Out of Hibernation

We’ve lived in our home — the little chalet — for a little over a year, and after about eight months of varying phases of construction, our lot has completely transformed.

I shared photos in July, when our landscape and raised beds were finished, but in the past month the garden has bloomed — and it’s lush and green everywhere. With the garden completed, our amazing landscaping crew (West Coast Landscaping) dug a trench from the tiny house to our well house to lay the pipes and conduits for water, graywater, and solar and grid power. (The tiny house is all grown up with proper and more permanent piping!) The water is all set up, but we’ve yet to set up the solar panels. That, and upgrading the toilet to a proper composting toilet (a Nature’s Head), are the two main things left to do on the tiny house.

I deep-cleaned the house in August, as it hadn’t really been used for a year — there was one evening earlier this year, during one of the crazy storms in January, when I took refuge in it after a huge limb from a poplar tree fell on our main house and put a hole in our roof. (We ended up cutting two clusters of poplar trees down.) But aside from that, I think Little Leavenworth has been lonely.

Slowly but surely, we’re making progress. We’re still not sure what we’ll do with the house, but we’re getting it ready so it’s comfortable for a variety of scenarios — for use as an office, a space for guests (family and friends), or something else. We also removed the tires and placed the trailer on pier blocks and slabs, so it’s definitely not going anywhere anytime soon.

Here are some snapshots of the tiny house, parked on its own pad and with its own driveway. The sleeping loft overlooks our property, and the view from the kitchen sink looks out onto the vegetable garden. It’s lovely, and I’m happy that we’re working toward incorporating the house into the rest of the landscape. Even though we’re not living in the house anymore, it was the main reason why we were able to move to Sonoma County and to transition to life up here.

Because I love change, I plan to paint the door a new color, as well as paint the kitchen cabinets a fresh shade, too. That’ll be the next post, I think, though it may not be for a while!

Our lot during excavation and grading, last October/November.

The front section of our lot, newly landscaped and mulched earlier this summer.

The house behind the Meyer lemon tree.

The open trench, for laying the water pipe and conduit for the power/solar.

Tall yellow blooms.

An updated set of stairs. (For the new door shade, I’m thinking light sage or a chalk yellow? Not sure yet.) Our current home, the little chalet, is off to the right behind the shrubs.

A wider shot of the tiny house, next to our vegetable garden.

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I’m posting more often on my home and garden blog, Where the Gravensteins Are, in case you want to see what else is new!