permanent homestead has always been the plan. We moved to an area of reasonably priced, farm and forest suitable, undeveloped land for a reason.

For one thing, we don't plan on running a normal farm. I used the word homestead for a reason. A farm is a place where you practice agriculture. A homestead is place where you live. In our case it's also a place where we work.

Our eventual homestead will look something like this:

• Main house, at least 4 bedrooms, a large pantry, 2 living areas, and an office.
• Grossdaddi house, as the Amish call it. For years we've been calling it "Dad's" house because we expect my father to spend quite a bit of time there. It's also the place we're building for our eventual retirement. The term grossdaddi  house in particular refers to a house built on the farm where the parents retire to in their old age, letting one of their children take over the big house.
• Garage, for the ACTUAL storage of vehicles.
• Barns, for various reasons.
• THE SHOP. Aka where Chris plans on spending most of his time. There's a variety of specifications for the building which I'll leave for him to explain.

Except for the barns, it's a pretty safe bet none of these will come from a standard plan.

Currently my best friend for the last, oh, 16 years is working on her master's in urban planning. Given that she's already stated she'd like to use our property for her portfolio, and the fact that we've been planning this place for the last 16 years (common source of amusement between us) she will be giving us a hand with the planning.

Talking about plans is one thing. Living them is another.

In a way, I'm glad we weren't able to buy a place before we moved up here. The experience we've gained in this particular climate is invaluable.

Thus, the "Our Next House" series. Bits and bobs of what life has taught us about living in the mountains and valleys of North Idaho.