Demolition Begins to Make the Kozy Kottage

This past week we have started demolition on our future tiny house on wheels.  We plan on tearing it all the way down to the trailer rails.  If the fridge, furnace, and other major appliances are good we will keep them. There will also be a scrap metal pile that will go to the local scrap metal facility. What we are hoping is that the money from the scrap metal pile will cover our burnt run with the Uhaul truck.

We were blessed with a free camper but with that comes mess and a lot of hard work.  First, I will give you a look at what we were dealing with and the outside looked pretty good but then you open the door...

After looking inside needless to say we bought a box of rubber gloves, some masks, and contractor bags. After a full day of picking up lots of clothes, junk, garbage, etc. we ended up with 10-15 large contractor bags of junk.

Then the fun part, well, for boys that love destruction and taking things apart. Out comes the hammers, drills, crowbars, steel toed boots, and whatever it takes to pull this thing apart!















After some mass destruction we had to figure out where to put the stuff.  I then did some research and because where we live we don't have a dump in our town.  It's only curbside pickup and there is only 2 days for bulk pickup which isn't until June.  The cheapest route we could go was to get a Bagster from Waste Management.  Here's out it works: We pick up the bag at Home Depot for around $30 and then when it is full we schedule a pickup for a fee.  After 2 days of destruction it was FULL! It holds 3 cubic yards and it looks like we might need another.

 Three days later, I was out grocery shopping and I received an email that our Bagster had been picked up.  It was super easy! I do recommend if you have a lot of bulk construction materials to go this route if you don't have a local dump or transfer station. The camper is looking empty and much better.

While we finish demolition and prepare to build, I will start doing some bargain shopping for construction materials.  I love finding good deals!!

 

The Beginnings of Our Kozy Kottage

As a part of being diligent with our finances we have decided to build a tiny home on wheels. We have prayed about it, researched several designs, watched one to many Youtube videos, and talked about it as a family. This is a big decision for us and we keep wondering where we are supposed to live, such as in housing.  We have looked at several houses and even thought about living in a camper for awhile to save up for the house we want.  As a family, we went through the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University and the thought of a huge debt in housing does not feel like freedom.  Debt is slavery. We are preparing to "Live Like No One Else" by building a tiny home, aka our Kozy Kottage. 

Our first step, to buy the trailer to build our home on wheels. I scanned Craigslist constantly then my techy husband suggested I download an app. Such a brilliant idea! After downloading the app I was getting lots of notifications of trailers.  We wanted one at least 28ft long and nothing was coming through that we could afford. Trailers are a huge expense! Remember I spoke about the Youtube watching, well, I found a video of someone taking apart a camper trailer to use the trailer to build their tiny home on...bingo! Now, I had something within our means to work with and updated my little app to camper trailers. In New Hampshire travel trailers are very common and now that spring is finally starting to appear they are getting posted daily.

One morning, I checked my notifications and there was the trailer we wanted.  It was 32 ft long not too far from where we live and it was FREE!!! I told my husband what I found and after the excitement I started trying to get in on the deal because when a free camper comes along you gotta move fast! By the end of the day, after texting, emailing, calling, we ended up trying to get a U-Haul truck to pull the trailer. Well, that was a burnt run because the hitch wouldn't work with the size on the UHaul but the guy knew we were serious about the camper and decided to hold it for us.  We contacted a friend from church and he was able to pull it for us the next day, so we thought. Instead on April 9, 2015 we got a snowstorm that dropped 5 inches on the ground. UGH! Luckily, we could postpone the pickup of the trailer until the next day and that worked out with everybody.

After some work of pulling and tugging, the trailer was on its way to our yard.  Now, there is a story here and it involves, Smoky and the Bandit, fog, and a metal caliper.  This trailer didn't have any registration but we had a bill of sale so if we were to get pulled over hopefully that would of helped.  Just in case, we took back roads, I followed close behind and just as we were leaving the fog dropped down.  My husband kept making the comment that he felt like "Smoky and the Bandit" he said this numerous times.  Even when his mom called and wanted to know what we were up to ...I laughed it off and kept following closely. The trailer arrives safely in our yard and the next day the tear down begins.

In amongst a lot of junk, garbage, and clothes

my husband found this.....

He says that he almost fell over! Obviously, God has a sense of humor and that is a sign of we are doing something right!  Then there was the metal caliper that my husband needs to do some welding.  We went to Home Depot and they didn't have one so we decided to look online later.  The next day, we found some common tools, a screwdriver, wrench and a hammer.  What we weren't expecting was a metal caliper, which isn't that common, and yes it was in that camper in amongst the junk.  We were just mesmerized by these events.

As I wrap this up I hear a joyful 9 year old boy laughing and saying "RARRR! Bang! YES! I love this! " from my open window and ....

I must say thank you Lord for these blessings! Free camper, a friend from church that had a way to pull a large camper with tires that were dry rotted, the free metal caliper, and the free "Smoky and the Bandit" movie that shows us were are taking the right path to freedom. Also, the time spent making some pretty cool memories!