We are considering buying a small home with acreage over a bigger home with much less land. With housing prices what they are we just can't afford the size home I think I want (2500 sq feet plus). Our last home was 1200 and seemed a bit tight, current one is more like 1800 but feels even tighter due to being on a tiny city lot. I miss our smaller house with a much bigger yard. So what is the smallest you think you could stand and what is your family size?

We had our four kids in 1400 square foot and what I couldn't stand was the fact that we had no yard. The house size wasn't really the problem.

Kerri

Honestly; I would go for more land...I have an acre and "want" more. Land is my anchor; my connection. There are six of us in a two bedroom ranch. That always raises eyebrows! But it really isn't that tight. We have finished half of the basement so it features a family room with an egress window and two bedrooms for the teens, I even have a treadmill down there. The two youngest share the bedroom next to dh and me. We have an eat-in kitchen, living room and one bathroom. Yes, one bathroom may seem like the hard part but I actually like it that way; less to clean and less water waste.

The (girls) teens will be moving on soon; leaving the basement free for my sons to take over. I think of how much we have and what we actually need and have never regreted the choice to go smaller than the norm. Even our relator thought we were making a mistake. I have never been the McMansions type.

Honestly, I need my space. Currently we are living in a 1500 sf home. Maybe it's just the layout, but I feel like someone is always underfoot, bumping me, touching me, etc. I don't mind this sometimes, but othertimes I'd like my space.

We just looked at a house that was 2600 sf. It was a nice size with a playroom and an office. It had room to entertain. We :hbeat: 'd it. But the yards were terrible.

So, to answer the OP, I'd like a house around 2000sf to feel like we all had enough room. Oh, and indoor laundry is a must.:lol:

My hubby, his 3 girls and i lived in a 1120 sq foot single wide trailer. ( The girls 9,12,13) Not only that but we had a 130lb dog and 4 indoor cats sharing the space with us. It never felt over crowded.

Our living room had a couch, coffee table, 2 side tables, a futon chair, 2 computer desks with nice computer chairs ( which served also as additional seating).

The only real problem we had was storage space. I started buying the animals food in bulk and storing it in tupperware tubs which were labled and stacked which freed up a lot of space.

Our Fridge and freezer never seemed big enough though, but we did have a nice large walk in pantry the size of 2 average closets. So we could use the other cabinets for non food kitchen items.

I think that it is less the space, but more how it is layed out.. like my mother in laws house .. it is HUGE, but the high traffic areas seem closterfobic to me when there is more then one person in them.. ( although it might also be emotional since i really am disliking my inlaws right now or that they do not respect space) and there are weird projections that cut into rooms in their house wasting HUGE areas of space instead of taking advanage of them.

Like the one upstairs bedroom .. it is broken into 2 large alcoves like you could put twin beds in each but then there would be no room to walk between them at the foot. Then in the middle there is another alcove to a window. Then there is a larger main area to the room where there is a king size bed and it fills most of the space. There is a walk in closet for the room too it goes back into the shape of an L with the longest part of the L being a 3 foot space going back about 8ft. That means that there is about a 6X6 foot of wasted space in that room just between the closet and bed room. Yeah the room probubly comes down in that area, but they could have used it for shelving or a built in dresser or just left it open.

Right now there are 6, soon to be 7, of us living in an 850 sq ft single wide trailer. It's a little smaller than I would prefer, but it's mainly the lack of storage space and the dumpy condition of the trailer that bother me. I can live in this amount of space because I have to right now, but I will be so thankful to spread my wings a bit once our house is finished!

Before this we lived in an 1800 sq ft house and it was plenty of sq footage but it wasn't utilized in the best way. For instance our master bedroom was huge-- like 22 x 24 or something ridiculous like that while the two smaller bedrooms were both around 9 x 10. So I can do very well with a small house as long as the layout is functional.

ETA: I would always choose more land over a bigger house.

