Lovin' Craigslist

Some of you already know what a cold and rough winter we had last year in the temporary housing here are Cottonwood. The temporary housing is a 1972 (pre-HUD certified) mobile home that not only seen better days, has not been loved and cared for like a mobile should....huh??

Anyway, it was so cold last year, huge gaps around the doors, a gale blowing through the windows (single pane, gun shot riddled, plexi-glass) (and note to why I no longer clean these windows because wherever there is a gunshot hole, when I clean it cracks bigger, so I just don't clean), and a big porch front and back to little sun ever gets into the house and warms it. It was VERY cool all summer but we pay for this in the winter. So knowing that we have at least 2 more winters in this thing, we took charge this winter.

First thing was to improve the weatherstripping around the doors, then we plastic wrapped all the windows, can feel that improvement already and its not that cold. And then we replace that nasty behemoth of a stove the house came with turned out to be completely useless with a Craigslist find. We responded to a local Craigslist ad last spring for a wood burning stove, knowing that any other make, brand, model stove would be an improvement over this thing. We turned up and the lady had a few stoves for sale and cut us a deal. I know what you are all saying, why on earth do you need multiple stoves...well we thought we would need one for the "cottage" when that is finished and maybe one in the shop. So we bought two stoves, one cool contemporary looking one, a Vermont Casting stove and she threw in a broken pellet stove for free. Remember I live with horder extraordinaire so his ears perked when he heard free and broken and was thrilled when he found there was still room on the truck...Oh Yipppeeee......

So true to his word he replaced the motor and fiddled with a couple other things with the stove and a the other week we installed it. There was a small learning curve on this BUT its fabulous. Its clean, low maintenance, runs for a good long time and gets our place really toasty. So with our new weatherization tricks and the stove so far we are running around in the nuddy having a grand ole' time.

Apparently Ziggy and Denali feeling the heat as they get all lovey dovey with each.