This is a home my husband and I have talked about building three months ago and now we are here. I am in awe at our ability to create and “manifest”. On this level of manifestation, we’re not imagining a home and then seeing it appear one day. Yet, in some ways we are, after much time, effort and help. I am always in awe and thankful.

We began in March

We had been talking about what we were going to do after we got married. Hubs was working hard in his full time job and we had both saved up some money in preparation for moving into a home of our own. Somehow, we had choices. We could move into an apartment and had narrowed down to a few options but then, we got the opportunity to live on some land they had.

But how were we going to do that?

We read up on building styles and were keen on building something affordable and simple. His sister and her partner had been taking lessons on building with mud or Adobe. It was exciting and not unfamiliar to us so it was an option. So was building with other natural materials. Hubs grew up seeing Earthships so he wasn’t as fascinated as I was with them and he had a very practical approach to things. But we had a start!

One of my favorite memories was the day we were talking about building a round structure and it turned into a fun conversation with his parents as we tried to figure out the dimensions and how it could possibly be done, structurally.

After about a month and a half of talking about this, we finally made our move to New Mexico!

Before building

It took us four weeks before we began doing any actual building, so I’m taking us back to the before we started building.

We arrived in New Mexico in April and took time to settle down. To me, it was in some ways, different from where we’d been in Arizona. Nature is everywhere I look here. The move was highly anticipated but it felt different without his parents; they had been so lovely and I enjoyed their company a lot. Yet, we were very fortunate to have so much help and love from family and friends when we arrived.

In that first week of arriving, my husband and I visited the high desert mountain area we were preparing to move up to just once. It was daunting. We were looking at full-time camping with no easy access to water or electricity. Fortunately, we had a comfortable house at his Aunt’s to head home to every night in those first four weeks.

Somehow, everything we did do in those four weeks was preparing us for being out here.

Looking back, the reality was that it did not happen “somehow”. Despite our uncertainties, we had progressively worked our way up and it was all, really, a result of a lot of thought, intuition and clear vision that my husband has. I appreciate him so much.

By the end of the fourth week of being in New Mexico, we had visited the property once and then camped for a night up at a Ski Valley. It was my first time camping and Hubs was determined to ease me into it.

Week One, of building

After five weeks of living in town, we made our move to the valley! We are surrounded by mountain ranges and it is beautiful here. That week, we went and got the materials to begin building the foundation of the house. We got a little lumber and some cement to fill into tubes in the ground to build a foundation. It took Hubs a few weeks to be clear on what he wanted to do.

By the end of that week, we had the first six holes of the foundation dug out. In fact, we did it the day right before Hubs’ birthday! The holes were going to be 2-feet deep and at that point, we actually had no clue how much work six 2-feet holes was going to be… Thankfully, his sister and her partner had come up for a birthday cook-out and we ended the party with some home-cooked Thai green curry, beers, shovels and six holes. The next day, we dug more holes for the middle to prepare for laying the base down.

week two, of building

I had to rest a little that week as I was badly sunburnt after the first week. The area is at an elevation of 7,600 feet above the sea. It is beautiful but so high up, the sun is intense. I felt terrible about what happened to my skin. To me, I was not taking good care of myself — which was my highest priority — and I had to do better. It caused a strain on our relationship as we both felt our needs weren’t heard. I felt a heavy responsibility to step up and fill these shoes of a partner out here. He needed my help with the building and with little tasks around the van we were living in. Yet I would tell him something was wrong with my skin and I needed to go easy. He would initially brush it off as nothing. It took a while and some more time in the sun for it become severe enough that he decided I had to stay out of the sun. He tried his best to care for me and was concerned, but we still needed to get things done. I learnt to build stronger boundaries and experienced the need for forgiveness.

By the next week, my skin healed up enough for me to move around with my neck covered outside. I learnt I wasn’t protecting myself from the sun enough and gave more attention to that. To help my skin recover, I noticed using a salve I had bought (for Hubs actually) from True Love Honey helped so much. They are based in Arizona and I am so thankful I had one of their salves. Shout out to them!

Week Three, of building

We would walk or drive five minutes from the van to the site almost every day. The weather is harsh out here. It’s both sunny and windy. The wind picks up a lot of sand and it’s rough.

