MILESTONE - SLEEPING IN THE BIG HOUSE, OH MY!

Milestone – Sleeping

Aunt Eunice made the comment that what we are doing here is like early American living. From what I understand of early American history, farmers would build their barn first then the house. They would live in the barn until the house was completed. And that's just what we have done too. The shed has a loft for sleeping and storage. We have been living out of the suitcases since last year and sleeping on air mattresses on the floor of the loft in the shed.  We have been preparing our meals and eating in the shed.   Here are pictures of the loft in the shed. 

We don't have closets for our clothes so they are hung from the roof.

We have now completed enough of the loft in the house so we could start sleeping in the house.  The south side is ours.....

....and the north side is JJ;s.  Since we haven't finished putting screens on all the windows and soffitts (sp?) we still have to use mosquito nets.

This last week we had the satellite (not quite early American) moved from the shed to the house. We moved the TV, beds and some clothing from the shed to the house. I moved 29 and ½ bags of rice (about 100 lbs each), 4 bags of coconut, building supplies and tools from the house to the shed.

Flor bought a rocking chair and a recliner to use in the house. They are better than the plastic chairs we have been using in the shed.

Flor has started painting the interior.

We still have a long way to go. Our next couple of projects will be shelves along the front of the loft to function as railing, stair railings,  and beds, oh yes beds, we are tired of sleeping on the floor.

We will have two kitchens in the house. A “dirty kitchen” where wood and charcoal is used to cook with. Our dirty kitchen is basically complete. It is a room at the back of the house. We still need to make some storage cabinets in the room. If we ever get a washing machine, it will go in the dirty kitchen. We will have a regular kitchen in the main room of the house. Cement counter similar to the dirty kitchen and shed but it will be tiled with cabinets under and above the counter. We will also get an oven for the regular kitchen.  This is what our dirty kitchen looks like:

 Michael had been using it for a while now to cook "binlud" (kind of like the malt-o-meal in the States) to feed to the pig.  He prepares a big pot of it every now and then.

Because privacy is an exception here, we have started putting a fence around the house with split bamboo. We will plant flowering vines under the fence to make the fence a privacy fence. We will have several gates, the gate that gets used the most at the back of the shed was made from left over amakan. Gates that will not be used often will be barbed wire (like a small pasture gate).

We have fenced the east side of the shed as well.  This is the side facing the open field with plenty of breeze and shaded by coconut and guyabano trees.  Someday, I will transform this into a cottage garden hideaway with flowering vines for privacy and a hammock for lazy afternoons. 

 The path in this picture leads to the main house from the driveway would be the least used one (I think).  We will use barbed wire for gate on this one for now.

 This path, also from the driveway is the most used one.  It goes directly to the shed.  The gate that Micheal built is from leftover amakan.

I am almost done painting the main house.  Next week, we will be traveling back to Ormoc to shop for tiles.  This, we hope should be our last big expense and our house should be halfway done.

Until our next blog.  Thank you all for following this journey.  We love y'all and God bless.

Another Milestone - We can finally burn the Outhouse

When we moved from Abett's place in Pondol to our shed in Talisay, we did not have a bathroom.  However there was an old outhouse in the property that we decided to  keep using until we finished building our house.  We put a tarp around one side, where the septic tank was, to bathe in.  A couple of weeks ago we were finally able to bathe in the new bathroom but we kept using the outhouse until the septic tank behind our house was finally done.

Here's the picture of the outhouse minus the bathing area behind it.  Michael tore it down just as soon as he finished making a temporary dry well for us to be able to bathe in the "real" bathroom.

About 2 months ago the bathroom in the house was tiled and we started bathing in the house. Then last week, the septic was completed, and waste lines attached. We still do not have running water in the bathroom, but we have usable facilities and we are using them. We carry the water in to the bathroom in buckets.

Michael loves that he has finally the sink and mirrored medicine cabinet to comfortably shave each morning.

Here is Judson who enjoyed tearing down the outhouse with his hammer.  When it got dark, we burned what was left down.

We will cover the toilet hole of the old outhouse, but will continue to use the septic under outhouse for kitchen waste water.  We plan to build an outdoor oven/grilling area where the outhouse used to stand so I asked Michael to leave the remaining blocks instead of tearing it down.

Slowly we are getting things done and slowly we are making progress.  Life should be that way,  just taking it one day at a time and enjoying every little thing that comes our way.

Thank you all for following and we pray you enjoy life to the fullest as we do here.  Love y'all.