Its April and its 2015 and its all happening!!!

Happy New Year :)

Well it's all going on! We are now in full swing and fully planning to move to Port Orford end of the summer this year.  We have just had a very quick trip down to the property this last weekend.  800 miles round trip, got there lunchtime on Friday and arrived home 6pm Sunday! we managed to squeeze in rather a lot whilst we were down there.

We have FINALLY made a decision about where we will live whilst the house is being built.  We have been back and forth on living in a trailer (caravan for the English folks - but a large'un) and living in the garage/workshop.  Well Thanks to a slightly complicated planning law it has forced us to make a decision and we will be living in the shop! 

So we went and signed the contract and paid the deposit with a local Oregon company who do pole barns.  It is a timber framed building clad in metal and I think we will be going with red walls and a green roof with white windows, doors and edging, a bit like this.

It will be a 3 bay garage with a carport on one end, but only 2 bays will have garage doors, the last bay will have a humanoid door, and we will insulate and build to code and live in 2 bays.  It will have windows, and Mr M is going to add some sun pipes to the roof to let in extra light.  The bonus of this is that we can use all our furniture, and no storage costs etc.

It's the little things, but I am happy that this decision was finally made! now to get it built, we are 3 months out, but once they start it goes up in 2 weeks!!!

Mr M has sold his car, which I was VERY Happy about! YAY - so he is now shopping for a truck! and we are also going to be selling our campervan and upgrading/downgrading/upsizing to an old airstream! basically we have outgrown the camper and we need something to live in for a few months whilst Mr M is getting the garage ready for us!

LOTS of decisions made!

The property looks really good, it survived the winter really well, we lost a few trees at the back of the property but we will get them taken out, plus another bigger one that is just plain ugly!  I was SO excited that my daffodils and crocuses I planted in October came up, I am sure they were a picture whilst they were out, but alas all I got to see was dead flowers!  Everything down there occurs about a month or so ahead of up here, so everyone has their gardens in fullish bloom.

 



The gates were looking a treat, they are really lightening up the way that cedar is meant to, and I think Mr M was surprised that they were still completely level - as I said at the time "completely over engineered"

 

We were also excited to see our well! we have water! well we will once we have a pump! but this is it, this is the end of water bills as we know it!!!

And we have a septic tank, I KNOW as I have said before, septic is sh*t blog talk but all good house builds must brooch this subject at least a few times, BUT this stuff was SO expensive it is nice to see what we paid for :) I won't be allowing anyone to use it!!

AND we met with Wayne, who has done all the hard work so far.  He will finish clearing out the area for the workshop, and put down the hard core ready for it to be built on, it comes complete with a polished concrete floor so no need to put a concrete pad down.

This is where it is going, conveniently right in front of the gap to next door, so they won't see us, and we won't see them! Hermit? Me? no!

That is the back of their shed, and they will sit back to back, nice and friendly.  We also have a complete driveway, one of the first things we will do in the fall (Autumn) is to grass the areas around the sides of the driveway, once the build is all completed we will have gravel added over the hardcore - but that is rather a long long long way off into the future!

FINALLY we are getting our house ready to put on the market, not too many projects to do, but a bit of tidying up and the wood shed needs re-roofing, and our swamp in the back needs some new turf! We are aiming to list around June/July, but need to be sure the barn is up or on its way, incase the unthinkable happens and we sell quickly and are homeless!  But we have a Realtor, (Estate Agent UK peeps) and she has given us a value and advised us on what/when/how etc. it is overwhelming but we are ready for this to happen!

And so that is it for this update, I am starting to panic plan about packing up the house, and realized we have rather a lot of stuff for the charity shop! I am also planting up my veggie garden in the hopes that it will inspire prospective house hunters to buy it for the vegetables that will be on offer! What a Deal, what a Steal! Sale of the Century right here!

And then there was water!!!!!

We had a great few weeks in Port Orford and did a lot of exploring, both around the little town and up in our neighborhood and all of the streets up around there.  We got to meet a few of our neighbors which was great and everyone is so friendly, or maybe that is nosey :) they all want to know what we are doing, what we will be building and when we are moving!  We are happy to tell everyone all about our plans, we understand that it must be quite disturbing to suddenly see a piece of land sold that has been wooded for a long time, and then it is cleared and of course people are curious!