If it had a lot of land I could stand a pretty small house. Right now we're in about 1300 sq ft and I think it's pretty good. We have a very large yard for Southern Cali and we spend a majority of our time outside. We've had to get rid of many things to fit comfortably here (last house was 1800+). Just yesterday DH and I were discussing how unnecessary things like our second bedroom are and how we can condense the kids room setup in order to have them in one bedroom should we need to/want to (two kids).

eta: We had the same setup as Jenn in our old house, the master bedroom was HUGE, bigger than the living room! I would have rather had more storage area or pantry.

We're looking at moving into an 800 sf cabin...and building a 1400 sf house for our "dream house" near it. But now we're wondering if we might be okay with just the cabin, or maybe we should just add onto it...

1400 sf that I lay out is plenty of space for us with two kids.

We have a family of 4 and we have 900 sq ft with large city lot (it is a bit fat yard with a wrap around fence). We also have a small deck which is covered and in the summer that has been used as another room... but in the winter it is just to wet and dark here to get any use out of it. Anything larger would be great. We moved from 3200 sq ft (2800 was ours there was an apt in the basement which we rented out so we could not use that as living space) and the house always seemed way too big. Something in between. Around 1800 sq ft would be perfect for us... we are not sure if we are done having kids either... so getting something larger than "min" would be smart for us.... but tough luck finding that here with land for under $300K.

Val

Before this we lived in an 1800 sq ft house and it was plenty of sq footage but it wasn't utilized in the best way. For instance our master bedroom was huge-- like 22 x 24 or something ridiculous like that while the two smaller bedrooms were both around 9 x 10. So I can do very well with a small house as long as the layout is functional.

Yes yes and YES. That was the thing with the huge house. There were 4 bedrooms, 3 bath, kitchen, laundry rooms, living, dining, wreck room and two large storage hallways (and that is just our section). BUT two bedrooms were 14X14 (nearly perfect IMHO with two closets each) and the other two were 9x9... Um... yeah. Can you say CRAMPED?? My son had one twin sized bed and two small book shelves in there and that was it, and he barely had room to play. My dd was in our closet upstairs (walk-in with a window) until she was 3 yrs old because the room down stairs wouldn't fit anymore than the closet did so why move her??? The other smaller bedroom wasn't even big enough for a sewing room. (I guess it could have been if I had been as streamlined as I have had to be now. lol...) Just badly laid out. I would be happy with half the space if the lay out was better done.

This house, although small, the lay out is quite functional. Living, dining and kitchen are all one room seperated by a floor to cealing island with the oven in it. Then there is a hallway, and three little rooms (the biggest is my sons and it is 11x12 with a 9 foot wall becuase the closet sticks out of one side, smallest is dd's which is 10x10.) Closet space is great... yard is great... I am cramped... but happy in this small space becuase it is laid out SO much better!

Val

Right now, we have 5 people, 2 dogs and 2 cats in about 1200sq ft. It's a tight fit right now, and I wouldn't want to be in anything smaller (at least with kids - maybe if it were just DH and I).

We have 1700 square feet, and it seems very roomy. I grew up with 3 siblings and 2 parents in just under 1000 square feet and it was fine. I do sometimes wish we had a bigger living room instead of a 3rd bedroom. And our bedroom is really too big.

If it was a house like I grew up in I could do 1000 square feet no problem. To me a big yard is more important; ours is okay now but I would love fenced acreage. Of course, that isn't going to happen here in So Cal. We couldn't afford to move if we wanted to.

Day to day isn't when I need the space; it's when I wish I could have 10 mamas and their kids over that this house doesn't work.

Day to day isn't when I need the space; it's when I wish I could have 10 mamas and their kids over that this house doesn't work.

This is why I want a bigger house. I love to have people over but I'm to appalled to have anyone here at this house.

The house we have our eyes on is beautiful. I'll try to post a link.

Did I miss something?

