when the world's too much, make it smaller

 It's been something of a saga, the old ruin on the hillside. I've spent fifteen years fixing, refixing, stabilizing, demolishing, salvaging, and otherwise working at trying to make the enormous 24x24 foot cabin on a West Virginia mountainside that my father bought as a refuge from his own busy life. I've had minor setbacks, little leaks, thefts, and workarounds, and big ones, like losing my connection to the power lines (and, with that, my water, as the well pump needs heavy power) and the most recent one, where I came in to find that the wind had torn off half the roofing over the winter, soaked the interior, and otherwise made the place uninhabitable. It's filled with small animals, huge spiders, and ubiquitous wasps, and is flaming hot all summer and unheatable in the winter.

I've been accumulating materials as I could afford them to renovate the place, but it's just too much. It's literally five times as much space as I need, as the throngs of visiting associates never materialized (partly because the place is admittedly not much fun unless you're outside), and I don't have the budget, the truck, or the access my father had when this was his rural fever dream.

Last year, I started rethinking. I inventoried the materials I'd accumulated, did mountains of research, and dusted off my drawing board. As it turned out, I'd accumulated about half the materials I'd need to do a cursory renovation on the cabin, but more than enough to build a fresh one in a tiny house mode. Sometimes, given a choice between the endless, impossible project and the reset button, you gotta reach for the reset.

The Blue Moon, as it's known in the area, is setting. It was my father's dream, or one of them, but it's too much for me. Mine's considerably more modest, and within reach now.

 

The New Moon isn't big enough for a family. It's going to be 8x10 feet on the ground, sitting on 4x6 skids on concrete piers floating on tamped gravel (with an upgrade path to a better  foundation when I have the time and money). Twelve feet tall, with a generous sleeping loft, and a steeply pitched roof with no penetrations and a foot of overhang on all sides. Camp kitchenette with a 2 burner propane stove, big ice chest, sink fed by 2 seven gallon jugs I can refill in town. Propane heater for now, Sardine marine wood stove when I can afford it. Fourteen windows,  vents in the floor and at the gables to move hot air out. T1-11 siding for now, cedar when I can afford it. Small solar system for lights, amp for iPod with car speakers built into the walls, charger for netbook and phone, couple fans to keep the air moving. Little diner booth for working, eating, hanging out, converts to bed at night. If I add a hammock over that, it'll sleep 4, with one more in a sleeping bag on the floor. Water collection from the roof into a buried cistern for washing water (with a DIY Berkey filter to make drinking water). New super-tight outhouse up the hill that's cozy, clean, stinkless, and spiderproof. Well-maintained typewriter for writing, fresh ribbon, ream of paper.

All night, trains rumbling through. All day, reading, swimming, hiking, writing, breathing. I'm daring myself to fail at this, really, but I don't aim to do so. I've got all I need, but for the time and the last few materials. It means doing little else for the rest of the year, but after that, there's somewhere to go. I've always been a daydreamer, and sometimes I do what I mean to do. 

 

The Blue Moon will get a new roof, a little tidying, and will go on to being the biggest shed an 8x10 house ever had. Maybe I'll keep a canoe in there.