Cleaning up the past

Well, the last thing we do when we finish something is clean up.  In the case of my wife and I we have over twenty five years and two children's worth of stuff to decide what to do with.  My idea of a small manageable cabin with both attached and separate guest quarters may not be my bride's shared vision of our future.  She told me recently that she wanted to keep the formal dining furniture and some of our other antiques.  Perhaps the simple cabin may not be the best answer after all.

Stuff happens, stuff collects, stuff must go!  This is the conundrum facing us now, what to keep, what to pass along to the kids, what to sell and what to toss.  My idea was a small two story less than 1200 square foot cabin consisting of mostly kitchen.  Two rooms for sleeping in the main cabin, one an attached externally and internally accessible guest's sleeping quarters and an additional, separate tiny detached bedroom/ bathroom for guests.  I also planned to have one large common room for sitting and dining (informal dining).  Bedrooms on second floor, kitchen and sitting rooms on first floor.  Something I had not wanted to do was haul all the furniture to the mountains.

Composting toilets.  Yes, composting toilets, where we will be living, water is captured and stored, bought and stored in bulk or drilled for if you can afford drilling fees and the risk of it being safe to drink or good quality.  As water is a premium in the desert our favored option is to catch and store.  Add in filtration, and purification and you have good potable water.  You don't want to flush your waste away with good potable water so you install composting toilets.  Therefore the bathroom becomes a huge investment on it's own as composting toilets are not cheaply acquired.  We will need two, one for the main cabin, one for the guest cabin.

Sleeping quarters, one medium sized master bedroom, one medium sized guest bedroom.  King size bed and small walk in closet with shelves and clothes hanging rods in each bedroom.  Bed side tables and chairs in each room as the only furniture.  Small stand alone cabin (think tiny houses) for guests, 12 X 16 or close to that in size, small 1/2 bathroom.  No need for kitchen, shower or advanced storage, while we'd like to have visitors, we don't want roomers.


The kitchen I have in mind would be large enough to use for cooking, canning and storage.  Large as in generous counter space, six inches wider than normal.  Large center island for prepping, large five burner commercial gas stove for cooking.  Add in ventilation, in kitchen storage of pots, pans, dry goods and canned goods, cooling/ freezing and you end up with a huge kitchen.  Since I don't know exactly where we will end up I cannot plan on having a basement too.  Without knowing the answer to this riddle, the thought that we may end up with an even larger cabin becomes the thought that we may end up with a house.  Yikes!!  I hope scaling down and not scaling up is where we are headed.

In any case, the future is much closer than what it was and cleaning up the past is more of a priority now than ever.  As I look at the nearing move, I feel intimidated by the task of deciding what to do with all the accumulated stuff from the past...  As always however, I like a challenge and this is one I have prepared to meet for a very long time.  Bring it on!