We have a mini-collection of repurposed materials, and this coming week we’ll be adding to that collection if everything goes as planned. I always need to hold onto plans loosely since free or inexpensive materials tend to go very quickly. I’m a member of Freecycle and at any given time a product being given away might be claimed by someone who lives closer than I do, or can go and swoop it up quicker than I can even get in my car!
Freecycle, the free section on Craigslist, and even Facebook Marketplace has been instrumental in collecting needed materials.
Back when we first moved to New Mexico in 2008, we came with only the clothes on our backs. We needed beds, furniture, cooking supplies, clothing, rugs and more. Everything we needed was found on Freecycle or Craigslist. We rebuilt our lives utilizing those two resources. I still have some of the things acquired on Freecycle or from Thrift Shops because their sentimental value far outweighs their real value.
Part of the structure we’re building contains a lean-to greenhouse that will go the full length of the structure on the south side. Our original plan was to frame it out and use greenhouse plastic, but we might actually be acquiring large windows for it! This was such an exciting find. If my plans fall through for picking up these windows, we’ll just use greenhouse plastic.
The reason for the lean-to greenhouse is to house our kitchen and bathroom. Because of my mold allergies, it never fails that a leak of some sort can develop when there’s indoor plumbing. Building a kitchen and bathroom outside the actual structure, yet still a part of it will help keep the structure free of all water damage unless that damage comes from a roof leak.
We have three heavy duty metal and glass doors we brought with us from West Virginia. Dom collected them from an old job site. Two will be used on the east and western sides of the greenhouse, and the third one will be located where the coffee roastery will be built on the eastern side of the structure.
We also have an old short water heater, which we’re thinking will be used to create a rocket stove mass water heater. Geoff Lawton has a video on how it works if you’d like to watch!
I have so many ideas for our home and land, and each time I have a new idea it feels like I’m opening a can of worms!
Geez! Where do I start when I have so many other ideas on the back burner? I tell ya, it makes my head spin sometimes. I think I need a vacation from my brain.
Yesterday Dom and I were discussing the sun porch in the back courtyard, and our ideas have morphed from that room being a mini greenhouse, to a breakfast room, and now finally into a baking room/food prep and storage area.
I think the final idea is what we are going to do, but when?
Everything takes time, that’s for damn sure. Our reasons for turning the sun porch into a prep room has to do with our plans for the back courtyard.
We’re planning on having many, many beautiful dinners outside in the back since the weather here is so gorgeous during the spring, summer and fall. We also have plans on building two bread ovens as well as an outdoor fireplace.
It makes sense for us to make another kitchen/prep room. I love baking bread, but with Simone’s allergies to what is in the bread, it also makes sense to utilize the sun porch as the area to proof my breads.
I guess sometimes I just can’t take a big enough breath when I think of the overwhelming tasks at hand. Who makes them overwhelming? Why…me of course!
The photo to the right is of the area where we will be building the outdoor fireplace.
Attached to the fireplace will be two bread ovens, a grilling station, and rocket stove for cooking.
Big plans right? Overwhelming when I think about it.
We have so many other plans that come first, that I need to put all our ideas in some sort of brain catalog and file them away.
I know we’ve only been here for 4 1/2 months, and we’ve gotten a lot accomplished in that time, but my lists of projects just keeps growing, and I know it will be at least a year or more before we can even scratch the surface of this project.
Dom would like to start this project in the spring, but I have other plans that are going to take us through the spring and into the summer months.
We still need to finish Simone’s room, do some finishing touches in the master bedroom, complete the living room, finish the kitchen and on and on!
Outside, we need to finish up our contouring of the land, work on our chicken coop, map out the north east quadrant, order our trees, shrubs and seeds, build our compost heaps, worm bins, top bar bee hives, and build our incubator.
Again, I say overwhelming! I’m just on a brain overload right now. I know it will get done, I just want it all right now.
I need to put together a schedule again of what we are planning to do, and the time frame I want it completed. Otherwise everything is seems so big, that I never know where to start.
I guess I’m just going through an impatient phase.
About Evangeline Grace
Thank you for visiting my blog. I've entered my 50's, and as I delve into the next exciting chapter of my life, I’m so pleased to be able to share it with all of you. I am a lifelong artist, writer, vocalist, crazy organic farmer, and own and operate Buffalo Mountain Coffee Roasting Company.
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