We moved from a home with 960 sq. feet upstairs and 500 downstairs with 10 acres to a home that is 1100 upstairs with an open partially finished full basement on 1/2 acre. I like the set up of our new house much better because it is more open but I do agree that I could handle a smaller home if it meant I had land available.

Dh and I bought our current home because it is 3 minutes from his work and a half a block from a very good school (would have homeschooled if we were in the district we used to live in). We intend to be debt free other than student loans and mortgage after this year and then we will start saving to buy a minimum of 10 acres of land that we can build on after our kiddos are out of elementary school. Until then we will build a small cabin or temporary shelter on it so that we can use it on weekends and if it is close enough to where we are now we could even have some livestock on it. When we build we will keep in mind that it is our forever house so I will probably make the kids bedrooms smaller and have larger entertaining areas since the kids will each only live their for a 2-6 years.

We've had the second cat since last summer. It was suppose to be peace offering from dh, I think. It's a black and white cat. I can't believe I've never mentioned it before - it's lucky it made it through the first few months. It was so tiny when we got it; I thought the kids were going to love (read squish) it to death.

I need to come see your new digs when it's ready for company! I agree that a lot of it isn't the square footage but what is done with it. I wish that our bedroom was smaller and they used some of that space for the bathroom and Madeline's bedroom but I guess that can't be helped now.

Must be I didn't realize that you had another one before getting the kitty.

Let me know if you have any time the weekend after this one and I will have you up to see the half done house and then we can go out and get chinese or something.

I was looking at. Oh I cant link it but if you wanna see go to
http://www.realtracs.com

then click on "search for properties"

and then enter this MLS #: 719587 and it should come up with a small house on Craft Road in Davidson County.

The big issue is the private school we LOVE and are trying to get our kids in for fall is in the heart of downtown Nashville by Vanderbilt. My parents would pay for anything not covered by financial aid, but cant afford Nashville real estate in a safe neighborhood. We so much prefer country life and this house would put us 15 miles away and maybe a 30 minute commute at most. Right now we are almost an hour commute and it is just too far. So do you think a family of 5 could live in this?

5 in 1800 sq. feet? Totally doable! We are 5 and in a 1500 sq. footer....I'd love one more room to be totally ok with the smaller house. So 1800 sq. feet would be terrific! LOL.

We live in 2100 sq ft. It's always been more than enough. We could do fine in less space - I can think of 2 rooms we could do without, and just reorganize into another area. So that would be 1800. And then, if it were my dream acreage, I could go as low as 1200 sq ft. I'm not that attached to any of the stuff that fills our space, and would be happy to downsize if it meant we could have he horse I've wanted since I was 8 years old. :) I think with open land all around, the kids would survive sharing rooms and other cramped spaces.

OTOH, my sister's home is 700 sq ft, and that *is* a tad small. ;)

ETA: We currently have 6 (we're borrowing my sister again) in 2100 sq ft, and there's more than enough room. I'm sure 1800 would be plenty. :)

Right now we have a 1200 sf house for four people. We use one of the three bedrooms for storage only, and a guestroom (we live 1500 miles from both of our families, so we do have visitors several times per year). So not counting that room, we live in about 1060 sf. That includes a large open space that functions as our entryway, living room, and dining room; a kitchen; two decent sized bedrooms, one bathroom, and a large mudroom/laundry area.

It feels big enough to me. I actually like the coziness...my last two houses have been about 1700 sf and felt "big" to me.

Our goal is to buy another small house with land...if we had a bigger yard (right now our whole lot is less than 1/4 acre), I'd be so happy!

i don't even know how big our house is! dh says he thinks 1500, but not sure. anyway, there are 3 of us and plenty of space! no complaints here.

ETA: i love nature, but i also love space inside. there would have to be a good balance for me. i couldn't do really small in order to have more land.

When the older 4 were little we lived in a winterized cottage we renovated. It was 1000 sq feet & no basement & no garage & no attic. The kitchen/dining/sun room area was about 400 sq feet. Then behind it was the laundry room with a full-size freezer. Upstairs was the living room, bathroom and two bedrooms. The one bedroom would be considered a "hallway" in some homes!

