View this post on Instagram So, we've been hinting at this a bit in the past months with mentions of missing family, friends, a home community, and tangible things like a garage or hobbies. In fact, a plan's been underway since my 24 hour flight back to CA from Chicago (the same day our trailer door opened on the freeway!) in mid October when I actually went to attend inspections on an almost 100 yr old house in our homebase town of Petaluma. While visiting for the holidays in December, we met with an architect and a contractor who we feel we can work with remotely to undertake a gut and remodel (mold in the walls) of this 800 sq ft house in a great neighborhood of small houses, within a block and a half of our favorite park and walking/biking distance to downtown Petaluma over the course of the next 7 months (including design, permits, demo, etc). After our experiences living in the Airstream, we feel like 800 sq ft - two bedrooms with loft areas, a Jack 'n' Jill bathroom plus a new 3/4 bath for guests/high traffic times, an open common room with vaulted ceilings and skylights for living/dining/kitchen, a small garage and good sized backyard - will suit our family of 4 perfectly for the next 5-7 years at least. This pic is my SketchUp design, mostly just opening up and increasing efficiency in the existing floorplan, that we delivered to the architect for more precise, permit-ready drawings. And yes, the trailer will fit in the long narrow driveway! In November 2016, after more than 2 years of living in the Airstream and traveling from CA to Alaska to Massachusetts to Texas to Florida to Nova Scotia, we'll transition to using this new house as a base of operations for something like a 50/50 split of home life and future travel, some in the Airstream and some farther abroad. I know a lot of you have similar plans of small houses, homesteads, mountain retreats, etc or are even just in the planning stages of hitting the road that we love hearing about. We've come to the realization that once you've had a taste of freedom, there's no one solution that will make you happy forever, and what you really learn is flexibility and keeping an open mind to possibilities! #smallhouse #bigplans A post shared by David Zimmerman (@advodna_dave) on Mar 18, 2016 at 11:50am PDT
So, we've been hinting at this a bit in the past months with mentions of missing family, friends, a home community, and tangible things like a garage or hobbies. In fact, a plan's been underway since my 24 hour flight back to CA from Chicago (the same day our trailer door opened on the freeway!) in mid October when I actually went to attend inspections on an almost 100 yr old house in our homebase town of Petaluma. While visiting for the holidays in December, we met with an architect and a contractor who we feel we can work with remotely to undertake a gut and remodel (mold in the walls) of this 800 sq ft house in a great neighborhood of small houses, within a block and a half of our favorite park and walking/biking distance to downtown Petaluma over the course of the next 7 months (including design, permits, demo, etc). After our experiences living in the Airstream, we feel like 800 sq ft - two bedrooms with loft areas, a Jack 'n' Jill bathroom plus a new 3/4 bath for guests/high traffic times, an open common room with vaulted ceilings and skylights for living/dining/kitchen, a small garage and good sized backyard - will suit our family of 4 perfectly for the next 5-7 years at least. This pic is my SketchUp design, mostly just opening up and increasing efficiency in the existing floorplan, that we delivered to the architect for more precise, permit-ready drawings. And yes, the trailer will fit in the long narrow driveway! In November 2016, after more than 2 years of living in the Airstream and traveling from CA to Alaska to Massachusetts to Texas to Florida to Nova Scotia, we'll transition to using this new house as a base of operations for something like a 50/50 split of home life and future travel, some in the Airstream and some farther abroad. I know a lot of you have similar plans of small houses, homesteads, mountain retreats, etc or are even just in the planning stages of hitting the road that we love hearing about. We've come to the realization that once you've had a taste of freedom, there's no one solution that will make you happy forever, and what you really learn is flexibility and keeping an open mind to possibilities! #smallhouse #bigplans
A post shared by David Zimmerman (@advodna_dave) on Mar 18, 2016 at 11:50am PDT