Christy Mahoney

I just can't resist asking all you knowledgeable unschoolers for any
advice regarding buying property and/or building a log home.

My dh is in the Air Force, and we have lived on military bases for
all the years we've been married (almost 15 years now). It's all so
overwhelming to us since we've never owned a house of any sort.
Right now we are concentrating on paying off our debts, but we've
been dreaming about it a lot recently. We really want to have a
little piece of land and a house with no other houses in sight and
no streetlights.

I'm just wondering if anyone knows of any great resources for
finding land or any great advice about building a home. Unschoolers
are so wonderfully varied in their interests that I hoped someone
here might be willing to share. I know this is off topic, but I
think that we'll be better unschoolers without neighbors close
enough to hear throughout the day :) Off-list responses would be
welcome.

Thanks!
Christy
(I'm in Washington State, BTW)

Deb

FWIW I'd suggest you find an undeveloped/underdeveloped area that is
within a 30 minute drive of whatever you love to do - whether it's a
great library or a multiplex for movies or an excellent dojo or a
neat park with nature trails and playscapes or some awesome
whitewater kayaking or whatever. Being away from folks is cool but
having to plan half a day just to grocery shop when the nearest
grocery is an hour each way would end up aggravating me (but then
that could just be me). And, too, consider all the personalities in
the family - got any extraverts who will go nuts without getting
involved with bunches of people? Odds are you've got a mix of stay
home folks and let's go out folks. If you're relatively close
to 'people places', then you can reach some comfortable to all
compromises. If you have to drive a goodly distance to find people,
then the let's go folks may feel limited in who they can see OR the
stay home folks might get stressed over having to be away so long
(since it would take a while to get to people and get home from
people). Having people close enough that older kids can hop on a
bike and go visit or even hike on over to a neighbor's house can be
a good thing, depending on the folks involved.

That's why we picked a somewhat rural area (cow farm down the road
about a mile, small sheep-and-goats farm down the street half mile
maybe, lots of trees and space, small town feel) that is within a 20
minute drive of the movie theater, a drive in theater, a major
university (great inexpensive live theater and music), half a dozen
grocery stores to pick from, a major mall, and so on. We can be out
and about with people or stay home and not see anyone (the
neighbor's driveway abuts our property so we see them on occasion to
wave to but that's about it).

Just some considerations FWIW

--Deb

Michelle/Melbrigða

On 8/7/06, Christy Mahoney <unschooling1@...> wrote:
>
>
> Thanks!
> Christy
> (I'm in Washington State, BTW)


Christy, our long-term goal is to move back to Oregon. Yamhill County
specifically. The reason for Yamhill County is that there is still lots of
undeveloped areas, farm land, pasture land, vinyard land (although a lot of
that has been bought up), and mountain areas. We can get the seclusion we
want and live in a natural surrounding (our dream also includes no grass to
mow) yet we would still be a half an hour or so from Portland with all it's
conveniences and there are two towns with the "major needs" (grocery, hfs,
pharmacies, parks, swimming pools, etc.) that would be within an easy
drive. We love mountains and I have to be to where I can get to a large
body of water within an hour (I can't live landlocked for some reason). We
have, though, talked of living in the southern part of the light rail
service area for Portland, such as Forest Grove or Hillsboro and going to
one car and using public transportation for our other "car."

You might want to make an appointment with a company that builds log homes.
Some of them offer assistance in locating land and such. If you are
considering homesteading, there are quite a few lists and websites that
support people through the journey of homesteading (finding land, building
your own home, become self-sufficient with power, food, etc.) As neat as I
think homesteading is, I just can't see myself doing it. There are a lot of
things that I don't want to do all the time. I enjoy my little garden that
we have gotten lots of veggies from this summer, but I don't want to have to
rely on my garden. KWIM?





--
Michelle
aka Melbrigða
http://eventualknitting.blogspot.com
[email protected] - Homeschooling for the Medieval Recreationist


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: unschooling1@...

I'm just wondering if anyone knows of any great resources for
finding land or any great advice about building a home. Unschoolers
are so wonderfully varied in their interests that I hoped someone
here might be willing to share. I know this is off topic, but I
think that we'll be better unschoolers without neighbors close
enough to hear throughout the day :) Off-list responses would be
welcome.

-=-=-

My husband was Air Force too. Now he's in the Air National Guard in SC.
I really liked the moving part of the AF. Saw lots of neat things.
Lived in interesting places. Have friends in all corners, etc.

We're also looking for land and to build. We're going round though.
Deltec. www.Deltechomes.com

They go up quickly and give lots of useable space per square foot. Nice
feel inside. Warm. Different.

Land? Go and look and look and look and look and look... <g>


~Kelly

Kelly Lovejoy
Conference Coordinator
Live and Learn Unschooling Conference
http://liveandlearnconference.org

"It's a small world...but a BIG life!" ~Aaron McGlohn. aged 6



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Christy Mahoney

Thanks for the suggestions. Deb, you are right about differing
personalities, but it will probably be several years before we can
really start the process so who knows what everyone will be doing
then! Dh will be in the Air Force for at least 6 more years, and I'm
sure we'll be moving again, but maybe we could find some land before
we move away from Washington and be paying on it for a few years
before we can actually move back and live there.

Kelly, I was just looking at a log home magazine today and saw an ad
for Deltec homes - the photo looks really cool!

And last night I had a dream that we had a great log home in the woods
and some unschoolers came and stayed in it while we were gone
somewhere. It was a fun dream!

-Christy

Deb

--- In [email protected], "Christy Mahoney"
<unschooling1@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the suggestions. Deb, you are right about differing
> personalities, but it will probably be several years before we can
> really start the process so who knows what everyone will be doing
> then! Dh will be in the Air Force for at least 6 more years, and
>I'm
> sure we'll be moving again, but maybe we could find some land before
> we move away from Washington and be paying on it for a few years
> before we can actually move back and live there.
>
Then, if I wanted to pick a place now for later, I'd go ahead and pick
something with a good variety within about a half hour radius yet in
an area that has lots of trees, space, etc. Also, when you go looking,
stop in at town hall and check on what their planning and zoning plan
is. Most towns have a 5 or 10 yr plan of what they intend as far as
infrastructure , attracting business, etc as well as things like how
much property is required for a building lot - that is important since
if there can be little 1/2 acre lots, you're more likely to get dense
development than if, like the town we live in, building lots are
required to be 2 acres minimum. If you buy for space, you don't want
to find some lovely nook in the woods and come back after a couple
years to find 200 houses and 2 Starbucks. Other stuff, if you're
looking out in 'unimproved' areas to look for are things like when/if
they plan to run sewer lines (cause you'll be paying for that at some
point) - we specifically didn't look at certain areas because we would
have been buying right as the sewer lien would have been added and we
couldn't handle getting hit with that right then.

If you've got 6 more years or so, take your time. Find a spot you keep
going back to and loving every time you see it.

--Deb

Danielle Conger

Michelle/Melbrigða wrote:

> You might want to make an appointment with a company that builds log
> homes.
> Some of them offer assistance in locating land and such. If you are
> considering homesteading, there are quite a few lists and websites that
> support people through the journey of homesteading (finding land, building
> your own home, become self-sufficient with power, food, etc.)
>


You might try the CrunchyUnschoolers yahoo list if you're not on it
already. One of the listowners built their own strawbale home in NM, and
it's gorgeous! And there are lots of variations of "crunchy" on the
list ranging from homesteading, to urban homesteading, to suburban
living. It might be a helpful resource as you consider where/ how to build.

--
~~Danielle
Emily (9), Julia (7), Sam (6)
http://www.organiclearning.blogspot.com

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