It's fun to dream

For a year or 2 now my husband and I have been saving money every month to buy a house "some day"  which to us meant probably not for another 12+ years when he retires from the military.  The money comes automatically out of his paycheck like the kids collage savings plans and our retirement plan.  It was so far out into the future that we didn't really think much about it.
But recently we have been day dreaming of buying something small near our families in a vacation community so we can use it in the summer and rent it out to skiers in the winter.  Who knows if it will ever happen, but the idea of it has been making it easier to increase the amount of money we are putting into our account every month.

Some of the options we have been finding are:

• Ski in/ski out condos.  Those are really small, but probably easy to rent out because they are so convenient.
• Cabins that are close to the resort shuttle locations so we could have more space and an easy way for vacationers to get to the slopes.  
• Buy land and build our own cabin on our own time.

My favorite thing has become the idea of buying some land.  Because when we look at properties online, no matter how perfect they might seem to us, they probably won't be available when we are ready to buy.  

Its fun to see lots on the computer and research things about it like...

• Could we camp out on the land for fun before we decide to build?
• Are there rules about how long the land can stay empty before we build?
• How close are the trail heads and ski lifts?
• how much would it cost to install all the necessary utilities on land that is not yet equipped with power, water, sewer/septic...

But even more fun than looking at land is looking at floor plans/making our own floor plans.  We especially love the idea of floor plans that can be added onto in the future.

• A free floor plan website 
• A building cost calculator
• We found this website that has floor plans for sale with guesstamits on how much they would cost to execute.  Here are some of our favorites for a snowy area like Snoqualmie Pass.

• 1 story country Tudor $68,130-$128,690

• cheep lake house* $43,200-$81,600

• cheep camp cabin* $48,600-$91,800

• Shed House* $84,240-$159,120  

•  A Frame House* 

• 2 story A-frame* $71,640-$135,230  

• 2 story chalet $70,380-$132,940 

•  bunk house kit $56,900

• Silver ranch kit**  $135,995 

•  Linwood kit** $114,700  

•  Unique 2 car garage apartment plans*

•  Unique 3 car Garage Apartment* 

•  The craftsman* 36 $28,728 

•  Mason* $43,925

*plans with Lofts for bunkbeds and cousin sleepovers :)
*So small the bedrooms don't even have built in closets.  (Meant to be true vacation cabin I think.)
*Something we could comfortably retire in
*Garage with apartment above for a quick build on a lot

As fun as it is to dream, dreams don't always last.  Before I was done dreaming of our attainable vacation cabin/condo, sam moved on to bigger and better things.  He is now dreaming of buying a real home in about 5 years if all the planets a line and we get stationed in Washington.  And now he has gone money saving crazy.

In his search for a home near the WA military bases he has found some great things that we should be able to afford.  He showed me one that I liked and decided I must document the awesome master suite.

I LOVE that bathroom/closet set up.

We don't know what our future holds, but we know we will need to keep saving money to make our dreams come true.

New idea 2-28-2014
Every day when my husband comes home he likes the kitchen counter to be clean so he can use it to look through the mail.  I love that he takes the responsibility to get the mail, sort through it and manage the monthly bills.  But I hate that his mail place is also my kitchen space.  It just makes it hard to clean.  When mail is left out occasionally, I never know what to do with it.  I normally just pile it up at the far end so he can sort through it when he has time.
I think the perfect solution would be a counter against 1 wall in the mud room.  It could be all his, out of the way when we have guests & it would simplify kitchen clean up.  Right now we have a roll top desk in the kitchen that is "his"  but the kids and I use it too.  It's size is probably the reason why he just leaves the mail on the counter.  Maybe I should clean the desk out and rededicate it to him as a solution until its dream house time.

New idea 6-6-2014
Sometimes we think it would be fun to do an off-the-grid cabin, mini-survivalist style.  But I can't imagine enjoying it when it gets too hot.  This homemade air conditioner would be inexpensive and not use too much electricity from our solar panels.  Basically it is a cheep styrofoam cooler with 2 holes cut in the top.  1 for a fan to blow into it.  The other to put an elbow Shaped PCV pipe for the air to flow out of.  Then all you have to do is add a big hunk of ice to the inside and you've got 10 hours of cold air :)  desertsun02 on youtube has a lot of cool do it your self projects that are easily powered by solar panels.