We're getting ready to build a house. We live on a double lot and we want to build next door and sell the house that we live in now. We've been taking green building classes, reading, doing homework. The project started a long time ago, but it's shifting gears now. We're pretty much at the put-up-or-shut-up stage. It's all so grand until you have to start signing contracts and writing checks. Especially when the stock market is tanking worse every day.
In general, we wanna trade way too much stuff and a fairly substantial amount of relatively lower quality space, for a subset of our favorite, meaningful stuff and a reduced amount of really high quality space. And oh yeah, not got into more debt doing it.
We love our neighborhood, and we think that the smart plan for our future, given what is going on globally and nationally, is to engineer a better, smaller space that uses (a lot) less energy and water, and to own less junk (bikes excluded, of course!), rely more heavily on walking, pedalling and mass transit, buy local, and get even better acquainted with our neighbors.
This all sounds really great and easy, but I am here to tell you that the stress involved with even getting started is way over the top. I sleep about 4 or 5 hours a night now because I wake up buzzing about the details. Major angst. But in a good way, I think. I hope.
I promise this is not gonna become a house-building-blog. Probably. Maybe. I'm desperatley trying to figure out a way to keep riding through all of this. The first thing we have to do is rip our old, krappy garage down. Which is fine except that it houses all my bikes and bike-stuff. And just in case you were wondering if this is really a bike blog, here's tonight's first step in carving out a temporary space in the basement for the bikes and gear. It's just a start, but stay tuned.
In general, we wanna trade way too much stuff and a fairly substantial amount of relatively lower quality space, for a subset of our favorite, meaningful stuff and a reduced amount of really high quality space. And oh yeah, not got into more debt doing it.
We love our neighborhood, and we think that the smart plan for our future, given what is going on globally and nationally, is to engineer a better, smaller space that uses (a lot) less energy and water, and to own less junk (bikes excluded, of course!), rely more heavily on walking, pedalling and mass transit, buy local, and get even better acquainted with our neighbors.
This all sounds really great and easy, but I am here to tell you that the stress involved with even getting started is way over the top. I sleep about 4 or 5 hours a night now because I wake up buzzing about the details. Major angst. But in a good way, I think. I hope.
I promise this is not gonna become a house-building-blog. Probably. Maybe. I'm desperatley trying to figure out a way to keep riding through all of this. The first thing we have to do is rip our old, krappy garage down. Which is fine except that it houses all my bikes and bike-stuff. And just in case you were wondering if this is really a bike blog, here's tonight's first step in carving out a temporary space in the basement for the bikes and gear. It's just a start, but stay tuned.
2 comments:
An appropriate post title in these uncertain times. I wish you the best.
oh man! Your old krappy garage was the scene of a plum fight royale so many years ago. Your krappy garage stored my best friend's Nishiki bike when we were in grade school and into highschool. I shot baskets for hours on end at that krappy garage. I can still smell the inside of that krappy garage when I think about it.
Ok. I'm done now.
C'est la vie.
Good luck with the project.
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