I build myself a house

I think this photo was the first moment I knew I could move in and live here. It was the middle of winter, exactly a year ago ( give a day or two) and our country was in the middle of the biggest lockdown. 

In this blog I will share my story with you of how my house came to be. I had a dream, simply to live with my horses and to live a simple lifestyle. I found these things called 'grill kota`s' and they have followed me for years. When I started looking for woodcabins I just kept coming back to these. My how is two kota`s linked with a corridor. I ordered them online from a company in Lithuania. Dicussed everything over email and ordered the pallets that would contain my flatpack house. In the meantime there was the whole process of my friends buying the property where we would all live together. That was a whole journey on it`s own. We were lucky the sellers are wonderful patient folk and we still meet up now and then. After figuring out many legal things about actually able to build a big tiny house here it all fell in place. A lot of hard work and many conversations. I am often asked how I did this and can`t really answer this question because it depends on so many things whether it works out or not. Permits, legal documents, regulations and a solid friendship to take on this endeavour.

So... the delivery of the house. It was supposed to be delivered on the first of december, but then the factory was struck by the pendamic, cutting their workforce in half. I had taken the month of for the build so I was happy to hear they worked hard to get it to my by the 12th. I was beginning to get horrible thought about being scammed by a company that didn`t excist and would just send emails. I received photo`s of my house being loaded on the truck and I really wanted to believe this was great customerservice. But honestly, you can google pictures and send those right? Another message came. The truckdriver got a cold and couldn`t drive on across the border. I understood yet my doubt grew. And then another message and confirmations of the shipping company. Then the day came, a phone call, the driver was an hour away! I ran to our neighbours farm. They have one of those big lifting machines and were willing to help unload ( truly they are angels).  A huge truck came, I was so nervous, the pallets were unloaded with huge skill and there it was, my house in pieces wrapped in plastic.

The next few weeks were spend fighting the rain, wind and plastic tarps, as well was wrestling parts from the pallets and moving them into the barn. I painted and painted and painted every spare moment I had. I really wanted to get the wood protected before we started to put things together. By this time the foundationframe had been welded and was sitting on the posts we screwed in the ground in september. And then the moment was there. Three weekends of hard work in wet, cold, freezing weather and the house was suddenly there.

I say suddenly because that is what it looked like. POOF! House. What it was really like was more of a 3D jigsaw puzzle where non of the pieces fitted exactly right and weighed tonnes! First the floor pieces (crooked as f*ck) then the walls went on pretty easy. Another angelic neighbour came to help us with the roof. We thought we would need to hire his crane, but he got a system going to do this by hand and the roof came up on the two kota`s. To get the corridor roof on cost us another whole weekend and I think we spend two whole days on getting the front door in. It wasn`t easy, it was an adventure. And I am so proud!

Well after that I quickly said goodbye to my old house once it was emtpy and cleaned with my best friend. Made the best of that day. There was still a bit to do to make it habitable. Many gaps to fill, more painting, putting in electrics and water and heating. All in all it took half a year to get all the mod cons done. With the added bonus of a deck looking out on the summerfield where the horses grazed.

I have to say I was pretty lazy after all that and quite done with construction things. I cleaned up the exterior and painted the outside again with my best friend. Boy it needed a second coat. On the interior side I have some jobs to do. I naively thought I would do them in winter as in indoorsy chores. But noooooo... Summer is much better with warm weather so you can set up a workbench outside. What was I thinking. 
I think I have been recuperating from all the stress, worries and sore muscles and hands. It is only the past few months that it has really hit home... I DID IT! I build a house. It`s warm and dry most of the time, its right next to the horses, has the best sunset views and summer will come again.

Can you believe I filmed and edited thoughout the whole process? I still can`t. But I`m so glad I did. There`s a playlist of vlogs and videos on my YouTube channel if you haven`t already seen them. And recently I`ve edited a recap to relive this carzy year we call 2021.