Our direct neighbors have had to put up with a lot this summer, a lot of noise and a lot of dust, we have given them some of the timber that we couldn't sell, to use as firewood through the winter.  They are currently renting the property so I don't feel quite so bad LOL.  Unfortunately there is a huge gap where the trees were cleared and it looks straight through into their property.  We will be putting a privacy fence along the gap and also planting some fast growing shrubs/trees/bushes, and besides they are getting GREAT neighbors so they can't complain!

We also met with Joe who did all the land clearing, and he told us we made $3500 from our timber, that is pretty impressive and we weren't expecting anything like that much, it all goes back in the pot to pay for the land clearing!

So what else got done! we got power, that was exciting, it got hooked up to the main street supply so we now have power onsite!

 

The next big thing we got done was our gates!! Mr M had made the gates before we left, so we took them down along with the gate posts, hardware, hole digging equipment (spade) and wheelbarrow!  So one day we dug holes! 3 of them, 4ft deep, Mr M always over engineers EVERYTHING including post holes!!! *sigh*

 

Then another day we mixed concrete - not having water on site makes mixing concrete rather hard, so we brought water, 25 * 60lb bags of concrete and then sat back and wondered how we were going to mix it! Mr M got on google and discovered the Portugese way! the tarpaulin way!!! You tip the bag of concrete into the middle of the tarp, take 2 corners each add water and tip my right hand, Mr M's right hand, my left hand, Mr M's left hand, it basically mixes the concrete side to side and is amazing and WORKS!!! 3/5 of a tonne of concrete later and we have posts in holes!!

5 Days later we hung the gates... and Oh My!! they turned out amazing! Mr M should be very proud of himself!

I also did some planting whilst we were there, I planted some daffodils and crocuses around my gates and my power pole, and also our Realtor had emailed us at the beginning of the year to say she had a tree for us :) So finally on this trip we were able to tie up with her and get our tree, it is a Dogwood and I planted it and put some fencing around it to protect it from the deer and *fingers crossed* it makes it through the winter.

By the time we were leaving the grass was starting to grow over the septic area, and we had the house and the garage all staked out.  We met with Joe and Wayne to decide where the final clearing would take place and to discuss the tanks etc.  Now Wayne will complete the septic system and get the last few trees and bushes cleared out.  Then the land can have a few months peace and quiet to recover from the trauma of the year!!

 

 

Finally last week our well got dug, we were disappointed it didn't get done whilst we were down there as we would have liked to have seen it happen.  But it is done, it got drilled down to 45 foot and got a good flow, we will end up having a holding tank as well but at least we know that it is done and we that unknown is now a known!!!

 

And that is it! Spring time will arrive before we know it and we will be getting the garage put up.  We are having a pole barn and it is nearly going to be as big as the house *sigh*

 

Before I go! yes the beach was still spectacular... even during the stormy weather!!

 



Autumn 2014 and things are moving!!!!!

FINALLY it is Autumn and VACATION time!!! it has been a very long summer, we have both been working a lot with Mr M even doing 50 hour weeks (which if you know Mr M is unheard of) but whilst we have been beavering away up in Seattle things have been moving right along down here in Port Orford.

Firstly, we normally camp when we come down, but the middle 2 weeks in October was bound to see some rain, and after last nights storm I am mighty glad we rented a vacation home *feeling smug*.  We are right in Port Orford town, good and close to our property and we have a fantastic view of the lake out over to the ocean!

We haven't been down here since August, and since then the land has been cleared all bar a few trees that we have decided now need to come out too.  The cleared space was then backfilled and graded, and the driveway has been partially laid with compacted hardcore, the rest will go down now that we are here and can mark out the house and the garage etc.

Here is the plot, all cleared... looking in from the road..

And then looking up towards the back of our property, Mr M is stood where the house will go.  The garage will be down at the bottom right hand side of this photo, backing onto our neighbors and providing us with some privacy.

