The story of BPo3 Homestead

When I was 19, I bought an acre of land and found this house trailer. It was in such bad shape that the owner said that if I move it, I could have it. $440 later, I was the king of my castle and I turned the gutted living room into a wood shop. This was my very first wood shop. A few years later, I married the love of my life and I found myself doing maintenance work at an apartment complex. I cleaned out this junk three-bedroom unit, put some of my woodworking tools in it, acquired some more woodworking tools, and called it my second wood shop. It was here where I started this thing called a YouTube channel in 2012. In 2014, we purchased our first home, and I turned this 20x 20 ft two-car garage into my third wood shop. I learned a lot and built a lot in this space, and shortly before leaving, our daughter was born, and life slowed down quite a bit. Right after paying off our first house early and doing our debt-free scream, we sold and found a nice home in a nice community with a nice 30ftx40 ft pole barn out back. I turned the automotive man cave shop into the woodworking shop of my dreams. We snowballed the new house debt and once again yelled out a debt-free scream. Life was great. Life was easy. And sometimes when you eliminate challenges, life can get a little bit boring. We're in a town that we had no connections to and we're about an hour and a half away from our closest family. The housing market was high and we wanted to get closer to family. So, we sold almost everything in the house and a few spaceconsuming machines, packed all of our remaining belongings into a 40ft shipping container and moved 6 minutes away from my wife's family compound. And then life truly truly began. We bought a 100 acre chunk of forest with a single four-wheeler trail and a creek running through it. There was no driveway. We cleared the wall of trees to find a gate. Cut perimeter trails to better look after the entire property. Hired out the driveway excavation and bulldozer work. Marked off two acres to clear for a shop and a home site. Had those trees taken down with an excavator. Cut up several trees into logs before burning up my chainsaw. stacked the remaining trees into a 300 foot long burn pile. Had one heck of a controlled burn and that was hot. We realized most of the trees didn't burn, so we fished those out and gave them to some friends. We cleaned up the clearing in preparation for a shop build. Had underground electrical ran by our utility company and a dirt pad for the shop installed. Forestry mulched an area behind the shop for a future orchard. We trenched 1,300 ft and installed water pipe. Finally, the muddy driveway was covered in concrete wash out and then 57 limestone so that concrete trucks could make their way to the workshop site. Before the shop structure was built, I started taking down beetle damaged trees that could potentially hit the shop. The shop materials were delivered. And on day 214 of this venture, the shop assembly began. Day 228 was the final shop build day as well as the septic installation day. On December 1st, 2024, 237 days after purchasing the property, we moved our camper into the shop and started really living the good life. The front of the shop got some much needed dirt attention. We welcomed two Belgian Malininoa puppies to our family. The ConX was emptied as the tools finally made their way to the shop. And I knocked my jointer over in a really dumb dumb moment. I covered the dirt with more concrete wash out and oh yeah it it snowed. It snowed a lot. We got 6 in of snow and we built a snowman. More concrete wash out under the leanto. I hired a powerlifter named Clark so that we could utilize pallet racking in the shop. I completed phase one of four of installing my favorite shop lighting from American Green Lights and then completed phase two of four of installing my favorite shop lights from American Green Lights under the 20x 60 ft lean tube. The machines were put into place and I unpacked and I unpacked and I unpacked and I unpacked and I unpacked some more. Powered the tools with a sub panel and here we are day 430 of living the good life. It is June 12, 2025, and my Forever shop on our Forever Generational property is finally set up and operational. It's a 40ftx60 ft welded I-beam structure with 14 ft walls and a 20 ftx 60 ft lean tube. With the goal of not taking on any debt, we could only afford to buy the land and build either a shop or a house. We chose to build a shop first and live comfortably in our camper until we can afford to build the