Home and Hearth
(Links to the accessory home and hearth pages located at the bottom of this page)
First, a little history........
In 1998, I decided that after the lease in the mobile home park we were in was up, I was going to take my home and "snail" out onto a piece of ground out of the city. I already owned a BIG used singlewide and had remodeled it with the idea that when the right place came along, that was IT. It would be plunked down, maybe an addition built on it and that was that for good. I was fortunate to find a nice piece of ground in the Tonopah area and bought it from people who have since become very close friends.
Of course, there is always a fly in the ointment of the best laid plans..........
In the time since I had bought the home, parked it and waited out my lease while remodeling it to my taste (3 years), the County decided to change the rules about what you can and can't have on your own piece of ground. No longer could you buy an acre or two and put your singlewide (no matter HOW nice) on it. Now it had to be a doublewide. Not just a doublewide, but a HUD-certified doublewide!
Okay............I'll play....after all, having my own place was important. I wanted some space, clean air, clean water, a garden, and a few sheep and chickens.
So I went to the same place I got my singlewide home and did indeed find a doublewide.....HUD certified too.....waved $3,000 cash under their noses.......
and got it.
Hey....don't laugh. (too hard anyway). I got what they said I had to have. It met all the specs.
In the meantime, I had to go to court and fight for the right to move onto the property because one fellow at the end of the road had decreed that it was his private driveway and filed a grievance. Three months later after all the fighting was overwith, I brought the singlewide and then the doublewide out. Then the fun of getting all the permits finished and closed out began.....I had to wait for over a year for electric to be run out to us. Winters were a snap; propane for hot water (which we brought from the well by bucket till the piping was run) and cooking, kerosene for heat and a couple dozen oil lamps for light. Treadle sewing machine for sewing, battery-operated radio and Yule lights. It did get old having to eat beans, dried meat and canned stuff for lack of a refrigerator. Summers were different. It was miserable and the cost of the dream was paid with sweat and blood. Not to mention it was two of the hottest summers on record. It ended, finally, a year later with all the stamps and endorsements one needs to live legally on one's own ground, and the electricity turned on.
It has been a long, hard, but ultimately worthwhile labor of love.
This page is undergoing continuous update. There will be more content very soon.....I have to scan in a WHOLE bunch of pictures!
Plain and Simple HomeMade Luxury Soap
Hand/Needlework, Sewing and Jewelry
Spinning Wheels, Looms and Such