The two older girls shared bunk beds and the younger girl was in a toddler bed in the same room. Then our son was still in our bed. I also did home day-care so had 3 other little ones in the house full-time. We lived in a forest in the country & had less than an acre. We were also on water-front. We spent a lot of time outside. Sometimes on either the lower porch or the upper wrap around deck that went onto the play area. We were built into a cliff so our downstairs was "on grade" at the front door and our upstairs was "on grade" off the side door.

We also had use of an empty lot to play soccer or tag, etc. We also went for nice walks on the road as it wasn't busy during most of the day.

We sold that house to move closer to DH's work in another city. Our family of six lived in a 27 foot AirStream trailer for SIX months while we built the house ourselves (with occasional help from family & friends as needed & we sub-contracted out the installation of the furnace & oil tank & duct work and the installation of the basement walls (DH helped) and the leveling of the concrete basement floor (though we wheel-barrelled it where it needed to go with friend's help & DH made all the forms. I asked a local carpenter if he could help me install the rail & ballusts for the main stairway and it was a lovely couple of days!! We also hired a couple of fellows to do most of the taping of the drywall and DH had hired a friend to help him drywall the cathederal ceilings, but we did the rest of the dry wall as well as everything else.) We rented a power nailer to install the hardwood floor but used the old fashioned hammer & nails to do the rest of the house!! I primed & painted 513 pine siding boards. My dad & I drywalled the upstairs hallway, two bedrooms and a bathroom (other than the ceiling in one day). Okay I am getting tired just remembering all this stuff! Hang on...we did have a carpenter build & then a company installed the kitchen as we knew there was NO WAY DH would have time to do that since he was working full-time & still trying to finish the house. We finally moved in Nov 21 when I freaked at having to scrape the frost off the windows inside the trailer. It was SOOO nice to climb into a real bed again!!

So...we now have an 1800 sq foot house with our main floor & upstairs ( The square footage doensn't include the basement). But it seems a LOT bigger since it is an open conceptm old-farmhouse with wrap-around porch design. DH & I also designed the house. It was a 4 bedroom house when we moved in. We have a mudroom, main floor bathroom with shower and a main floor laundry room which also holds a full size freezer & a pantry & recycling area. We also have a kitchen, dining area and family room. I also have a "study" on this floor which could be a bedroom, but isn't. Upstairs is one full bath (two sinks) and 4 bedrooms. Our bedroom is bigger than our first apartment!! We have catherderal ceilings so built a cool loft in one of the bedrooms. This was for DD#1 after we needed space for the twins when they were older. We could easily build lofts in all the other bedrooms if needed, but we feel we don't need them right now. When we first moved in DS had his own room, oldest DD had her own room & the next two DDs shared a room. The shared room has two bookcases arranged so that it feels like it is two seperate rooms & they each have a nice window in their areas. Well then we had the twins & now Teagan, plus foster children too.

So right now there are 11 people in our house (plus 2 dogs and 1 cat-there were 3 cats till the last few weeks, but we had to put 2 of the cats to sleep). We finished off space in the basement so there is now a games room down there. Then oldest DD begged us to finish off another area as a bedroom for her, so we did. It is a "legal" bedroom and has a nice sized window as does the games room (it is as big as our living & dining area upstairs.) So DD #1 has a new room in the basement, DD#2 who has a double under single bunk bed shares her room (the one that is divided) with the foster twins who each have a crib in their area (plus there is a single over single set of bunk beds in the twins area as well). Then DD #3 has the loft in the room where DDs #5 & #6 (5 year old id twins) share a double bed. Though almost every night they still end up in our family bed. (DH is going to build a single loft bed above the double bed...almost like a mini-loft for the twins). Then DS#4 has 2 sets of single over single bunk beds and he will be sharing with DS#7 at some time. DS#4 is used to sharing his room as he has shared it with other boy foster siblings in the past. DH & I have a Queen bed with a single beside it. It did have the crib on the other side, but we needed to move it to the other room for the foster twins.