By the end of the second week, we had laid down the base and made sure everything was leveled. The land we are on has a slight slope. This made it a little tricky. This week (same day as the June 2 photo above) we managed to put up three panels of plywood wall.

It was the hardest thing we had to do this whole time! Occasionally, Hubs would prep talk me into what needs to be done. For this, he goes, it’s going to be hard. You’re going to feel like you want to give up, but you’re going to have to put in more. At this point, I felt like I had gone through a lot and given a lot. So when he said more, I would lose my mind but would get a grip each time and accepted it. And it was true. It was not easy and he would get extremely frustrated at me. I had to learn everything while doing it. And he had to do just the same. He learnt how to explain and prepare me for things better. Still, we would end up in fights and would attempt to make up by the end of the day.

At the end of the third week, we got some help. His aunt and her partner had been there for us this whole time and they had not seen us for three weeks. After visiting us, Richard decided to come up and give us a hand. He had a lot of experience building and I love how people extend a hand whenever they can here.

His presence, knowledge and tools made a big difference. They had also looked out for building materials and generously shared them with us. Hubs and I learnt a lot within that week. And everything moved so quickly. We learnt to measure and build the frame on the ground before lifting and attaching it to the base. We learnt to watch out for the corners and to insulate this one corner before sealing the wall in. I learnt how to frame windows and how to attach a roof. I am so grateful for Richard’s help.

It made me feel a little sad when we finally did put all the walls up. It felt so different with it exposed because it was like we were a part of nature. Now that it was sealed it, it felt small, enclosed and cut off. Of course Hubs thought I was just emotional and he was overjoyed we were so much closer to getting a little cabin to live in. I was definitely excited too. He reminded me that we are still part of the beautiful nature around us and we just had to step outside or look out the windows.

The same day, the three of us pushed through the heat, sand and some light rain to put up the roof. Boy, that was amazing to watch.

Eventually, we finished the roof and worked on putting the windows in. This required extra precision and was a cool learning. We ended the day with wrapping the house in waterproofing plastic to keep the rain out. After this is done, we would, in time, have to plaster the outside of it. It looks funny because the little shed of a house now looks branded with the Ace wrapping paper. We only did a little wrapping that day because we were exhausted!

Week Four, of building

Hubs and I took a little break after that week, as did Richard. It was a lot of hard work. Richard was confident he had come help up with the toughest part and left us to finish the house on our own. That week, Hubs and I finished wrapping the entire house, from top to bottom. We knew we couldn’t take our time as we had to protect the wood from the rain.

By the end of that week, we had put in our door but had received a beautiful old door from Richard and Amanda. It was old so we had to work on some of its parts. On top of that, we had to figure out how to put the door in. I spent a quarter of the day sawing at the frame to make it all even. I used a Japanese hand saw I had bought and I feel like I had become the girl who only works with one tool. That little hand saw was real neat to work with. Thank you hand saw.

Week Five, of building

We move into the fifth week with our little shed cabin standing strong against the wind!

We spent this week working on some finishing within the house. Were we exhausted and moving slower that week? Yes. We were tired physically and emotionally. We were still living in the van and walking over to the site every day. However, we were getting closer to moving into the shed cabin. Hubs was feeling increasingly frustrated with living in the van because we couldn’t stand properly in it, couldn’t move around without waiting for the other to make space. Moving around also meant just moving across to a seat on the opposite side of the bed. He was frustrated with always having to fight the wind and of cooking out in the dust. It was hard. I always thought nothing would be hard if we had each other and loved each other through it all. I took in a lot of his frustration and took many walks to calm myself. Love and praying really, really helped me get through it all.

On June 20th, almost exactly a month after we started digging those six 2-feet holes for the foundation, Hubs and I moved into our shed cabin. I didn’t feel ready because I wanted it to be even more ready, but he had had enough of being in the van. That day, we both very happily and excitedly moved in after going out to buy ourselves an air mattress.

So there we have it. Our little shed cabin, lovingly built. Thank you for being with us everyone. And thank you to our strong hands and feet and strong tools. I truly learnt to appreciate everything and appreciate how good enough is perfect for the moment.