 

 

We were also excited to see our septic (it is all about poop) drainage field is in, this is a big deal as it needed to be in and inspected prior to the rain arriving, or we were going to have to push it back into Spring 2015, this way it is in, covered and has grass seed on it to allow the ground to stabilize through the winter and the grass to grow!! I was super excited to see this!!! *blushes*

 



AND this week we have also had our power meters put in, they are huge and will basically cover us for all eventualities, we decided if we are doing it now to put in a supply that can be isolated to house, or garage, plus an RV supply as we will be living in a trailer during the build.  THIS was very expensive, however it is done paid for and we have POWER!!!! another milestone!!

 

 

Today we spent the day digging holes.. OMG it was hard work, but the first actual HARD work we have done on our own land, we now have 3 x 4 foot deep holes for our posts, we are going to be putting gates up across the driveway, now we have power we don't want a hippy circle moving in with their damn bongos!!!  Mr M has made the gates himself and we brought them down with us, we are excited to finally be doing something ourselves!

 

This weekend we are having our well dug, so we will also have water, water and power and nearly somewhere to poop - what more could a person ask for!

 

I will be back next week with another exciting installment including pictures of well digging and gate erecting :) :)

 

Before I go I need to share what the crazy neighbor behind us has done.  She is basically very upset that this "woodland" is being built on, despite the fact it is 3rd growth and it had been for sale for a long time and she didn't buy it!  We met her last time we were down here and she is slightly loopy and paranoid, previously she had fenced her property line, brilliant saves us doing it!! This time she has added wooden stakes to her fence (spikes up) - gotta laugh, she is clearly more of a hermit than us and completely insane!!! I think I might like her!!

 

 

 

Oh and yes, the beach is still spectacular!

 

 

 



It's been a while............

But quite ALOT has been happening, really!! I promise!! loads in fact!!

Firstly, we finally got our septic system and plan approved - seriously this is a big deal, it can be the difference of $30k or $10k, fortunately for us it was the latter, this pricing being approx., we are hoping for less of course.

Once the septic was approved it kind of changed all of our plans, we had to re-arrange the site plan, and infact in hindsight this is a MUCH better layout!

So then we started paying $$$$$ out to our Contractor and he has been busy in there clearing the trees out, he will clear the trees, level and grade the land and grade the area for the garage and the house.

We have a culvert, and the start of a driveway, it is VERY exciting! we went down to Port Orford a few weeks back and got to see how things are progressing.

 

It feels so much more real now that the trees are coming down and the space is being defined!! Next the septic drain field is going in and then the tanks etc.. I could bore you with lots of talk of septic systems, but this blog is already full of enough S*it boom boom!!

We also got signed up with the power co-operative, they will be running the electric from the street through some conduit to a power pole, we are having our meter and power pole close to the property line and then Gareth will run the power to where ever it is needed when he starts down there.

We also have just signed a contract with the Well company, once the land is ready they will go in and dig our well for us, fingers crossed they don't have to go too deep, but it is all exciting stuff!   Hoping by the end of the summer we will have all the utilities in and running etc.

SO now, Gareth is researching garages, we have always talked about living in the garage whilst Gareth is building the house, enables us to use our furniture etc. rather than having to put stuff into storage.  Plus we found out that you can't build a garage and leave it as a sole building on your land, you can only build a garage before your house IF you are planning to live in it whilst building, so although we have tossed around the idea of living in a large trailer (caravan) we are now back to the garage idea.

Well that is about it... fingers crossed everything continues to progress forward... and in the meantime we will just keep on working hard ;)

Oh and this wouldn't be a good blog post without the obligatory beach photo!!

An Update for you....

Well quite a few things have been occurring in the back ground, firstly we have finalized our house and plot plans.

Mr M is most ingenious.. he created a large to scale, diagram of our plot, and covered it in clear plastic so we could draw on it etc.. and we had cut outs to scale of the house and garage - the idea being that we could decide where we want to place our house! we need to know this before we can submit our plans to the planning office.  So we spent a couple of evenings coming up with different ideas and once we had decided in principal where it was going I left Mr M to get down to the nitty gritty of distances from property lines etc.

He has also been busy speaking to planning departments and septic people and road/driveway permit people and power people and people who are far wiser than me etc..

Finally this last weekend we went back down to Port Orford.  We have had my parents to stay so took the opportunity to go down and stay a few days, show them around, and meet with a contractor etc.  It was a brilliant trip, not only because we finally got to see our plot again and see it is real, but also we got to measure everything out, and decide if our plans are feasible for where we want to place the house etc.. so we will make a minor change to placement of the house so we don't overlook our neighbors too much and then we are good to go on plans submission.