I personally would take a smaller house with MORE property!!! BTDT!! We built a barn/garage/work shop over the last couple of years & have a couple of horses & a sheep (he's a long story!). We started building in 1998 and still aren't done. We painted the whole inside of the house beige so we could get the last draw for our builder's mortgage & have been since slowly adding other colour & paint to the walls. The mudroom & downstairs hall, bathroom, upstairs hall are all wainscotted & painted now. (Just was painting the laundry room, bathroom & stair & upper hall walls this past couple of weeks). It's been a LOT of work & I still look back & think we were insane to do it. DH only took six weeks off so I learned how to do a LOT of things. I HATE power nailers!! We also had to build the first 3 months with no electricity or water or phone, but did manage to track down a generator, then we we able to pump our water too. Finally I got nasty the hydro company came to verify we DID NOT have hydro. They told us it showed in their records we already had hydro installed. For goodness sakes we didn't even have a hydro pole!!!

Would I do it again knowing what I know now? YES!! BUT, DH would take off more time so that the house would have been finished a LOT sooner.

Kerri mom to: Amanda(15), Emma(13), Maddison(11), Jonah(9), Saige & Claire
(5, id twin dds), Teagan (2,ds), and J & J (12 mos,frat.
twin foster dds).

I know the school!!!!!!!!!

It is so rocking - the one school I would mortguage the house to send our kids to, if we lived closer.

Love the house as well!

ETA: I would have to have another bath. I did the one bathroom thing. Never again!

Lately I am not feeling very much like living even in our 2100 sq feet. I have been having house dreams like crazy, which is sort of weird for me. I am wanting around 4000sq ft of old house--don't want to build--on at least 4 acres, but ideally 6-9. I live in the perfect town for that-- it's still easy to get to everything. But because of that it's all $$$. I don't want to livein the boonies, just feel like I do. My dds want horses and I want chickens. I want a pool, I want lots of space and rooms so my growing kids can bring the whole dorn home for Winter Break someday, and a pool so my kids, neighbors, nieces and nephews will all hang out here. I want acerage so we can have weddings, and anniversay parties here, and put up a tent and hire caterers and park all the cars on the side lawn. I want there to be lots of animals for the kids to pet and feed while the grownups laugh and get marred off.

There. I don't want simple-simple. I just want what i want. :rolleyes: Forgive me.

I was looking at. Oh I cant link it but if you wanna see go to
http://www.realtracs.com

then click on "search for properties"

and then enter this MLS #: 719587 and it should come up with a small house on Craft Road in Davidson County.

The big issue is the private school we LOVE and are trying to get our kids in for fall is in the heart of downtown Nashville by Vanderbilt. My parents would pay for anything not covered by financial aid, but cant afford Nashville real estate in a safe neighborhood. We so much prefer country life and this house would put us 15 miles away and maybe a 30 minute commute at most. Right now we are almost an hour commute and it is just too far. So do you think a family of 5 could live in this?

I have got to freaking move. That lot alone would cost over 500k where i live. More with a house.

Lately I am not feeling very much like living even in our 2100 sq feet. I have been having house dreams like crazy, which is sort of weird for me. I am wanting around 4000sq ft of old house--don't want to build--on at least 4 acres, but ideally 6-9. I live in the perfect town for that-- it's still easy to get to everything. But because of that it's all $$$. I don't want to livein the boonies, just feel like I do. My dds want horses and I want chickens. I want a pool, I want lots of space and rooms so my growing kids can bring the whole dorn home for Winter Break someday, and a pool so my kids, neighbors, nieces and nephews will all hang out here. I want acerage so we can have weddings, and anniversay parties here, and put up a tent and hire caterers and park all the cars on the side lawn. I want there to be lots of animals for the kids to pet and feed while the grownups laugh and get marred off.

