The Woodshed Deluxe, or Braggin' on the Hubby

We heated with wood full-time last winter. We were actually warm inside for the first time since we moved here 14 years ago! That part was awesome. The sad part was that my husband had the wood dropped in the back of the yard in October and then proceeded to warm 60 hour weeks and be gone for two of the weeks. He never got around to stacking--or covering--the wood. Then the snows came. (You can read the full story HERE.)

This picture is of J (my son) out at the frozen woodpile last winter collecting some logs to stack on the porch. My dh and ds had to chip away the ice to get the wood out. We had lots of sizzling (and smoking) fires due to the high water content...



After THAT horrendous experience, my dh has been on a rampage to NEVER let that happen again! He's been collecting wood here and there all summer (freebies). Some of it is piled here.



Oh No! That looks like it will be covered in sleet and snow when winter arrives. Again.

Never fear. My husband learned a hard (and cold) lesson. Look what he's been constructing in between his long work days and busy weekends:



It's not done yet, but soon all we be finished. The wood will be D.R.Y. and easy to obtain.

And we will be warm!

I WILL be warm: More waltzing of Furniture

Phase One of my plan to guarantee that I will be warm this winter is complete. Our new sleeping quarters have been arranged resulting in about 500sf of space that no longer needs to be heated. On to Phase Two where I look at not having to wear gloves while typing on my computer in the freezing office. Oh, yes...we're rolling along now!

Two weeks ago my husband had to be out of town for a few days. He needed to meet the other travelers at a rendevouz point that necessitated my having to deliver him to the meeting place.

At 4:00am.

Now, we get up early, but not THAT early! My son and I made the delivery and returned home. At that point it was all of 4:15. He and I tried to go back to sleep, but both of us were just staring into the dark. Then, my mind began to think of my "I WILL be warm this winter" goal.


So, at 4:30am, the downstairs lights were blazing and my 7yo was helping me move furniture! Sure, he's short, but he's helpful. That's all I ask.

My plan involved getting closer to the heat sources. This is a picture of my "Club Room" which had a dining area, a seating area and an armoir (in the unseen corner):

This is a full view of the dining area. Notice the sidelight window.

A quick curtain sewing project was run up so that I could cover that window each evening to give more privacy for. . .


. . .My new office area! I pulled the essentials of paperwork and homeschooling stuff out of the office and set it up in this snug little corner. The armoir was banished to previous office, now storage room. Now we're snug and warm near the wood heating vents and kerosene monitor.

I was so proud of myself. I have used this area for two weeks now and it is working perfectly. The back of the house could now be shut off and . . . but, wait.

As I said in the previous post, I found out just two days ago that my MIL is indeed going to come and live with us. I speedily surmised that she needed a place to sleep and have some privacy. Where, oh where, could I make room? Why, those shut off rooms, of course!

With all my decluttering, all my paring down because of wanting to live in as small a place as possible, I had ended up creating space for another person. I knew the the Lord was prompting me for the last year as I pursued simplifying our lives, but it wasn't just for us. How awesome is that?

On Monday evening I discovered that I had until Wednesday evening to rearrange the house and to pack for a trip south. Well, I did it. It is now Thursday evening and we're in a hotel just south of the Mason/Dixon line. I spent 15 work hours on Tuesday (husband and son put in a lot of time as well) and another several hours on Wednesday. This morning we got out of Dodge and spent 10 hours on the road.

I'm a little bit tired.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the newest house transformation. I could entitle the post, "How to Prepare for a Major Life Change in 48 hours." The pictures will prove that all it takes is perseverance, muscles (that are now questioning why they have to be attached to me), and not worrying too much about sleep. When you're faced with a deadline and a need, pretty much the only choice is to rise to the challenge and make it happen!

Bunker Living: The Benefits

(Below is a totally not-to-scale, rough attempt at a layout of The Bunker. I wanted to post this to give a bit of an idea of where things are when I talk about living "down under." I believe it will get bigger if you click on it.)

I wanted to point something out. My sewing area is in extremely close proximity to the TV viewing, etc. area. Since moving to The Bunker, I've found that I'm actually getting to some of those projects I've put off for, well, a very long time. I am thrilled and decided to analyze why.

