Alternate Universe

Ever feel like you are living in an alternate universe? Lets start with some assumptions first and most important is the size of a house in my theory building smaller would be less to heat less to cool and less to clean equaling less to build, this is were the alternate universe comes in, wrong, wrong, wrong! There again I am no math whiz but lets look at a 980 square foot house and our three contractor estimates they range in price from $240,000.00 to $180,000.00 so on the low side that is $183.00 per square foot to build, my daughter asked if for that price we were having marble imported from Italy, sadly no. The next assumption would be build tiny get it done faster, nope! Six months, come on it is a 980 square foot house, I thought the economy was down and builders were hungry for work ahhh nope! All of this news prompted me to go looking for alternate housing options my first stop was a Yurt, if you are not familiar with yurts they are a glorified tent you can check them out here http://www.yurts.com/  oh and I need to mention that I was serious about living in one. My next stop on the alternate housing list was a mobile home, now before you roll your eyes and picture overgrown grass a bunch of junker cars up on blocks with pack of hound dogs living under the cars all the while Mark and I sit on a rotting porch in what use to be our indoor furniture while spitting tobacco and drinking moon shine from a mason jar, times have changed. We spent an hour at the Clayton Homes lot in town and received a real eye opener, how about 30 year shingles, 2 x 4 construction with drywall and the same insulation and low e windows we wanted for the tiny house, cherry kitchen cabinets and solid surface counter tops, 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms and 1500 square feet, I know not tiny but not a McMansion either and still smaller than the house I live in now. Did I mention it has an open floor plan and a fireplace, oh and a mud room, vinyl siding, energy star appliances. And I don't have to pound one nail or paint anything, for $110,252.00 in case you are wondering that is $66.00 per square foot. So more math the difference between 180k and 110k is a bucket load of vacations!!! So it appears that there will be some redneck jokes in my future and maybe some bluegrass music probably no more dogs to the family, Mark says I have reached my maximum limit, but on seventy thousand dollars that I don't have to pay for a house I will be laughing all the to my next European vacation.