24 x 32 1 1/2 story off grid debt free log home in Northern Maine

Started by Goose and Gillian, July 15, 2014, 09:26:41 AM

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Goose and Gillian

My husband and I were Blessed to purchase 6.6 acres in Northern Maine with the driveway in and a flowing artesian well for $11,500 cash (including closing costs). Goose was a carpenter for 20 years and we have built our own log home in the past but we used the banks money and it was grid tied.

We love sharing our testimony of how the Lord is providing for us to build without debt. Our goal is to bring our home to livable for less then $20,000 not including the land and so far we are on track!!

We have our footings finished and our floor system and subfloor down. We are setting corner posts this weekend and door bucks and hope to have our first bundle of logs delivered next weekend!!

We are documenting our journey on our blog but wanted to share it here with you all as we have visited this forum many times as we have dreamed and planned our homestead. And if we can figure out a way to post pics we will keep the thread updated with pics of our progress..;)



http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/



In His Light and Love~ Goose and Gillian

MountainDon

Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.


rick91351

First off  w* from Rick and Ellen who live in another great potato state Idaho!!

Second - I love the testimony of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in your blog.  Your quote from Matthew pretty much says it all!   

But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26

We as well retired a mass of debt.  That sort of hung on and strangled us.  We 'snowballed it'.  We have since retired and are building a home on our ranch here in Idaho.  While not doing it totally 'debt free'.  We do know how now to budget and scrimp and save and I doubt our mortgage will last very long at all once we get out of this building phase.  Our mortgage is set up to very easily be paid by the the ranch itself.  I can tell you that no one would loan money for a owner builder project.  Yet we kept petitioning and a lending institution got ahold of us and told us another bank that was interested in us.  They were impressed with how much we had saved yet it was not enough to do our build.   They also were concerned that my figure that I was seeking was nowhere enough to build the house we intended to build.  (A house that had been shown us one day out of the blue.)  We had had another plan drawn and engineered.   Then this plan fell in our laps and we knew it was the one.  So we went in to this and was also shown a figure that we could do it with.  I stuck with it and it has been sort of tight yet the deals came along.  Our lumber yard treats us as if we are contractors or better.  The guy I subbed the cement work out to hired me to help him.  (I did cement years ago.)  But I was out there before he arrived and out there when he left every day.  Our Pastor helped frame it - or I helped him frame it.  Or we worked together.  He told us don't worry he would have us dried in before winter.  He and I did infact did do just that.  So last winter Ellen and I lived in a fifthwheel and worked on the inside.  The subs we did hire have been a real good bunch to work with.....  The short of it we as well feel the Lord is guiding our steps in this matter. 

Rick and Ellen 
Proverbs 24:3-5 Through wisdom is an house builded; an by understanding it is established.  4 And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.  5 A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.

Goose and Gillian

Thanks Don!

@ Rick and Ellen, Bless you for sharing your story with us!! Isn't it amazing to watch the Lord work in our lives? Only through Jesus and we are in awe of Him and all He is doing in our lives everyday..

Our long term goal is to have our homestead fund our living expenses too. Very thankful we connected on here and I will search the forum to see if I can find your project so we can follow along!

Adding you all to our prayers and cant wait to hear more about your journey.. Hope you have a Blessed day!

Goose and Gillian

#4
When we have a bit of free time  ;) we will set it up to share pictures.. For now we can share our blog posts so you all can see the updates! We set the corner posts today and tomorrow we will put up the door bucks.. We will have 5 exterior doors but those that we aren't budgeted to purchase right away we will stack the logs around the door bucks, temporarily frame in and add insulation. Once we are budgeted for those doors we will remove the temp framing and add our doors.

Building with cash flow as the Lord provides means we need to be a bit more creative than when we built with the banks money but we are enjoying the challenge!

http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/



Goose and Gillian

The door bucks are finished and we are ready for logs!! We are using utility grade camp stock cedar logs from a local log home company. They aren't cut to a kit but the past couple times we built with them the savings on the logs was well worth the extra work!!

A few pics of the progress :)

http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/

We broke ground one month ago today so we are very thankful to be at the point now where we are ready to start stacking logs. The Lord has continued to provide the provisions and materials and we are in awe of how it is all coming together!!

http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/p/progress-in-pictures.html



Goose and Gillian

We are going with indoor hand pumps pulling the water in from our artesian well with a grey water system and a composting toilet (all approved along with our building permit for meeting local and state codes). The original design was had done was for a limited grey water system that would be required for pressurized water. With the hand pump we will be able to go with a primitive system that will be 1/5th the size of the limited system.. Our state allows either the primitive or the limited and we are very thankful for those options!

http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/2014/07/primitive-grey-water-system.html

Goose and Gillian

We were able to get the logs up 4 rows high all the way around this past weekend!! Its amazing to see it all come together!

http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/2014/07/stacking-logs.html

pocono_couple

great to see that your are making steady progress..  how far north in Maine?   we hope to build in the mid-coast region sometime within the next 3-5 years.     living mortgage free is a wonderful ideal to shoot for..  and you are doing it the right way ( in my humble opinion  :)   )    jt


Goose and Gillian

We are in Aroostook county (just a stones throw from Canada).. and thanks yeah we have been following Dave Ramseys plan for years so we are very thankful to be able to build our home without debt!   

