Before my husband and I even got married we knew we wanted to live on acreage. He, growing up on nature preserves where the closest school was 2 hours away, wanted to return to that lifestyle and I, born and raised in the suburbs, wanted to get away from a lifestyle I despised. In fact, that desire for a different lifestyle is the very reason this site exists today.
Getting married young and poor, we aimed to make this goal a reality around our 10th anniversary. We had no money saved, one income, and we lived in a fairly expensive area where we were dead set on buying land for personal reasons. (Though that cheaper Midwestern land is somewhat tempting)
Today, I’m thinking back to those early days of our marriage… our dreams and hopes, disappointments, that special love and naivety only a newly wed couple would have.
And I am reminded how hindsight is 20/20… in a very literal sense these days as the year 2020 was one which changed the vision of many. Ourselves included.
With the onset of the Covid pandemic, getting land became one of our top priorities despite the odds being stacked against us.
And so it began, the story of our little cottage.
The following archive tells our journey of acquiring land, planning to build a home, dreams and hopes, crushed dreams and hopes, and the actual building of that home.