A Great Leap in the Dark: March 2011

Monday, March 21, 2011

ulcers for nothing

Something weird happened this weekend. We were contacted by a TV show in NYC about possibly being on their Earth Day show that would feature tiny house living (or at least, living in small spaces).

I heard free trip to NYC and thought how could you not?? I quickly coerced Keith into it and also a friend in town (they wanted a family to stay in our house to see what it's like) and we talked on the phone with production agents. It was kind of exciting.

But it made my stomach hurt. I'll be the first to say our house is not exactly TV-ready. We have some Ongoing Projects. We're Waiting for the Right Materials to be found. Also, Money. Anyway, I did mention this to the lady in NY: We don't have a shower. We have a composting toilet. (Small white lie, but we could have built one in a couple hours.)

They said they'd call Saturday a.m. and we didn't hear back so we took the hint. (Kinda of rude, though, not to even say "Hey we decided to go another direction.") It was a little disappointing. But---mostly: a relief.

When I told my friend I didn't think it was going to happen and that I was kind of relieved not to have to do everything necessary to pull it off, she said she was too. That her husband was freaking out a little. (Mine, too!)

So while I obviously would have loved a free trip to NYC (amirite?!), I can't say it would have been worth all the stress. I found this blog post by a pretty famous blogging couple that does DIY home renovations and makes a living bloggging!, Young House Love, about how they were on this show that contacted us. And they were to NYC and back in 22 hours. That doesn't sound very fun.

And to be on TV and worry about being able to string together coherent sentences and trying not to think about the 10 pounds the camera adds. I mean, reading their blog post, I pretty much found out exactly what the experience would have entailed without all the stress.

When I hopped online Sunday morning I saw that a guy named Ryo who has a DIY house blog (Laptop and a Rifle) had finished up his Project 31, which meant "[S]pending an entire month (31 days) on my property this winter without leaving for any reason. During that time, I will subsist solely off of what I have at hand or can gather from my land."

And I realized: we're more Laptop and a Rifle than Young House Love. It's true. We're more about use than aesthetics, though we always take aesthetics into account. And so if they didn't want us because we're not polished enough, okay. We've declared our okayness with a) the salvage look and b) this whole thing being a work in progress. This is our house. AND: We don't need your stupid TV show.

Now that the weather is warmer (though still rainy), we're really motivated to make progress on projects that will make us more self-reliant out there: toilet, shower, working kitchen. I'd like to think is that this experience has been a boost to our motivation about checking off all of the many projects we have mentally lined up for our house. Just what we needed. Yeah.

So expect more posts that end in projects getting done? Or at least we'll start some. And eventually some will get finished. And eventually it will all be finished.