Life Off The Grid : No Electricity, no landlines, no problem

 No, we haven't pulled up stakes here at Dandelion House and headed for parts unknown. Not yet! But, we do runaway to our 3 season off-grid summer cottage every chance we get! By today's cottage standards, it's small. Under 2000 square feet is small in " house terms"  if you go by builders standards. I happen to love smaller homes. They have a certain charm and intimacy that larger homes sometimes lack. But, as I said, this isn't a beach house, or even a house. It's a COTTAGE. Topping out an just under 400 square feet it boasts one bath, one bedroom, one sleeping porch, one tiny kitchen and eating area and one outdoor solar shower! That's it! And, we love it! It's simple!

 One of the highlights of this summer was having our cottage and our unique off-grid beach community featured in a local magazine. The purpose of the feature was to share the charm and history of our area. There are many larger, more beautiful homes there that would certainly be worthy of a glossy magazine feature, however, the editors were more interested in the history of our neighborhood and our tiny cottage, the Sea Horse.

The top photo shows part of the 6 mile long dirt road we take to get to our cottage but don't try and sneak out to visit. Only residents and guests are able to drive through! 

On the left, our sleeping porch and the right is our cheery tiny kitchen.

As a blogger and writer I'm used to being behind the scenes when it comes to creating magazine features, so it was quite a treat to experience what it's like to be the one on the inside of the pages!  We met with the writer  ( Jane Spitz) one rainy day in April. A 4 wheel drive is necessary to get to our cottage so we picked her up at a nearby parking lot and drove her out the long stretch of beach road pointing out some areas of interest along the way. Although she lived nearby, she had never visited our area! A city girl at heart; it's not soft sand and waves that tug at her heart strings, but we did our best to make her a fan by the end of our visit. The cottage wasn't officially open for the season and we had to fire up our portable heater to keep our tootsies warm! As we sat in our little kitchen and watched the rain fall outside we shared our story over cheese and crackers.

 When photographer ( Rosemary Tufankjian ) came a month later ( with hubby and kids in tow ) it was the end of May and time to open the cottage for the season. I had already been planning for her visit so I did some sprucing up in the cottage to get things ready! They were such a nice family and quite taken with our area. While she snapped lots and lots of photos, her family built sand castles on the quiet beach in the late afternoon.

 

Would you believe both of our  kids had obligations that day they couldn't get out of? So, just my sweet hubby and I and our third child, Max posed for pics!

South Shore Living

What magazine you ask? South Shore Living! It's one of our favorite magazines for featuring local areas of interest, businesses, restaurants, and events!

 I wish I could link to the actual article for you, but I can't find it online anywhere! Below are a couple of links for you to visit if you wish to learn more about how we landed off grid on the shorelines. 

Want more cottage pics? Go here! 

 Visit the Beach Farmgirl Blog for my introductory post titled Sagebrush to Shorelines!