Knitting Project- Mr. Fox

 

 

I’m so happy with how this turned out. I used a pattern from Tiny Owl Knits and with the help of some youtube and google searching (I don’t really know how to read a knitting pattern!), found my way to the end. I made it for Mikah as a cold weather accessory. My favorite part is the shape of the head. I wish there was a kitty one too!

 

Leave me a comment below- what’s your current crafting project?

 

 

 

5 Lessons Learned Building Our Dream Home (and a photo timeline)

Well that went by fast! It’s already February and there are so many things that have happened. But first, a recap on our housing situation and some lessons learned. You can also just scroll through the pictures to see a recap of what our house started out as and what it has become.

The original house site

The original house site- late Fall 2012

Since the last update, we sold our house, paid off our debt, got a new house, and then decided to build our dream house on the same lot as the new house. Why? That way we can rent out the original house (passive income, yes!) without having to buy a 3rd house or rent.

This 2nd home is a LOT smaller than our old property- which is exactly what we wanted. It’s also more central to inner Portland and other modern conveniences, which is a double plus for us urbanites.

But all that aside, i’ll get on to the 5 things I learned in process of building this dream home of ours…

 

Original structure demolished and replaced with a hole for the basement

Original structure demolished and replaced with a hole for the basement

1. It’s about relationships

Selling and buying a 2nd home went so smoothly. Could we have done it on our own? Sure, and as DIY’ers, we had an inclination to do so. But in retrospect, we probably would have been hyperventilating and pulling our hairs out. I’m glad we didnt.

It was indispensable having a seasoned real estate agent who could offer experience and correctly fill out the piles of paperwork needed. It was also nice to have someone to complain to, get advice from, and depend on to get what we needed accomplished while we lived life (see lesson #4). And with awesome cookies and treats on the side, how much more could you want?

Concrete poured for basement and foundation

Concrete poured for basement and foundation

2. When persistence fails, get creative.

When we first drafted our dream home, we were told no on a lot of structural components- like the bedroom loft we wanted and the basement. Since it is technically an “ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit)” and not a standard “Residential” Home (which has higher permit fees), there were a lot more hoops to jump through to get it built.

However if you peek in today, you’ll see access to a basement and a lofted bedroom. How did we do it? We worked with an architect (lesson #1!) who didn’t mind driving to downtown every other day to talk with the city. With Ben, they found some creative loopholes to get to our goals.

So technically the office, bedroom, and basement are NOT considered part of the ADU/house square footage, but as “storage.” What we found out is that it only matters how the house was designed and constructed to be built- but it’s end use is ultimately out of their control. So while it was planned to be built with a wall here, you never know when that wall will get knocked down.. *cough cough*.

Once that was all figured out and approved by the city, it felt like we had defeated one of the top Bosses in a video game… So rewarding.

Now the frames go up!

Now the frames go up!

3. Pick your battle- time or money.

Over the years i’ve found both to be of equivalent value, but not always available in the same amounts. Usually we found ourselves with more time than money, and it’s made us able to be quite frugal. However having a business has shown us that time IS money, and that spending a little extra now means saving both in the long run.

This was a tricky battle when building a home. While Ben could do a lot of work himself, it meant going over our timeline. That also meant I had to temporarily close Kitty Baby Love due to lack of space and resources (hopefully we’ll reopen for orders in mid-March), and the simple living situation in our temporary home started becoming stressful when we could see no end to the construction.

We finally decided to get some hired help who could bang out work for a decent price. Ben was very hesitant about working with a team at first, but it ultimately freed up his time to get the dirty work out of the way (drywalling) so he could start working on things that were fun to him (building furniture). Ultimately I feel like we traded a few weeks of work for a few days. Worth the money? You betcha.

Almost completed frames for the house!

Almost completed frames for the house- taken after a rainy winter morning

 4. Always keep your priorities in check.

It can be so easy to get wrapped up in the world of housing. Multi-billion dollar industries are based in the housing market- but like any other activity, it can be a distraction from true living. What matters most is our family unit. It was important for us to eat together every meal- even if just for 15 minutes- to keep connected with each other. It was also important to take day long breaks to go to the park and have a full ‘normal’ day together every now and then too.
Because if our family isn’t whole, what’s the point in building a house for us all to live in? Always keep your priorities in check- otherwise you could lose out on what really matters.

 

Finishing the exteriors of the house, including a new driveway

Finishing the exteriors of the house, including a new driveway- plants soon to come!

5. Expect Delays.

I consider this like a life meditation. I planned for delays but then delays happened that went past those delays. Right now we are anticipating a finished house within the next month, but as life goes- we will expect delays. We’ll still work as hard as we can to keep on schedule, but the point is not to get so fixated on the date that life falls to pieces when it doesn’t happen by then.

Getting the interiors worked on

Getting the interiors worked on- yes, we have skylights and 17′ ceilings!

In a nutshell

It’s been a journey getting the house finished with a lot of ups and downs. I feel like we lived a year of our lives in the past few months doing all of this. I also feel like this was a huge rite of passage for our family. We started in 2009 without any work, scraping together $30 to get art supplies to make some crayons. Now we’re building our dream house. It’s truly amazing what can happen in just 3 years with a little motivation. Needless to say, I’m excited for 2013!

