we are rained out in the field today it is a wash but that's not stopping us day 27 of 100
days building a homestead this time we're looking right under our nose for a house site could we
just Remodel and make this work for what we need Tada look what is here hey my man he informed me
that he doesn't go out on lessons day okay even though his lesson's not for an hour and a half so
PT's not till 10 bro a table chainsaw grinder this could be the difference between us getting to two
acres cleared in this hundred days to not Jonah got a job for you buddy can you assemble this
thing this is going to be the difference between chainsaw being Pure Pleasure and fun to Absolute
Misery we do two bacons hunting every time Grandma to the rescue again she's Our Town Runner
everybody needs a town Runner yesterday she got me this black tape today bolts and these GIS maps
these huge maps of our property one laminated so we can start scribbling designs and plans and all
that good stuff on it you figuring it out Lily is it raining no it was pouring it raining last night
yeah what
it's only raining a little bit which is lucky because it's pouring all night long
let's see if my black electrical tape fix on this GoPro chest Mount lasts a while we have a
big setback today with the rain as far as clearing land is concerned although part of this challenge
is to figure out our house site we can work on that if it's pouring rain outside we explore three
house sites in the property bad orientation one we'd have to acquire a piece of another property
to get the trees out of the way for the sunshine on our passive solar house there was another one
that was the most promising site number two to put on close examination once we clear the land
in front of it we're gonna have like a it's so close to the neighbor we're gonna have a clear
view of them I'll admit this is a big curveball for this hundred days of building a homestead
however I think this is really relatable and really important to talk about and show because
what you do for a house is going to be the most important thing in
a permaculture Homestead design because it's where you spend most of the time
a quick tour to make my next point a and a white Greenhouse turn around behind you we
have an ultimate Bulletproof brooder a butterfly can't get in there and bother the chicks expansion
stalls down here if we need them in a pinch a shed a pole barn walk-in freezer ice machine a workshop
I need to put that chainsaw sharpener somewhere on this bench a wood shed right outside our house
incidentally our living room's right there it's not a very long commute to work in the winter
speaking of winter a wood boiler go from the wood boiler out you've got a high tunnel around
the corner we've got a stall set up for deep bedding if we need it on Farm diesel fuel uh oh
the latest edition which we don't seem to have a drain in a fruit seller it's normally not going to
have be exposed to the elements contractors coming today we'll ask him about that generator and not
just any generator that's a Cummins Diesel run off the diesel Farm Fuel whole house generator and how
about a jamming backyard with chickens and raised beds oh and the new the waterproofing we just did
in the new deck there are three problems I can think off the top of my head with this place
one we're in the valley so we're in the frost pocket you don't want to do that you don't want
to be fighting the extra cold if you don't have to you want to be at least 50 60 feet off the
bottom floor two we are 36 ish 40 feet 50 feet from the public road and three my dad built this
that's wonderful it was his dream not necessarily ours was not necessarily what we would do and it
doesn't necessarily have that well we didn't build it together we came into it you got everything
yeah you got towels yeah what not okay basically what we're realizing is we have deep deep roots
here oh not just to this I mean the land 90 years in our family but to this house because we have
taken it and turn it into something could and and because we have Deep Roots here I say bring on the
storms there is some thanks to create privacy from the road there's nothing we can do about it being
located in the frost pocket however there's south facing this of course is not a passive solar house
but are there some things we could do could we do a remodel and make this something more of what
we've created and we could tap into some palette passive solar features and if you're putting up
privacy stuff like plants or fences that's also going to block the the cold air coming down in
the winter and settling in the valley and that will give us a bit of a micro climate here long
story short we're looking into remodeling this place wait wait rookie mistake we forgot the pan
many of you guys can relate to this because you're you're getting set up on a homestead and you have
to make a decision there's an old house there do you remodel it or do you build new I'm going to be
missing the milk sled today although Joel's salads didn't haunt me it's easier just to milk a cow
in the field even with no shelter just put on a raincoat are we gonna put that to the test [Music]
all right foreign [Music]
hey guys got the vacuum Seth's here asked him
about The Root Cellar it's flooded but it's fun we'll just Pump It Out
it's up a step right didn't we put up a block yeah I can't get out yeah it was holding water
really well and then even on the slab I put a one inch fall back away from the house okay okay so
any anything that seeps through the Earth yeah I have a chance to go back okay all right good
deal all right Becky you want to tell me your wild wild dream I don't know I don't know I mean it's
just I guess we got to figure out how Wild we can go yeah I guess we need to figure out how Wild of
a budget we have because we can do anything you can do anything yeah now is it worth it
it's just gonna cost anything can be done with enough money yeah I mean you could even bulldoze
the whole house and start a new one yeah I think we need to figure out foreign anything
all right Seth we're getting to be real close friends we're letting you in this Loft as we as
we get it organized what are you looking for I'm looking for [Music] um no turning back
so our goal is to determine what's load bearing correct correct so like this this wall over here
we put that up go okay because it used to all be this used to all be open and just put that
partition correct so I don't know if any of the walls inside of our home are load
bearing okay because I think that the barn was built and then living in it was an afterthought
if you don't have a uh like an attic space per se which don't you don't we don't have
