Yesterday I posted a photo of my cabin in the woods, the one I bought in 2018. It was a tiny cabin, only 196 square feet, and I loved it, but it had many problems, so I built another cabin.
I've written about all of this in my #memoir Reflections: A Journey of Transformation. This section describes the issues of that tiny cabin, reflecting my decision to start building a new one.
Reflections
December 21, 2018
6:22 p.m.
Today, I started digging the ground. Why am I doing this?
Current Cabin: Current Problems 12/13/18
This cabin has no foundation. It sits on broken pieces of cinder blocks and rotten pieces of wood. The small size of the shower doesn’t allow me to lift both my arms at the same time to wash my hair. The bathroom has no sink; I have to use the hand-held shower head to wash my hands and face and to brush my teeth — not practical at all. The kitchen counter doesn’t have enough space to prepare anything (mix, chop, ...). The cabinets waste a lot of space because they occupy the whole area under the counter and have no shelves inside. I tried to put shelves and little drawers to organize non-perishable grocery items in that space, but the posts supporting it and the cabinet doors are too narrow, and nothing fits through them. The kitchen sink is ridiculously small. Anything I wash makes the water splash all over the counter. If the counter were empty, it would be easy to wipe it. It is not, though. My toaster oven, coffee maker, cooktop, and refrigerator are on the counter. Wiping the whole counter every time I wash a plate is super annoying and a definite waste of time. There are smaller issues, too. For instance, most of the electric outlets are located in places that can't be reached. No matter which way I put my bed, it covers three of the four outlets in the room. Another example is the toilet. Both the bowl and the tank have problems, so the toilet needs to be replaced completely. These could be fixed, but considering there are too many things to repair at a high cost and fixing all the little things would end up costing a considerable amount of money, it wouldn't make sense to spend any money on the current cabin. All of these, combined with my need for a little more space for a desk and a comfortable chair and my desire to have a fireplace, have convinced me that I need a new cabin, one that would be designed and built exactly the way I want.
