Introduction

This is a blog about a tiny house in the California desert, and my efforts to turn into a home.

This is what I'm starting with:

There are a lot of things about my tiny house experience that set it apart from most of the ones I've read about on the internet, or seen on television.

There's the fact that it doesn't represent anything for me other than a place I can actually afford to live. I don't have, and never have had any issues with the average size of the American home or its carbon footprint. I'm not looking to strip myself of everything but the necessities to live a richer, fuller, more meaningful life. I'm not looking for the freedom or excitement of being able to take my home with me whenever I wanted to move. I don't, and never really have felt any pressing need to be ready to fend for myself, off the grid, when the world as we know it comes crashing to an end whether it be through global climate change, social unrest, war, pestilence, famine, disease, comet strike, or zombie apocalypse.

There's the fact that I'm broke. Dead broke. No money in the bank, no regular source of outcome, and both for reasons that also ended up completely tanking my credit score. I can't just go out and buy whatever I need. Even the cost of lumber, paint, and switch plate covers are beyond my means most of the time. So a lot of my tiny house experience is inherently going to involve making do with what I can scavenge, and reuse or repurpose to meet whatever needs I have. A lot of it is also going to involve simply making do without a lot of stuff most people would find essential like hot water and a stove.

And then there's my tiny house itself.

I hesitate to even call it that because, really, it's just a trailer. It is, to be exact, ian 8'x35' Nashua, probably manufactured during the late fifties or early sixties, that's been sitting on jacks in a mobile home park on the very southern edge of the town of Mojave, California, for who knows how long.

I got it free in exchange for signing a 100+ page legal agreement that requires me to keep it where it is for the next five years, pay $295 per month (plus water/garbage) for that privilege, and do the work necessary on the exterior to bring it up to park standards.

I got this deal because it had been abandoned by its previous owner in May 2013 smack dab in the middle of a major renovation. It had a new roof. New sheetrock covered most of its walls. It had been given a new sub floor. Wires had been run to a bunch of outlets/switches/fixtures. It had new water heater awaiting installation. A couple of windows were missing their glass. The front door had definitely seen better days. The back door was gone altogether. The siding was largely original, and, other than the hole he'd obviously cut to get the water heater into the bathroom, also largely intact. One side had been partially painted with the clear intent of taking it back to its original turquoise, cream, and white color scheme..

Like anything that sits empty long enough, it had obviously been scavenged for whatever it held of any value or interest that was both easy to carry and not screwed down. The 50 amp shoreline that connected its breaker box to the electrical post had been cut, and was gone. The drain lines he'd dry fit had been taken apart, and most of its joints carried away. The intake lines, if he'd even gotten around to actually installing them, were missing entirely. Inside, there was nothing but a sink, toilet, the glass doors/walls he hadn't gotten around to installing on the corner shower unit, a couple of pieces of 1x3, a dried up box of joint compound, and a whole lot of dust.

I took title on July 1, 2014. A month later, having done absolutely nothing to it at all, I packed up all my stuff and moved in.

A day later I started turning it into a place where I could actually live.

This is my tiny house experience. It takes place in an abandoned, half-finished vintage trailer on the edge of the Mojave desert with no high falutin' ideals being embodied, no money, and no one other than myself to make it work.

I'm documenting it this way - via a blog - not to gain any notice or notoriety, or even to solicit support/funds for the work I'm doing - but simply as a means of reassuring my family and friends that I'm okay - and to share with them the feelings/thoughts I have, the work I'm doing, the challenges I encounter, the successes as well as failures I experience, and the life I'm making for myself here so very far away from all of them.

For a while, I'll be uploading in batches every other week or so for reasons that will become clear around day four of my experience.

Questions, comments, suggestions, feedback, encouragement, support, and - yes - even donations are always welcome.

With that in mind, I upload my first six posts ...