um it looks it looks to me like you know if we go out and we can look at this in the Skylight
yeah we didn't know if this was load bearing so we put a beam in but we didn't know and
I'm pretty sure it's not so y'all y'all added we added that beam when we took because there
used to be a wall here and there and then this wall was here and there's just be a door and
I'm assuming with a barn there's no blueprints or no drawings even if you get an engineer it's not
going to be able to tell you anything because you can't see it so the only way you have to
rip things out for him to see what's going on yeah okay um so y'all put that beam in correct
why didn't we put a beam in because Randolph didn't know if it was load bearing or not okay
just one big open space yeah and that's what it was for a long time and I guess it was used
for hey yeah okay and then it became junk yeah actually Above This ceiling you could get up there
it was attic yeah I guess that would be like it yeah so this wall doesn't this wall doesn't even
go up okay this is about yeah you know 32 down right here yep you have your Rafters yeah okay
that are holding your that's right and they put up boards for insulation yep and so they've they
framed it down and put gave you a ceiling yeah because we were going to remodel this yes this is
so I would say you see this bottom cord right here this it's not trust per se it's stick framed right
um this is not load bearing this is sitting on that the top of that so that that new ceiling
um is what I've suspected by looking at the skyline okay
the roof's not load bearing with the with the ceiling underneath it doesn't have a lot of load
but it's carrying on the on that wall sounds like you're wanting to be able to have the flexibility
to open everything up yeah I want to completely change the floor plan okay um this is my wild
idea but we don't have to do that like if it's not cost prohibited I'm not like stuck on that we can
still just move the kitchen over here and we'll just make shift that around to work for us yeah
and sometimes you know when you take out a wall if you're fine you can always put a beam there right
okay well I guess we can talk about what we want so this is the South Side so living room would
stay here I wanna I don't want this kitchen I want to like rip out pretty much from everything
exterior wall exterior wall yeah on this side also I had the idea that I would like to possibly
where we would I don't know what the possibilities of putting in like
skylights in there like several skylights yeah we need to take advantage of the sun yeah but
other thing was is I would like to open up these three Windows to be like one big opening like a
walk through so basically turning that into expandable living space right so like right
here nothing else works like put out putting like an entryway kind of like right here and
then you know the wall like maybe a closet here and then that would be opening up that room
for bathrooms in a bedroom okay our bedrooms and bathrooms and like where the cold room is it has
to stay that way so what we're getting from you today is can we take down the wall and then also
can we also it puts it in my Noggin too because the kids don't really like the way their bedrooms
are and the bedrooms are kind of funky sizes they're not really like good sizes they want
their own bathroom site space with the plumbing already in place there you don't have to really
move depending on the layout you don't have to move a whole lot maybe you go to Austin yeah and
give him two different plans and then and then we can look at we can present it to you and you
can kind of be like give us a ballpark a ballpark estimate because then we have to go to the bank
to do alone and see we'll see where the that's where that all breaks down exactly
exactly equity line you can save money you know by leaving the hardwood and just if you can box
you can match it add to it and anywhere where you delete walls you could go through and just
smooth it back okay well yeah I mean I would be willing to keep it if I remember correctly this
is office this is off the land hardwood floor is expensive yeah what kind of floor is it oh sure
it's red oak when you're demoing it's better to demo everything that's gone you know and I mean
I would like to probably update our bathroom it's been 10 years and I would like to maybe redo some
configuration but like we have this space in in here that we use as a sauna but I would like to
actually have a built-in sauna I don't know how that would I mean that's Austin he's gonna have to
come up with all of that I mean like there's some that I would like to do in here but it's not like
so really I mean I would like for this to be like opened up like completely open and maybe
even farther down but I know I realized like with a kitchen I'm gonna have to have like a
wall for a fridge and like stuff like that like I'm gonna have to have some wallage so
I don't know I mean Austin if that's gonna be Austin's well that's gonna be on Austin now I'm
getting excited about this possibility you guys getting excited about the possibility see a huge
remount how about Remodeling and uh making it as passive solar friendly as possible Rebecca's
idea for a deck out there means more windows on this side it means Living Spaces almost so
far that's good so keep hitting it this way putting the bedrooms behind us on the North
side more skylights opening this up I gotta like that we settled in on this hybrid sort of thing
where we're using up wearing it out making it doing doing it though so to speak something we
already have but but then we're also building it I mean in this case remodeling but then it
just feels more and more our own obviously uh less expensive than a new house certainly easier to get
the money for it because we can do an equity line on this this a lot easier than we could
get a new construction line and I'd rather not go into that much debt anyway all right
dirty car racks and the cool thing about working with Seth a local car guys he's living in the
house that I grew up in three miles from here you bought it from my dad for you uh
he's close and he's really cool really flexible not all contractors will let you work with them
they'll let us work with them and we're gonna build this house and that'll save us some money
well that's the plan for now I've got to wrap up this Vlog it's Friday Dan likes to get the
Vlog early on Friday so he can take a weekend so let's get this Vlog to him do come tomorrow
because you know what do show up tomorrow even if it's raining you know we're gonna
have content uh getting this thing started we're gonna document that for you we're
going to sow the land tomorrow for a house warming party happy day see you guys then