There. I don't want simple-simple. I just want what i want. :rolleyes: Forgive me.

Forgiven!! LOL

I have the same dreams, to an extent. Choosing to stay in the town we live in, we won't be able to afford any land. We know what we want. I need space. I feel smothered if everyone is "on top of" one another in the same room. I want a computer/sewing/scrapbooking room. I want a play room for my children. I want a pool. I want a big kitchen. I want a pantry.

I feel like we've sacrificed for the last 15 years. We've worked so hard to get to where we are. I'm excited to finally be able to get what we've dreamed about.

And if we're in by summer, pool party for Amity mamas at my house. Val, maybe this will be *the* summer we finally get to meet. lol

There. I don't want simple-simple. I just want what i want. :rolleyes: Forgive me.

Forgiven! Of course... your dream sounds lovely!

My dreams are simple but specific. I think every one has their own idea of what they need and what they would use it for. I am not ok with living in a house smaller than this ever again. Although I may have to depending on where dh get stationed.

I would love to have a acre or two... but I don't want 50. I think it would be too much pressure.

LOL - Laurie, of course you're forgiven, that sounds wonderful.

We're going to be able to do 12 sloping/level, mostly wooded acres (I want to clear about 2 acres and I want to be forgiven for that, LOL) with a 1400 sf house on a basement, plus a 600 sf cabin for guests/musicmaking/office space. That's what it's looking like. If we have more kids we will make a bedroom in the basement - it will be a daylight basement with windows and a radiantly heated slab so it will be warm, light and dry.

I want to clear 2 acres or so for a sledding hill, ice-skating pond, the 15-ft trampoline, and space for tents for the Amitymama campout. ;)

We're on 100 acres now and it's a bit much...you can't really use all that space yet you kind of have to pay attention to it.

* drools over 100 acres *

My dream house/land would definately be a farm.. not 100 acres .. but 20 or so would be wonderful. I would love to start an herb/rabbit/goat/free range chicken farm. But also have enough room to have a few head of cattle and some pigs. Also have crops to feed the animals on some acres. Of course a HUGE garden and an orchard. And eventually get a large green house for veggies and herbs in the winter.. and a smaller green house kept hotter and wetter for some orchids maybe.

And a house with a HUGE kitchen with a pull down baking area.. and lots of counter space and storage and a walk in pantry with a freezer. A large living room and a free bedroom where we could have a room just for crafts and sewing. And a Basement "play room" Where the kids could run around on rainy days and have a sitting area and an open area to roller skate or what ever ( my mom used to tell me how her friends used to roller skate in my grandmothers house.. their basement isn't huge and its split in half.. but it would definately be plenty of room for up to 8 kids to roller skate around on).

Plus with that much space outside it would be less to worry about the kids .. they could bike around .. and maybe build a nice sturdy swing/play set that adults could swing on as well.. i don't know why but farms always seem more safe to me.. although there are ways you can get seriously hurt from equipment or animals.. let the kids bring their friends over and have plenty of space for them to run and play.. and have sleepovers. Instead of having them go over to others houses to sleep over where we do not know their parents that well. That always makes me nervious.. because there are parents out there that let their children get away with murder and its terrifying.

But back to reality .. i know that will never happen because we could never afford it.. not with my Hubby being sick all the time like he has been.

Hmmmmmmmmm....2 acres is a LOT of land to clear.

Personally I would clear a bit at a time as needed so that you don't over do it. Once those trees are gone...they are gone!!

We basically cleared only what we had to for building the house & then a bit around the house of trees we didn't want to fall on the house!! We also had to clear for the drive-way & of course the septic area.

