Back in August, I had been spending time on FB marketplace, looking for “free” things (you can actually be notified whenever anything free is listed). It just so happened that I was the first person to see the “free cabin” listed. I immediately messaged the owner, saying we would be there asap to get it. THEN I told Bud hahaha. Not exactly the order you SHOULD do things in a marriage but sometimes when a deal is there in the real estate market, you gotta strike first and talk about it later! Now, convincing Bud was…pretty easy. At first he said, I dunno, I want to do another rental next. I convinced him that this cabin COULD be a rental, an AirBnB, that could potentially make a lot of money! It really helped my case that we had just gotten back from a weekend at a cabin in Island Park…and he wanted one bad!

I really lucked out that the owner chose us and felt we were invested enough to proceed with acquiring the cabin. There was just one little problem…he wanted it moved off of his property so he could build another, larger cabin in its place. So, I started researching house movers. And I found one! He said he could move it for anywhere from $5,000-10,000. A large gap, but still cheaper than a cabin would have been!

The next hurdle was finding a perfect piece of land to move it to…and quick! I kid you not this whole thing kind of fell into place. It’s like the cabin and land found me. So, we were driving through Island Park, not finding what we needed. We found lots that were too expensive, too crowded, too far away, too many covenants restricting small cabins…on and on. We happened upon a lot in a really great area. The lot was in a huge tourist spot, where all the fun happens in IP! I told Bud to call the number on the realtor’s sign. Turns out, he had posted the sign just hours earlier and it hadn’t even been listed yet! Being a prime location, and an amazing price, with no covenants on AirBnB or size or anything…we snagged it! I tell ya…these things just find me!

So, we moved the cabin. And it was so fun! You can find the moving process on my Instagram highlights under “cabin”. This project has been such an adventure! Currently, it’s sitting in 6 feet of snow with no real way to get to it to work on it and start demo or anything else. But…the foundation is poured and as soon as the snow melts we can really start to tackle it! I can’t wait!

The Design:

For the design of the cabin, I was immediately drawn to black paint, white interior, wood floors, and LOTS of windows! I plan on blogging more about it as we get closer to actually designing it! I can’t wait to see this project unfold and to have a place to bring my family for years to come. We really are so blessed.