The mid coast area is beautiful too.. really cant go wrong anywhere in Maine. :)

Goose and Gillian

This past weekend we added our window bucks.. This coming weekend we will get our second bundle of logs!! Its really coming together!! 

http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/2014/08/window-bucks.html

warbird

Goose and Gillian.... you are both my heroes. my wife and i will be closing on 6 acres in the next couple weeks, wife was seperated from the Air Force after 11 years in and will be staying home with our 3 kids and taking care of the house, as well as making her natural soap and body products (hopefully that business takes off lol) we have decided to build a homestead with as little debt as possible. we will have a short 2 year note on the land (couldn't find anything even half as nice as yours for 11 Grand here) (here is near wichita ks and everyone thinks land is gold here) plus due to certain county regulations we were not able to get any land that didnt have at least "some" covenants (found some that are pretty lax though so got blessed on that) still have a minimum house size 1200SQft and they require a 2 car garage attached (not sure why on that ....snobs i suppose) but other that that they are pretty easy to handle. your Blog Gives me hope that building on the land with no debt is possible (despite what all my friends and family say)  can't wait to see how you all progress. i will keep you and your family in my prayers. God Bless

P.S i have read the ramsey book and would love to do it.... just have to get the wife on board..... pray the lord gives me strength and wisdom on that front lol.
thank you again for the Blog

Goose and Gillian

Thanks for reaching out! We have been inspired by so many that have gone before us we really love hearing that others find our story encouraging! Praying for your journey with the house and with Ramseys process!! Neither journey is easy but both are worth it! God Bless you too and cant wait to see how the Lord works in your plans!!

dablack

Goose and Gillian,

I'm really enjoying your blog.  We are also a family of six with two adopted children from Uganda.  We are also building debt free.  Please keep us up to date on your build.  The path God has laid out for us could have never been predicted!  HA!

thanks
Austin


Goose and Gillian

Hi Austin, Thanks for the encouragement and we love connecting with other adoptive families :)  .and congratulations on building debt free! Its and awesome journey and very true, one that we never would have imagined years ago.. Glad you are enjoying our blog and we will search for your link. We'd love to follow along!! God Bless~

Goose and Gillian

We almost got to the halfway point with the logs this weekend but we are thankful to just have been able to spend time out on the homestead! Things have gotten a bit busier with the Lord leading us back into adoption, this time from China but we trust in His will and timing with it all.. Just thankful and Blessed to be on the journey~

http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/2014/08/almost-halfway-there.html

dablack



Goose and Gillian

We were able to finish the front wall of our home this past weekend!! We hit the two month mark from when we broke ground.. We figure working weekends we've been able to put in close to 14 days out on the land since then.. Not too bad considering Goose is really building it all on his own (the kids and I help where we can but mostly is just all our wonderful leader).. Blessed to watch it all come together and excited to get back out on the homestead next weekend!

http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-front-wall-is-finished.html

dablack

Awesome!  Thanks for the update.  I just checked the blog this morning.  I must have been an hour too early! 

Austin


Goose and Gillian

Our pleasure Austin!!


..We are switching our moving story back to our original blog. We will keep our homestead blog up but going forward all new posts will be on our original blog: 


http://ourdebtfreepath.blogspot.com/

We are also starting the process to adopt two more special needs children, this time from China. Meiling and Meadow are both two years old and both live with Down Syndrome like our adopted daughter GiGi. It will be about a year long process and Lord willing we will be submitting our dossier for them to China by the end of November (around the time that our new home is water tight).. Lots to keep in prayer and excited to see how it all falls into place!!  :)

dablack

Simplification is good! 

Great news about the girls from China.  It is amazing what you can do when you are debt free.  We aren't moving nearly as quickly as you in that direction.  We are much better than where we were and we will get there but at our pace.  We will include your adoption in our Black family prayers. 

Austin

Goose and Gillian

Thanks!! But really it has taken us many years to get here.. We started our debt free journey in 2008 and we still have a small mortgage on our current home in town of around $46k.. Once these adoptions are done and we move into our new home and sell our current one we will be completely debt free, likely in 2015, 7-8 years from the time we started really focusing on getting out of consumer debt. Worth every sacrifice and it has truly been a Blessed journey. We are very thankful for all the lessons we have learned along the way!!

And we did want to simplify by going back to our original blog but carrying everything over proved to be more work than we had time for.. lol So we will stick with our homestead blog for now.  :)

http://thefitzpatrickfamilyhomestead.blogspot.com/

dablack

Quote from: Goose and Gillian on September 03, 2014, 12:58:43 PM
Thanks!! But really it has taken us many years to get here..

Oh, I know.  I read the blog. 

Once the house is done, we will have the land, her student loan, and the tractor.  The tractor and student loan should be taken care of in 16 months after move in.  After that, we will just have to see where we are.  I will be happy to get to that point. 

josiahmac

Your build looks great! Always cool to see projects in New England. I'm in the lakes region of New Hampshire. I am a builder and am currently clearing a spot on 5acres to build and farm with my wife and 2 children. We only have small debt at this time, 30,000 on the land, a truck payment and my wife's student loan16,000 I think. Our plan is to build all out of pocket and have every thing else paid off when we are done in a few years. A couple questions about your project 1 It looks like your foundation is at grade and was curious how you planned to protect from frost. 2 You said that you where able to get a grey water design passed by the state. I have been trying to talk with state of NH about a grey water system with composting toilets and they have not been very receptive to the idea. Does Maine have grey water included in there codes. Thanks for sharing your project ans I wish you the best on your journey.