Zeroing In

Negotiation. For some people this word is a "let the games begin" signal. For others, it is stressful and dreaded process. Historically we have been firmly in the second camp. We might have been able to avoid doing much of it under different circumstances. But our journey brought us to land being sold by the owner with no realtor in sight. So we've been dealing directly with the owner, which is a much more personal and potentially emotional process. Although we've been doing extensive reading on buying raw land and negotiating, none of this stuff is really adequate to the task. Like all else on our journey, whatever maps of the territory there might be are of limited or no value.

We ruminated for quite some time about the process of making an offer for this land. Even determining a fair price seemed impossible. Finally Cheryl plunged in and created a document. We decided not formalize an offer at this stage but rather express our understanding of the situation, declare our intentions and put forth a "proposal". We met with the owner for several hours, discussing our document, using it as a springboard to understand the owners goals. It was a very amiable afternoon - not the eyeball-to-eyeball exchange I had been dreading. Since then he has made a counteroffer, accompanied by an explanation of what he is after.

Throughout this process, we have felt blessed by interacting with a very spiritual owner. Yes he wants to make money from this transaction. But he has been very transparent about his life. In a short time we have become good friends with the owner and his wife. They live about an hour west of here, almost to New Hampshire. We would love to be neighbors of theirs but land is even harder to get there and it is farther from Portland. I know becoming friends with the folks you are buying land from violates one of the principles of dispassionate negotiation. And it will make it harder in some ways. But we feel coming to know these people has a greater purpose than mere financial exchange. So we pay attention to the intuitive as well as the rational and especially the spiritual however it manifests.

Home design is our other major focus. For financial reasons and because we want to get to the next phase of our lives, we have been looking a 2 step home construction process. Originally we hoped to use our travel trailer, combined with some other shelter to create temporary housing on the land. We determined that the trailer will be fine for construction convenience but will not be viable for winter living. So we switched to the idea of building an apartment over a shop for our initial housing. The shop will function as living space until the real house is built. Our plan has been to build about 1000 sq. ft. that we can live in indefinitely so that we can take our time designing and building the real house. Having recently lived in 700 sq. ft. with 3 people and 3 pets, we know 1000 sq. ft. will do the job nicely. In fact it may be so nice we never build the real house! If so that's fine too.

At any rate, the house shown above embodies some of the ideas we have for the real house. This house is located in Plattsburg, NY, not too far from the Canadian border. The house is a circular earth-bermed structure. It has a living roof (soil and plants) and the exposed walls are built using cordwood masonry. This style is quite old and employs logs about 8-12" long, set in mortar to form the wall. The log-ends form the exposed portion of the wall. The inside and outside mortar joints are separated by a treated sawdust infill which provides a thermal break. The wall is rated at R-19. The walls in contact with earth are built using dry-stacked concrete block, arranged in a radial fashion. These walls are coated with surface bond cement, water proofing and insulation. I attended a one-day seminar on earth sheltered construction at this home last month. We are consider incorporating cordwood masonry into our new home.















These two homes represent possible designs for what we call the "shop house". These houses are kits made by a company in New Hampshire called "First Day Cottage". Virtually everything arrives on a flat bed semi. They are designed to be built by the average person and are very economically priced. We especially like the "woody" interior and of course the relative low price. Here's an interior view.
As I mentioned, we may come to enjoy living in the shop house so much that we never build the main house! At the beginning of this posting, I also included an architectural rendering of a possible main house design. This design is earth sheltered, passive solar heated.

And so we continue learning to trust. Cheryl is much farther along in this arena than I. I sometimes call her the "Laughing Budda" as she helps me on this path. I'm surprised she doesn't call me "Grasshopper". For anyone who wasn't a TV watcher in the '70's, the grasshopper reference comes from the show Kung Fu. Grasshopper was the young monk in training.

Trust. Such a simple word. So difficult to achieve. So easily shattered. So necessary to our thriving and surviving.