Our Tiny Finished House
From James Donahue’s Journal
When I look back on it, the work we did on that little house on Deckerville Road was ingenious. The bedrooms abutted each other on the west side. Jennifer had the small bedroom at the back of the house with a nice walk-in closet. Our bedroom, once the wall was up, was hidden behind two folding wooden doors that made it possible for us to install a wooden built-in combination closet and chest of drawers at the far south end of the room. Our bed just fit at the other end. We made space at one corner of our cabinet to place a color television set. We installed a large satellite dish in our front yard (the only place trees didn’t block the satellite signal) so we had great television. I think Jennifer even had a smaller personal television in her room.
We found a compact refrigerator made in Japan that just fit outside Jennifer’s bedroom door, and installed an apartment sized gas stove next to the sink. Everything just fit in our mini kitchen. And we still had room in the southeast corner of the house, in front of a large picture window, to place a small couch. We had a drop-leaf table and folding chairs that we used for our meals. I installed a parquet floor on top of a plywood sub-floor, which in turn was placed above furring strips so we did not have the effect of living on a concrete floor. We poured insulation in the attic. I reroofed the house and painted it. We ended up with a perfect little bungalow for the three of us. The utility bills were extremely low and we did not have house payments. We could not have had a better situation.
By the second year I erected a small storage shed in the rear yard and had a garden. The biggest problem was the massive yard that had to be tended to regularly. I always hated mowing grass. I don’t know why we didn’t buy a riding mower to take care of that yard, but we didn’t.
I planted a garden at the back of the property and had relatively good success with it. But we were constantly attacked by the deer, raccoons and other wildlife living nearby that it was a constant battle to keep any produce for ourselves. Wayne erected ten-foot tall fencing around his garden, but the deer could scale even that. Matt suggested dried blood, purchased at a farm supply store, as a possible repellant. That didn’t work either. My father had some success using a radio constantly playing in his garden. But that was a rural area and his radio was not annoying his neighbors. We finally discovered that human urine worked quite well. Thus it was common practice, especially after every rain, for me to be standing in my garden in the night, urinating around the edges and down between the rows.
From James Donahue’s Journal
When I look back on it, the work we did on that little house on Deckerville Road was ingenious. The bedrooms abutted each other on the west side. Jennifer had the small bedroom at the back of the house with a nice walk-in closet. Our bedroom, once the wall was up, was hidden behind two folding wooden doors that made it possible for us to install a wooden built-in combination closet and chest of drawers at the far south end of the room. Our bed just fit at the other end. We made space at one corner of our cabinet to place a color television set. We installed a large satellite dish in our front yard (the only place trees didn’t block the satellite signal) so we had great television. I think Jennifer even had a smaller personal television in her room.
We found a compact refrigerator made in Japan that just fit outside Jennifer’s bedroom door, and installed an apartment sized gas stove next to the sink. Everything just fit in our mini kitchen. And we still had room in the southeast corner of the house, in front of a large picture window, to place a small couch. We had a drop-leaf table and folding chairs that we used for our meals. I installed a parquet floor on top of a plywood sub-floor, which in turn was placed above furring strips so we did not have the effect of living on a concrete floor. We poured insulation in the attic. I reroofed the house and painted it. We ended up with a perfect little bungalow for the three of us. The utility bills were extremely low and we did not have house payments. We could not have had a better situation.
By the second year I erected a small storage shed in the rear yard and had a garden. The biggest problem was the massive yard that had to be tended to regularly. I always hated mowing grass. I don’t know why we didn’t buy a riding mower to take care of that yard, but we didn’t.
I planted a garden at the back of the property and had relatively good success with it. But we were constantly attacked by the deer, raccoons and other wildlife living nearby that it was a constant battle to keep any produce for ourselves. Wayne erected ten-foot tall fencing around his garden, but the deer could scale even that. Matt suggested dried blood, purchased at a farm supply store, as a possible repellant. That didn’t work either. My father had some success using a radio constantly playing in his garden. But that was a rural area and his radio was not annoying his neighbors. We finally discovered that human urine worked quite well. Thus it was common practice, especially after every rain, for me to be standing in my garden in the night, urinating around the edges and down between the rows.