Later we cleared a bit more for our gardens, but only enough for the area we wanted. Then we cleared a bit another time for the barn/garage. (It was mostly "scrub" anyways. Then we cleared an area behind the barn for the horses, but left up quite a few trees for them for shade. Patch has decided to "de-bark" all but the crab apple, lotus (prickles on it), and elm. We used the other trees to attach the electric fence. The rest of the forest is as is. It too was logged 75-100 years ago. Except that there is one "great-grandma maple tree" in the back corner that is probably 150 years old a "grandma maple tree" that is about 100 years old. Also we are doing some forest management by removing dead or dying trees and also smaller trees that are not properly rooted & won't survive long. This gives the other healthier trees more moisture & more light. I went to a presentation on forest management a couple of years ago. Basically the roots of the tree reach out to about the same distance as the leaves on its outmost branches. This area should be cleared of any other trees to allow for best growth.

We had a "thanking" ceremony after we had the roof shingles on the house. DH & a fellow who helped took a sapling tree (it was not very healthy) and held it at the peak of the roof between the two of them and & the kids & I were on the ground. We said sorry to the forest for removing the trees & thank-you for giving us wood for fuel and a nice house (referring to wood from trees that was used to build the house). We were able to use most of the wood for burning in the woodstove and have only bought one cord of wood since 1998 (We didn't get enough already cut wood out from the forest & into the woodshed!)

Kerri mom to: Amanda(15), Emma(13), Maddison(11), Jonah(9), Saige & Claire
(5, id twin dds), Teagan (2,ds), and J & J (12 mos,frat.
twin foster dds).

I'm looking at house plans in the 900-1200 sq ft range. That'd be for 3 people, plus 2 almost grown children who would stay occassionally. I know it would be totally doable, but the land would definitely factor in! We're hoping for 5+ acres.

Kerri, it might only be an acre, maybe less, I'm really not sure. But it's all scrub, recently logged, and the rest of the 12 acres is thickly wooded. There's a lot of wood/slash to clean up on this property.

And yeah, we're not going to do it all at once anyway...more like have the land excavated for the house and gradually over a few years clear more. Trust me, if you saw the land, you'd want to clear what we're talking about clearing. It looks awful and it's right in front of the natural building spot. But what we're talking about is just what you described: we'll clear for the house/driveway, then probably next year for gardens, the next year for a pond, etc. The house itself will have trees behind it and on both sides, and just be open to the north where the land slopes down and there's this fabulous view just hiding behind the scrubby, scraggly trees that are left from the logging.

We should have enough wood for a long, long time with just what's laying on the ground right now.

Sounds like a great plan!!

We found that our scrub areas very quickly grew with unpleasant prickle bushes, way too many wild raspberries that they kids think are possessed because they seem to grab a hold of their clothes even when they think they are feet away from the bushes. Oh and thistles & dandelions LOVED this area too. Yet in the forest...none of that nasty stuff. We still have kept some of the wild raspberry bushes that I have harvested for raspberry leaves & they do have berries too. We also have wild strawberries (very tiny fruit, but the kids find them fun) and wild blackberries (huge berries).

Our forest is also heavily wooded. We chose to still have some woods in the front for privacy. We are about 200 feet from the road. (Oh keep in mind the longer the driveway...the more square footage of snow there is to clear!!) We aren't off grid and we had to pay by the foot for hydro & phone, we chose to bury the cable after we had our famous "ice storm". That was a whole other adventure filling that in!! We have a LOT of rock in our our & hit rock when we were excavating.

We worked at clearing on weekends for about a year. We lived 1.5 hours away. We started at the road & made our way in with the drive way and then cleared to the right for the house. If possible get someone to help you out with all the planning. I am lucky that DH is in the industry so he knew what our limitations were in putting in a house, how to decide where to start the driveway at the road & how it would meander up to the house. Also we had someone come out & "witch" or douse for the well before we set our final plans. Jonah was 6 months old when we started clearing. He was 18 mos when we started to build. This kids has amazing balance as he learned to walk in the forest.

