A Statement of Purpose.

So why do this? Why buy an old mobile home? Why improve it way beyond it's original intent? Why put all of your energy into a trailer house?

That's what she said.

Just kidding.

After buying our first home, a 1080 square foot 1928 wood frame in a small town, we worked very hard to customize and personify our dwelling while also improving it's efficiency. It has been a wonderful seven year adventure. When we look around at our work, we are proud of the distance we have come. We also want to be somewhere new seven years from now. We're only on this earth for a brief life, so we better experience whatever it is we desire.

We want to live on an unrestricted piece of land. We want, for ourselves and for our children, the freedom to live as we please.  We're no different than everyone else on this earth. Here in central Texas, land is not cheap. In order to purchase a piece of land to our liking, we would have to live in a tent. Not  that I'm judging tent dwellers, it just would not work for our family.

We had recently bought a funky old travel trailer and were enjoying the freedom and flexibility that it afforded us when the light bulb went off in our heads. What if we bought a bigger travel trailer and lived in it while we built a home? The idea sounded perfect to me, but not so for my wife. She was homeschooling our girls at the time and her mind drifted to the idea of rainy days with grumpy daughters while Daddy was away at work. Fair enough.  She thought about it for several months. So did I. It was gonna be really cramped in there with 2 kids.

What about a mobile home? Yuck. it just has a lousy feeling to it. Sorry mobile home dwellers, we're just too damn picky.

I was still looking at travel trailers and hoping that I could find one that felt big enough to us. My wife was halfway on board when I stumbled on to this trailer house. I drove the couple hours to check it out. I think my wife allowed me to go look at it feeling fairly certain that something major would be wrong with it and that I would come back empty handed. We had been through that scenario several times before.

Instead, I came back home with a vision. I envisioned this trailer house in my driveway, built out with cash before we sold our home. I envisioned the profit from our home sale becoming a handsome down payment on a piece of land. Land where my family's hobbies, ideas and interests can develop. And our basic needs are met in a mobile home packed with design features and customization at every corner. A perfect blend of 1961 vintage and 2014 modernism. A large screened porch with fire pit. A 3 story lookout tower.  Wood. Aluminum. Concrete. Steel. Freedom. Flexibility.