Going Modular...

Unbelievably, we think we've settled on a solution to the "how do we live at the farm?" question. We're going to put in a...gulp...doublewide.

I have serious issues with the concept of putting a modern, built-in-a-factory housing unit on a 200 year old farm, but I'm coming to terms with them. I am, I must admit, an architecture snob, and a hand-crafted connoisseur, so the entire question of plopping down a mass-produced, designed with an etch-a-sketch box of a house on this lovely, pastoral landscape with the hand-hewn 200 year old barns and built brick-by-brick 200 year old house is psychically unsettling...

But then I look harder at the unit we've settled on. It's better insulated, and frankly, better built than the stick-built ranch house we live in now, which was built in a hurry by average to not-so-hot contractors after the 1972 flood. And it's twice the square footage in a footprint and layout that works much more efficiently for the way we live, and the way we will live at the farm.






There's a mudroom/laundry room entrance which leads into the master bath with a walk-in shower-- perfect for those muddy dogs who decide they want back in after having rolled in the manure pile.













There's an amazing galley-style kitchen coming in from that mudroom entrance.


The family room is at the far end of the house from the master bedroom, allowing Marty his guitar and playstation time at hours long past my bedtime. There's a fireplace in the living room, the room that will likely be my study and hangout room. I love a fireplace!



And there's a dining room, something we've longed for from about three weeks after buying our current house that doesn't have one.

There's a lot going for this house-on-wheels, house-in-a-box. I think if we can figure out how to afford it, and can live through the next few months of working out all the details of site preparation, installation, and moving in...not to mention putting our current house on the market and doing the work it takes to make it really sellable...oh, and running the farm while we're both working full time, it will really and truly be worth our time and efforts.

After all, we'll reduce our daily commute to the barn from 30 miles to 600 yards. And this will be the view from the kitchen, dining room, family room, and back bedroom:




And this our view out the front:













Right now, we have the contractor pencilled in for the first week in April. If the weather and work cooperates, we could be moved in by Memorial Day 2010. Six months to pull it all together...