I hope you keep us posted on how things are going as it will be fun to follow you along in your adventure. I so wish I had written our adventure down!!
Kerri mom to: Amanda(15), Emma(13), Maddison(11), Jonah(9), Saige & Claire
(5, id twin dds), Teagan (2,ds), and J & J (12 mos,frat.
twin foster dds).

mamabear~ You might want to look into a lumber yard or farmer that might pay good $ for some of those nicer trees. I know my uncle sold some of the lumber from clearing his land .. he also gave some poplar trees that were the right size for posts to a local farmer just for coming over and helping.. and there was another gentleman who came over and took some trees for fire wood for helping cut down trees( a truck load) .. then someone rented a wood splitter for another truck load of wood.. .. there was still TONS of firewood leftover.. they cleared out the whole place a half an acre to an acre in a weekend.

DH had a fellow from his office come & help cut & haul wood & in return for an afternoon's work gave him a huge tailer load of wood. Way more than the work he did as it was literally only a couple of hours and he got a couple of hundred dollars at least of GOOD wood.

Another neighbour comes to help DH when the neighbour needs wood. He has an outdoor furnace. Which are NOT a good choice if you DON'T own a woodlot!! It takes a LOT of wood & isn't nearly as efficient as an indoor air-tight woodstove. We use a quarter of the wood that he uses. Now, we have to use good dry wood and hard wood on the coldest days. I am in Ontario, Canada so we can have some brutally cold weather. Anyways, this neighbour takes all our cruddy wood. He can burn anything!! He can burn the damp, rotten, insect infested wood and he can burn it when it is whole so it needs to get cut, but doesn't need to be chopped. Last year we gave him a bunch of our poplar. It is okay to burn the smaller pieces in the woodstove on warmer days in the late fall or spring. However the bigger pieces are no good to us. Well for him they are great. This year we are clearing out some dead & dieing pines out front. So he has been getting that wood too. It is similar to poplar in our woodstove.

Anyways.....just be VERY careful regarding who is clearing, who helps to clear, etc. Is there any insurance for the property yet. We got a waiver on our other insurance so that if anyone got hurt on our property for any reason (falling tree?!?) then we had liability insurance. Also if those helping don't know what they are doing it can be an extremely dangerous situation. Even with the best calculations & knowledge a tree can fall the wrong way. BTDT. DH wouldn't listen to me about a tree he was cutting. He was up on a ladder as it had gotten cut up. I said, what if the tree suddenly lets go while you're up there the ladders going to come rolling down (it has rollers on the top) and you will go with it. He said, it wouldn't happen. Oldest DD & I looked at eachother & knew he was wrong. Well...the tree started to lean and the ladder let go & down it went with DH at the top. He slid all the way down the ladder & hit the ground. He was very lucky he had just missed the stump of the tree he had cut down earlier. Funny thing is DD & I yelled to him, "Get off the ladder, get down the tree is going down!!!" He said he couldn't hear us. Later he admitted that he heard us say something, but essentially ignored us and kept with what he was doing. Even though we shouted at him several times. What an IDIOT he can be sometimes. He still hasn't learned to follow my preminisions after all these years. (My kids know enough to follow them!) He admitted he should never have been out there. He was tired and distracted and so should have stopped cutting trees. It may look "easy" but it is NOT! We've been doing tree cutting for almost 20 years and I still HATE using a chain-saw!! I will not use it alone, only when DH is right there. Every single time I make him tell me how to use it again, just to make sure!! Luckily I haven't had to use one in a while.

Also if others come in & start cutting they could get a little too ambitious & they might take trees you don't want cut. We had another neighbour trying to convince us that we needed to take down trees that we didn't want to so he was not "invited" when we cut trees or if he happened by...there were no extra saws!! He is a farmer & essentially a tree is in the way of his farming land so he wants it gone. We bought a forest on purpose!! We could have bought land with nothing on it, but we WANTED all the trees!!

Just some thoughts

Kerri mom to: Amanda(15), Emma(13), Maddison(11), Jonah(9), Saige & Claire
(5, id twin dds), Teagan (2,ds), and J & J (12 mos,frat.
twin foster dds).