Most middle-class homes in the past had one area where everyone congregated in the evenings, each doing an activity, but all together. With my combining of many different areas of my house into one specific area, I've created the opportunity to do something similar.

Before the big furniture moving activity, the office was where I worked on the computer, the den was where we watched TV, and the basement was where my sewing machine was. Things were too far apart for the family to gather together, so we either did ONE thing together or had to separate.

Not anymore! For example, the other night my son was asleep on the other side of the curtain, I was working on a sewing project and my husband was sitting on the floor fixing a couple of lamps. A video of some documentary stuff my husband had recorded YEARS ago (that we had always intended to watch) was playing on the TV. Oh, and I had the laptop down there, too, so I could look things up as needed.

ALL at the same time. It was a modern version of the father reading the paper, the mother darning socks, the kids playing quietly on the floor (well, mine was sleeping on the floor), and the radio playing some swing music in the background.

But wait, there's more.

We had the wood fire going and it was 68 degrees, baby! Like I said, I WILL be warm this winter!

I WILL be warm: First Night in The Bunker

I was born and raised in South Florida. There are many bugs in South Florida.

When I was growing up, most people didn't have air conditioners. Since it was dang hot air that couldn't be conditioned, compensations had to be made. The house I grew up in was made of thick cement block. The ceilings were high, the windows were large with screens. On the outside, each window had a metal awning. An "attic fan" was placed in the middle of the hallway. When that thing was turned on, the curtains were sucked nearly straight out with the force of the air being pulled into the house. Hot, sticky, muggy, humid air.

In those conditions, one does not want to build an airtight house. Ours was built with the weather in mind, so there were LOTS of places for the house to breathe...and for bugs to get in.

In south Florida there is a particular bug called a "palmetto bug." These are l.a.r.g.e., flat, flying insects. These insects mostly live outside in the palmetto (and other) plants in the yard. That is, they live in said plants until a rainstorm or cold weather forces them to look for dryer living arrangements. The favored place was our house.

(I'm feeling a bit tense as I write this. When someone is terrorized as a child, it's hard to overcome the waves of memory when the subject is broached. I will soldier on because it's important to my story.)

These bugs congregated in two places. The kitchen (crumbs could always be found)...and...MY bedroom. My room was considered a 5-star resort. No surface was clear. Under the bed was filled with, well, who-knows-what. It was a sty that even a pig would not consider. (I no longer live in a sty, I'm happy to say, just in case you were wondering.) The P.B.s would get on top of the bookshelves and dive bomb me when I turned on the light. My screams could be heard a block away. Once, one of the evil things even had the audacity to sit on my hair near my ear when I was asleep. I awoke to hear some strange little sounds and did all but slap my face off trying to get it off of me. I'm cringing as I type this. I'm feeling a bit faint. I need some water...

OK, I'm feeling better. I shared this sordid childhood trauma with you because I wanted you to understand my mindset as we descended to THE BUNKER for our first night's sleep.

I had already gone in and cleared out the spiders. Well, the ones that I could find. But, what if I missed some? What if, God forbid, there were OTHER creatures down there? I'd only "visited" the basement before--mostly in the daytime.

At bedtime we settled in, did a little reading, then turned out the light. All was quiet except the soothing sound of the humidifier lulling us with its quiet hum. Ahhhhh. Warm and cozy.

Then, something dropped on my head.

I leaped into the air, switched on the light, knocked my glasses to the floor. I didn't scream, but my heart was beating wildly. Husband and son had pulled the covers over their heads. Useless, the pair of them. Didn't they KNOW that a creature had attacked me???

I steadied my breathing, searched my pillow, my hair, my shirt...and found nothing. Now you KNOW I would not be turning that light out until I found whatever had attacked me.

Finally, I decided to look up and see if there were any more of these things just waiting for me to settle down again.

So...remember that humidifier? Apparently we don't need to turn it on high just yet. The pipe above the bed was dotted all along with water. Water drops.

