The Glamping Garage

Glamping (or glamour camping) I’ve heard is quite a big trend in luxury accommodations. While our glamping garage is not luxurious, we like to joke that it is!

At this point in the journey we’re thankful just to be able to camp indoors.

Any time that can be spent at the farm working in the barn and observing where the sun shines is joyfully appreciated, especially because it feels like we’re making progress.

Not glamorous, just cozy

In an effort to scrape up more of that valuable on-farm time, we’ve set up the glamping garage. The garage is frugally outfitted and comfortable with a bunch of camping and household fixtures:

• A sweet, old chuck box that came from my Aunt Joanne’s father
• Two like-new futons that I picked up in Wilmington on Craigslist
• Chairs that Kimmy picked up from a rummage sale
• Two fold up camping chairs for guests and sitting by the camp fire
• A fold-able camping table borrowed from the in-laws

Converting it from the old dusty auto shop into something we could sleep in took a while. It’s still not totally cleaned up. We’ve made numerous trips to the dump and swept all we could.

With the electric now hooked up we can make good use of the mighty shop vac! Vacuuming and a numerous amount of dryer sheets has helped. We placed these around as a rodent deterrent and as an aroma enhancer to cover up the well-established odors of oil and gas from the auto shop days.

Now the garage is pretty cozy.

Telecommuting from the farm

We don’t have access to high-speed cable internet where the farm is located and I haven’t heard good things about satellite internet, which is another option.

But for now I’ve found that I can get a good 4G LTE signal right near the backdoor, where the view overlooking the Boquet Mountains is pleasurable.

I’ve been able to do some of my online marketing jobs from the farm which is ideal.

I am using my iPhone 5C as a personal WiFi hot-spot plugged into my laptop. The speed is surprisingly good.

I can put in my hours online and then spend the rest of the day in the barn and continue to make the garage more hospitable into the evening.

Not quite ready for AirBnB just yet

We’ve had family over for lunch on separate occasions. No sleepovers yet but that is the next logical step.

Lots of friends and family want to stay over and lend a hand. And we may have friends from Norway coming over for a visit later this Fall.

I promised them that I’ll have the wood stove hooked up, a shower and a private spot for the composting toilet all set-up before they arrive!

Rustic Functional

The first night we stayed over at the farm was during the Super Moon and it was a spectacular night that we’ll never forget. The electric wasn’t hooked up yet and we didn’t miss it at all because the Moon lit up everything inside the garage. It was actually pretty magical.

Obviously this isn’t exactly the same type of glamping that is featured in the NY Times, but it’s the perfect amount of rustic functional and frugal living that seems to be working out well for us so far… in the journey!