Normally this time of year I like to sit down and reflect upon the past year. Along with assessing my personal growth, I like to review some of the goals I had set for myself and compare what I had achieved to what I had not. So let’s do that.
2018 Goals
I had started out in 2018 with a bunch of entreprenurial goals I had established for myself. First of all, I wanted my business to set out on the path of becoming solvent. That is, I wanted to begin earning some profits for my endeavors. Regretfully, I never established a firm goal in mind, merely a general goal. In a later post I’ll go over the financial results of 2018, but for now I’ll just say that I have been pleased with how things ended for the year. That said, there is still much room for growth.
My goals for the property were pretty simple: complete (several) projects. The first thing we worked on this spring was building some cedar planter boxes for the beginning of our garden. This was a huge priority for us because one of the major benefits of us moving to the country was to be more self-sufficient in providing our nutritional needs; i.e. we wanted to garden.
Our old house in town did not provide for as much opportunity so we wanted to establish these planters in time for this growing season. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, and even happier that we got a chance to grow some of our own food. I’ll leave a link below to that video if you’d like to check them out.
After the beds were complete we set out to provide more storage for us. Our 20′ shipping container was quite full and disastrously disorganized, so we built overhanging shed roofs that run the length of the container. This allows us an extra 360 square feet of storage.
I didn’t film this process as I thought it would be quite boring, but they have worked out well for us, and I am happy with the extra storage that they have provided.
The next project we undertook was building a front porch pergola for our front door. We wanted a little platform to get out of the mud and something to add a bit of visual character to the front of our house. Given the design of the house, the front appeared a bit boring and boxy. This pergola helped to fix that.
We used all rough sawn cedar for the pergola and it was constructed with (mostly) traditional timber framing techniques. I enjoy this process and I want to take the time to practice it as often as I can to prepare myself for the eventual barn we’re going to build. You can see that video below.
The last project that we undertook this year was to rebuild my dad’s “little red shed.” I needed a place that I could work on projects during the winter time; last year I wasn’t able to complete anything as I didn’t have a headed space to work. This project got started a little later than I had hoped, so the weather turned foul during the reconstruction. I have this saved as a three part video series, and you can see that below.
Goals I Didn’t Meet
For the most part, I was pretty pleased with how 2018 ended up. I feel as though I set realistic goals for myself as we completed all four projects that we began. That said, there’s only one disappointment for the year: I didn’t buy a sawmill.
In my year end review for 2017 I did a video where I said that we’d be buying a sawmill in 2018. That was the goal, but in the end it didn’t turn out that way. I’ll discuss the reasoning behind that in just a bit. Buying a sawmill is still in our plans as we’ll rely on it to build our future barn as well as incorporating it into our business plan.
Personal Growth
Most importantly, we had a pretty significant milestone met in 2018 as Bre and I became engaged! We’re set to be married in 2019, so that will be another milestone accomplished. I’m thrilled to entering in the next chapter of our lives, and even though wedding planning can be frustrating and confusing I am excited for our upcoming ceremony.
This was also the rationale behind us not purchasing our sawmill this year. Understanding that a sawmill is a pretty hefty investment, we decided that we should focus on saving up for our wedding and being responsible. Starting our family growth together is a much greater priority than any business venture, so it was an easy decision. When the time is right we will plan how to allocate for the sawmill.
Goals for 2019
I’m going to do a separate post to review our financial results of 2018 as well as our goals for 2019, but I wanted to take a few minutes here just to lay out some of our project goals for the upcoming year.
Understanding that a lot of our time will be spent preparing for and planning our wedding, I don’t want to get too ambitious with project goals. That said, with our small shop almost up and running I am looking forward to completing several smaller projects over the winter and spring.
As far as big projects go, the main focus here is going to be creating a timber frame arbor for the wedding ceremony. This will be similar to the pergola we did this year, but it will be freestanding in the field.
Also, I need to finally get gutters put up on the house and the shed. In the spring, or any time it rains really, the yard becomes a saturated mess. Included with this project is a rainwater collection system for watering our garden. Our well is more than capable of supplying the garden, but if we can harvest it from the rain then why not put it to good use?
And my last project, if time and finances allow, is to begin the barn build. If we choose to begin this project, it won’t be until after the wedding as we don’t want to have the mess around for the ceremony. That said, if finances allow for us to purchase the sawmill, and I can source the lumber for milling, I’d like to begin constructing the barn.
I am fully aware that a timber frame gambrel barn of my design will take me several years to complete, so I’d like to get started as soon as I can. However, we might decide to wait until 2020 to begin it so that I can devote the entire summer to its construction – but that’s a conversation for another time.
So that was a pretty thorough review for the year I suppose. Looking back, I am grateful that we’re healthy, we achieved most of the goals that we set out for, and we have exciting events coming up in the new year. I wish you all Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year.