my dirt bag cabin

[squisher]

You should ashamed of yourself using your child as an excuse.

Good to hear you've got your priorities straight Jaime

 

[Porkbrick]

well, since Ive had diddly squat for time to work on the cabin the last two years, i thought it might be nice to post some picks of what Ive done instead. we bought a place much closer to town. 2 acres with a small house and separate garage with an apartment upstairs. i finally have a space for my shop AT MY OWN HOUSE! plus tons of space for a garden. there was a ton of drama getting the tenants out of the garage apartment and we still haven't made any progress on fixing the problems they left up there (bathroom is disgusting and covered in mold). we've basically just shut the door on that for now.

 

[Porkbrick]

i immediately started with planting a garden! ive always wanted the space to collect interesting edible plants and now i have it. the yard was solid with calla lily and Virginia creeper. I'm slowly pushing it back, section by section. less than 8 months into owning our house we got red tagged by the county (i suspect the former garage tenants turned us in). you see, the only reason we could afford this place was that both buildings were permitted according to the seller. santa cruz county doesn't actively look for violations, so our plan was to lay low until we could pull together the money to get the buildings up to code and permitted. cue several months of quiet panic as we were looking at the possibility that the county could force us to tear down all of the buildings. luckily, i was polite and respectful when talking to the county and they gave us time. we hired a woman who deals with this type of situation and she was able to dig into the county records and find proof (attached to our neighbors parcel records) that our buildings were old enough to be grandfathered in. they dropped the red tag and i felt like i just won the friggin' lottery!

 

[Porkbrick]

and now that the county is off our back we can get a dog!

 

[Tommy_B]

I've just sat and read the entire thread. Not sure how I missed it first time round. Fantastic work. There is a TV show here in the UK called "Grand designs" where people do very similar to what you've done and they follow the progress. I love it. When do you plan it will be finished?

 

[flushcut]

Good to hear the county dropped the issues you had.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Great looking mutt!!!

 

[Bodean]

Yeah Jaimie!

Swayze always said in Roadhouse... "Be Polite"

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[Burnham]

Good news, Jaime. Nice place.

 

[SeanKroll]

COOL!

 

[squisher]

Congratulations. Well played with the county.

Looks like a nice home.

 

[Porkbrick]

I love grand designs. Watched every episode I can find online. We even watched all of the grand designs New Zealand and Australia! I have no solid plan for when it might be done. I?m hoping that now that my son is turning 3 and the Akimbo is closer to launching I?ll be able to spend more time and money on the project.

 

[Porkbrick]

Thanks guys! The only time I’ve felt shittier than dealing with the county was when I got booked into jail. Both cost me about the same.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Well things are looking up then.. congrats on the new place. That lil scrapper grew some !

 

[Porkbrick]

i also turned 40 last year. i cooked a goat luau style in a pit in the ground. it was excellent.

 

[Burnham]

Still a babe in arms, you.

 

[Porkbrick]

more gardening. i do love to grow stuff! we've got tons of pumpkins going, tomatoes, potatoes, cape gooseberry, sorrel, corn, squash, fennel, and tons of other stuff. Ive started collecting unusual edibles like canna, day lilies, walking onions, tree kale and tree collards, new Zealand spinach, cornelean cherry, hostas, dahlias... there is so much out there!

 

[Burnham]

 

[MasterBlaster]

Goat? I thought that was a rabbit.

 

[flushcut]

I thought the same!

 

[Porkbrick]

Pineapple quarters next to it for scale

 

[Raj]

Congrats!

 

[Porkbrick]

after screening in our front porch, replacing the all the drain plumbing, rewiring and plumbing the washer/dryer, and repairing drywall its time to build a pizza oven in the yard! first is the base for the oven. i dry stacked rock i got from a friends old retaining wall. on top of that i set some recycled concrete slabs and on top of that i placed some big pieces of sandstone i found at an abandoned contractors yard. ive no idea why the pictures are sideways

 

[Wood Collector]

if you like chilli look at getting some Carolina reapers they are very hot to put it lightly from a mate

 

[flushcut]

Be careful with fire and sandstone, BOOM!
I built a big pizza oven for a friend years ago and I would suggest buying refractory brick for the fire chamber.