The exteriors of the house will be worked on throughout Spring as we get ready for planting. Unfortunately Portland’s rainy winter weather keeps us from painting the outside, so it’ll have to remain baby puke yellow for a few more months (weep).

The good news is that the interiors are being worked on steadily. We already have flooring in, walls painted, and just finished a late night shopping spree at Sears Outlet and Home Depot the last of our appliances. Pictures will come soon!

 

Healthy Banana Nutella Muffins

During the chaos of moving homes, I discovered we had … dun dun dun, brown bananas.

I did a quick google for a recipe and ended using this one from Skinny Moms Kitchen. Because how could you go wrong with a blog name like that?

I ended up subbing the following ingredients out:

  • brown sugar for some fancy shamncy organic coconut palm sugar
  • ground flax seed for unground flax seed- tasted kinda like almonds
  • nutella for trader joes cocoa almond (which is SO GOOD!)

 

I also made some MINI cupcake varieties (3 minis to 1 regular sized cupcake) and those were an awesome treat for Mikah’s little belly.. and relatively healthy too! I give it 5 stars.

Ingredients

DRY

  • 1 ½ cup whole wheat flour
  • ¼ cup ground flaxseed meal
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ½ cup dark brown sugar, unpacked

WET

  • 3 ripe bananas (about 1 1/2 cups mashed)
  • 1/3 cup plain greek yogurt
  • 2 eggs
  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

SPECIAL GUEST

  • ¼ cup nutella, softened

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400F

2. Combine dry ingredients

3. Combine wet ingredients

4. Slowly mix dry mix into the wet mix. Do not overmix.

5. Pop into trays. Swirl small spoonfuls of nutella on top. Optional- swirl it into your mix with a knife.

6. Bake for 10-14 min, let cool and enjoy!

 

Enjoy!

Why we are selling our house

Coming back to Oregon from a West Coast Road Trip with his new foxy friend from Hazel Village

If I were to file our past 4 months into a drawer, i’d put it under “Making Crazy Ideas Happen”. The first road trip we took (from my last post) was an eye opener into how little stuff we needed to be happy. It was awesome.

When we were away, we had more time to spend with each other, and less obligations to tidy up and clean.

As a spark from discovering that, we decided to embark on a quest to consciously lower our lifestyle footprint.

Taking a pitstop on his bike in California- the land of yellow grass and shrubby trees

Silly photobooth pics from Renegade Craft Fair in SF. Participating as vendors was one of the reasons for our trip.

Part of lowering our obligations to society and living our own lifestyle include lowering debt and living in a smaller, more efficient home. That way we can spend more time and money on the things we love, instead of cleaning up after it.

We’ve decided to do this by 1) selling our ‘old’ home, 2) moving into a temporary house, and 3) building a new efficient “permanent” house under 750sq.ft.

Despite what may seem like a crazy thing to plan out, it’s all gone surprisingly smooth so far (knock on wood!), and was really easy to set into motion. The biggest hanger will depend on the sale of our house. We are going to use the profits to pay off our debt and build our smaller house.

Daddy fishing in Hawaii while Mikah and I crab fish by the rocky harbor shore

Our current deadlines include selling the house later this month, and building our new house by Christmas.

I am going to use this blog as a way to document our process. It’ll help me focus, plus i’m so excited to share everything we’re doing! To help kick off, I’m going to host a giveaway and post some tutorials within the next week.

Keep in touch by subscribing to our RSS or mew*s letter.

To smooth sailings,

p.s. Our summer trips included a west coast road trip along the 101 coastal route, a family emergency trip to Hawaii (my hometown) while my mother had surgery, and another west coast road trip to SF + LA to participate in the Renegade Craft Fair.

p.p.s. I am an official Instagram convert, as you can see from all the photos above. You can find more of our pics @kittybabylove or online at instagrid.me/kittybabylove

 

Goodbye House, Goodbye Portland

After some major hustling, we were finally able to leave Portland.  On their own, things around the house and business just started speeding up exponentially with sales & emails. More than anything, I did NOT want to push back our leaving date, so last night I just decided to stay up til 5am to make sure all our emails and orders were taken care of.

Kitty Baby Love Shipping USPS Priority Mail

USPS home pickup is my friend

 

This is like shipping 3/4 of what I thought we’d sell our month in San Diego in 1 night! The only thing left is a custom order of boo boo kitties (sorry Jane!), which I will finish during the car ride and drop it at a post office before leaving Oregon.

In the morning, the whole family pitched in and also did a blitz spring cleaning of the house. We needed the house cleared for temporary tenants who will also be caring for the kitties while we’re out. We walked out the door 1.5 later than scheduled, but with a HUGE sigh of relief.

Adventure mode: ON

Where The Wild Things Are Globe by ImagineNations

Where The Wild Things Are Globe by ImagineNations

 

It looks like the original road trip plan won’t work out for Oregon stops, but we don’t mind. It’s just nice to finally get moving. Mikah started snoozing immediately after we left (he helped clean the house too, very tiring!), so it’s been a peaceful ride so far.

Good bye house, good bye kitties… We’ll see you again soon!

As seen in... Real Simple, Daily Candy, IcanHazCheezBurger, People magazine, Celebrity Babies, Etsy, and Travel + Leisure