I wiped them off, turned the humidifier and lamp off, and settled into a nice, deep, warm, cozy sleep. I was safe.

(PS If you want to see one of those P.B.s, HERE is a link for information and pictures. I'm too emotionally drained to even try to upload one to this post. You're on your own.)

I WILL be warm: The Bunker

As I said in yesterday's post, my plan for reducing heating costs involved closing up many of our rooms. To close up the den was easy. There was already a TV and comfortable seating in the basement (near the wood heat). Check!

But what about closing up two bedrooms? Son goes to sleep early and gets up early. How would I accomplish sleeping arrangements? My mind began to think and plan and reject ideas until I came up with DIVIDING the basement! One side was essentially the game/workout area. (Stop laughing. I WILL workout... eventually...) The other side was the TV viewing/sewing area. If I hung a curtain up to divide the areas...

It worked! Let me just pat myself on the back a second about those curtains. My husband is a paint contractor (as I mentioned). His customers usually redecorate when they paint, and every once in a while he brings something home that I might be able to use. One day he brought home six off-white tab curtain panels. I dug those out of my stash. They were off-white. That just wouldn't do in my attempt-at-early-60s-mod basement decor. What did they used to do?? RIT dye, of course! I chose a bright yellow, pinned them up on the rafter and we have DIVISION! My inspiration for all the colors and theme in the basement have come from this memo board:

The dots were echoed on the wall at the foot of the basement stairs:

I had some "groovy" fabric in my stash (dot-like with the right colors) and stapled it with some batting around pieces of cardboard to provide privacy and insulation in the windows:

Then, the final step. The sleeping area. My son's futon became ours and his loft bed mattress became his new bed. Add a lamp, bedside tables, and the humidifier, and we are now dwelling underground. Underdwellers? Nope, that doesn't work. (Ignore my horribly lumpy pillow. I tend to mangle them in my sleep.)

You know, my whole plan really is mid-century with the bomb-shelter feel and all!

If we had moved the Foosball table out, we would have had more area in the "bedroom." We like to play, though, so it stayed and we just ease ourselves around the frame. Everything was in place and it was time to move to our new apartment.

Next episode? Our first night in...The Bunker.

I WILL be warm this winter!

Last winter my husband (who is a paint contractor) had almost no work for about 4 months. That has NEVER happened before. Since he is a sole proprietor, no work meant NO income at all. He worked whatever he could, many times at a huge rate cut compared to what he normally made.

To compensate for barely having income, I did my best to stop as much outgo as possible. I could have gotten a low paying job, but I decided NOT spending money would be a better use of my time and would result in the same if not MORE available income. One area I could easily save on was the heat. We live "Up North." The fuel prices (as you remember) were ridiculous. SO, we put a wood heater in the basement (where the chimney flue was), collected lots of free wood, and kept the house at 58 degrees. We put on more layers. We wore fleece hats to bed. We were still cold.

We stuck it out, all the while recalling that 58 degrees would have been a luxury for the pioneers.

THIS year I was determined to have a plan in place because I don't LIKE being cold, pioneer inspiration or not. I'll explain this in parts as it's a little involved and would require too many pictures on one post. (Also, I have 30 days of posts to fulfill LOL!)

The first part of my plan was to close off part of the house.

We live in a Cape style house which means that there are two large bedrooms upstairs with a bathroom in the middle. The total area for the first and second floors is just under 1500sf. We have also finished (almost) the basement which gives us another 700sf. That's lots of room for just 3 people!

I began to plot and decided that we could:

• Close off both bedrooms upstairs.
• Keep the upstairs bath door closed and use a tiny space heater to deal with the cold of coming out of the shower.
• Move the office/homeschool stuff into the living room, so that the office could be closed.
• Watch TV in the basement and close off the den.
• Hang a blanket over the door to the tiny laundry area which is also where the garage door is located, and keep the cold/hot air separated better.
• Primarily use the wood heater, saving the kero for emergency use. There are holes in the first floor that allow heat to rise.

Doing those things would eliminate a LOT of square footage that would require heat. Now, how would I go about making this plan work?

Stay tuned for the next post: The Bunker.