 

Oh and the sun shone the entire weekend and so we got to do some fabulous beach walking too!!

We got to meet with Joe, who is a groundwork contractor, he will be clearing the land for us, digging out the area for the septic and putting in the culvert and driveway etc... seems everyone knows everyone down there and his nephew is someone we might be working with to get our garage built.  Betty our Realtor told them all about us crazy English people :) I think she is going to be a very useful person to know down there.

First things first, "Joe the Contractor" will be going into our plot through whatever space he can find, with his "bobcat" digger, and he will dig out 2 trenches.  Then the "County" will go in and test the soil etc. and determine what type of septic system we need - *fingers crossed* it is standard as if it is a sand filter type then $$ "ching ching"... once that is determined the fun begins.

This is how thick the brush is getting into the plot - but I am sure he will find a gap somewhere :)

We will be going back down in a month or so when "Joe the Contractor" is ready to clear the trees, we will tape and mark the area we want cleared, we are planning to leave approx. a 10 - 15ft border of trees around the entire edge of the property, depending on garden etc..  so we need to make sure he doesn't get carried away :) he will also put the culvert over the ditch allowing us to gain an entry and put in the driveway (more permits).  When he clears the trees he takes out all the roots etc.. and if it is done before June he can burn it onsite, after June the burn ban will be in place so it will all need to be removed out, and again that costs more money. 

We need to know where the septic is going to be placed before the land is cleared as apparently when clearing that actual area they need to just scrape it and leave as much natural soil as possible, rather than just gouge their way through.

Hopefully we have quite a bit of merchantable timber on our land, once the trees are down they will cut them to size and strip all the branches off, the local mill will then come in and remove the logs and then we get paid by the mill for our timber :) BARGAIN!!

So that is the plan forward, once it is cleared we can then think about getting our well dug for the water (uphill from the septic), and the power connected and then the foundations for the garage and funds depending we might get the garage built - so it can be my place of residence whilst Mr M is doing the house, he knows how to spoil me for sure!!

                  Me, Mr M and "Joe the Contractor" discussing all the intricacies of the Grand Design!

 

Hopefully you have enjoyed this little update... stay tuned as another update will be along in a while!

Hello, Welcome, Bienvenue, Ola!!

Its here... the future's bright the future's Oregon!!!~

So here we are... our new piece of property, 2013 saw Mr M disillusioned with work (who isn't) and fed up with 9-5, even as flexible as he is with his time sheet!!! 2013 saw me fed up with Mr M being fed up and moaning about it all!!

SO to cut a long story short, Mr M has always had the desire to build us a house, a real home, with some land and the opportunity to be as self sufficient as we can, without having to rely on me being a master gardener to eat, just in case! we took the plunge and brought ourselves 1.25 acres of wood, in Port Orford, on the Oregon coast, 60 miles from the California border, right down there in hermitsville!

The plan - (always subject to change) is to spend the next 18 months getting the land cleared, leaving as many trees as possible, but giving us as much sunlight as we can to help grow the veggies, and maybe help with some solar power.  Once the land is cleared we will be having the septic put in, the well for our water dug, and some groundwork completed for the foundations.  We will be working with a contractor to get this done, with the view to when Mr M turns up with his hammer, most of the groundwork will be done!!

When we move Mr M will be working for me :) he will be building building building, and fortunately I have complete and utter faith he will do a spectacular job! I will keep working *fingers crossed* as my job is remote and can move with me, I shall keep on growing veggies, canning and preserving and keeping my chickens.

I decided to write this blog to keep a good record of the progress, not a lot is going to be happening for a while, at least not too much exciting, we are planning a trip down there soon though, so it will be fun to see what it is like during winter, I am thinking drier than here and also warmer, and also the beach will still be spectacular.

The best way to describe why is in pictures.. I mean when you have walked on this beach, its a no brainer!

So feel free to follow along, I can't promise too much excitement, or fantastic writing, I sometimes go off on a tangent and waffle along.. but I will do my utmost to keep this up to date and full of pictures :) I am good at that!!

 

End of blog humor, type Port Orford into your text and auto-correct gives you Port Orgies :) woohoo!