1st project of many!

So, here we have it, the first project of many!  My mother-in-law bought us a boat several years ago....it has never left the driveway as it needed far too much work for it to be safe/float ha ha!
So, hubby removed the boat (it was one of those inflatable ones, similar to what you might see James Bond speeding round the Thames on, but smaller!), and now we are left with a trailer that has a length of 3.2m (longer to the point of the tow socket thingymejig or what ever it is called - 3.2m is the square flat bit we can build on).

The idea was to turn it into a mobile chicken house, after-all, when we go tiny we're going to need to move the chickens and all the other animals with us....but it's very tempting to try fit some drop down bunks and a fold out bed - for us, not the chickens, somehow that's possible, right?!  Maybe we could turn it into the kids den/playroom, then turn the caravan (the one kindly given to us by some friends) into our first tiny home - but that is only 5m in length, so really would be tiny!

We're going to use materials from our collapsed hangar, there is plenty of wood there and some metal sheeting too!  Just need to be sure we don't go too heavy, or we're going to need a bigger trailer.

Any ideas are most welcome, even if they're a bit crazy!

Tiny Stove.

Isn't it cute!

Although it is going to be a pain in the ass for hubby to chop wood to fit in the tiny door, lol!

This is the stove we have at the moment and I adore it (it heats the entire house - in the winter it's often 24 oC inside), the one above is like a mini version, I'm so pleased to have found an almost identical match :)

Slide out, fold out, tiny home extension!

I just can't make my mind up about having a slide out....we live on the coast and get the most fierce winds, so I thought if we did have any slide outs, the tiny home would have to also function with them 'in' when the weather is severe!
Then, I spotted this video on one of the groups I follow.  I REALLY like this idea, I *think* it appears more weather proof than a slide out....but I'm no expert?  If we could make it work though it would create so much more space, maybe we could even fit two into the design?
At this rate I think we are going to have a huge house on wheels rather than a tiny home, lol!

Raising the roof!

One of the facebook groups I follow posted a link to this video today.  GENIOUS!!!!
Earlier this week hubby and I went for a drive round, to work out which roads we would use to access each of our fields, worryingly there were a lot of telephone wires that seemed quite low (although we haven't measured them yet).  This would be a solution to keeping the height of our tiny home down, but also enabling us to have the height we need when sited (we're both tall).
I'm so excited, another solution found, lol!

Happy Campers!

Well, long time no update!  REALLY must try harder....

Our friends have given us (how GENEROUS are they!!!!) a caravan, woohoo!
We are so excited so be able to go and camp in the van in our fields, lol!  Our girls LOVE the caravan and it has become an extension of the house.  It's 3 birth (so hubby will be on the single and I think I will have to sleep on the floor, in the niche under the double bed haha) and has a shower/loo.  It's small but has everything we need to camp....
We were given the caravan a couple of weeks ago, just at a time when I had had enough of this house!  The wind and rain we have had recently has been coming from the west, and the roof started leaking, water was coming in from round the velux window in our youngests room, travelling down the wall and into our downstairs bedroom....I had to sleep in another room as the damp smell was too much for my allergies!  We've only been here for 6 years (almost - next month), so we are still under guarantee, but it took TWO trips out from the building company to fix it, cause they didn't do a good enough job first time, grr!
So, there has been a LOT of talk about selling up and building our tiny home, and I can confirm it IS going to happen, we hope within the next two years (depending on selling our house).  I'm also back at work in a couple of weeks after having winter off, so another reason to get serious about it.  My hours have been upped, which is GREAT for the bank, but I'll be heading out as soon as hubby is home, and it really is NOT the life we planned when moving back to France!
Tiny House Nation has been playing on UK TV too, so feeling really inspired, it IS possible to live in small spaces, happily, comfortably, efficiently, ecologically!
We went to the prefecture last week to check our driving licenses, to make sure we are going to be legal and to ask about height/length/weight etc, so we know our restrictions, but we have to go to another office that's a 200km round trip, so it's planned for sometime very soon!
That's where we're at for the moment, I'm doing lots of sketching to see what we can fit into our tiny home....our girls MUST have a bedroom each, they're going to have mezz sleeping areas above too, which means the only room left for our master bedroom will be in our own mezz - so finding out the height restriction for towing is very important as hubby and I are tall, lol!

Just not happy!

I think we need to move, we need peace (from nosy neighbours lol) and we need freedom (sick of watching the pennies EVERY month!).  We're never going to be able to save up to do the extension, every time the bank recovers from the last disaster, there is something else to fork out for!
We're tired of being in the rat race - work, eat, sleep; work, eat, sleep....we do get free time but not with each other, not as a family, he works mornings through to early afternoon, and I work in the evening, so we get lunch together, but usually when the girls have gone back to school.  This isn't what we came back to France for.
So the search continues, I think we'll still stay local, as we love the area and the beaches....no idea what we will end up with though, a building plot to build an eco home, an earthship, or a tiny home and boat making do with the fields we have?  I want my own business too, a gite, a caravan, a 'glampsite' or a catering trailer/van, I think we may be having a joint midlife crisis, lol!
I don't know what we will do with the house, sell it or rent it out?  If we will keep any of the plot (maybe the field part and just sell/rent the garden part)....all ideas and thoughts welcome!  I hope we can make a decision (and one we WILL stick to) by the end of this year....

The plan!

So, a decision needed to be made, are we going to stay in our house, or are we selling up and living freely on our land....
We have decided to stay for now, however, we have our names down at a sailing port about 20 mins away, and have 2 years left to wait for a place - so it's a VERY good compromise. 
Just one thing, we'd better get saving up for a boat!
I found a renovation project (boat) last week, it was a 20m iron sailing boat, at a bargain price of 5k, no surprise it's been sold already!  However, I think our maximum size at the port is 15/16m, as we would have to moor at the pontoon rather than a buoy, as we have young children, so I must be sure not to get carried away when I'm looking, lol!