the garage

After vigorously gathering photos, making plans, and sitting down to finally write this post, it feels like it’s finally time to let everyone in on the news . We bought land! Eight acres to be exact. This is something we knew we wanted for some time and never really thought it was going to be possible. In all honesty, this is something we feel a little behind the curve on. However, we had to look at it through our own lens and not the lens of others.  After being homeowners for 7 years in Johnson City, Tennessee, we sold our house and held onto our little chunk of money to one day figure out what to do with it. The search began, only to be completely devastating. We could find nothing in the areas we wanted to live and nothing anywhere near what we could afford . We really didn’t want to do the small older starter home again.(Most of the these homes within reasonable price ranges required some major love anyway). We shifted our focus to acreage, woods, fields, anything but a swamp. So while living in our parents basement apartment these past three years (being the shameless frugal individuals we are) we waited, searched, and saved. Then through a family connection this little plot of land that was going up for sale made its way to us. Quickly we were hit with another huge slice of reality. To buy this land and build a home we would love for years was more of a financial burden than we wanted take on at this time.  This land was too perfect and given opportunity on the market it would surely be snatched up quickly . Perfect location, perfect acreage, and perfect price. Then Josh had a light bulb moment. The old garage attached to the barn was just sitting there staring us in the face. Josh turned to me and said “would you be okay living in a studio style apartment”? Since I was at the point where I would live in a tent on the property (truly I had placed that one in the suggestion box), if that meant we could buy it, a studio apartment was the perfect compromise. That’s when we knew this whole thing was a green light. We are very blessed by the fact that my father is a contractor and that Josh’s parents are also extremely savvy and will help out with the building process. This garage may still look like an old car workshop (which it once was) but we are excited to share our experience in renovating it into a living space and why we are choosing this kind of lifestyle. We hope you will  join along as we make our little garage a home.

Cheers,

Brenna + Josh

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all photos by Zion Creative