In The Beginning....

Call me Radley.  Radley Buttons. I'm attempting to build myself a tiny house.  I was driven to this option after being permanently displaced (much of which is to do with a lazy, good for nothing, fugitive brother in law, and no, I don't know where he is), and a friend presented the idea to me.  He's a tiny house addict.  His pitch made a lot of sense, too.  "Why pay money to rent?  Why not use that money to actually own something?"  As a former car salesman, I have to say, it was a good pitch.  I was brought back to the argument of leasing versus buying.  Here's a tip.  We loved it when you leased.  For one, we knew you were coming back.  Two, and this is the bigger secret, we could manipulate the price into whatever we wanted cause it isn't shown on the buyer's order.  All we have to say is you had bad credit, and BAM!  Instant paycheck.

Back on track, though.  Yeah, I'm building a tiny house.  Attempting to, is more like it.  Don't get me wrong, I am building one.  It's still just a matter of where.  Right now, I've found a piece of land that's in my price range.  I'm just waiting to get the proper variances from the city to start building on it.  Even had it written into the contract that if I can't get the variances I need, the contract is null and void.  Always cover your bases, kids.

Every good house needs a name.  In watching tiny house videos, I've noticed that every single one of them has named their house something.  Originally I was going to go with Greywater Watch, the seat of House Reed in A Song of Ice and Fire.  They've always been my favorite house.  I'm the kind of guy that roots for the little guy, the underdog, and there are no greater underdogs than the Crannogmen.  Don't know why, really.  Howland Reed is probably the most bad ass mother fucker in all of Westeros.  I mean, this guy 1v3'd the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Westeros Batman, and an alien armed with a lightsaber.  And won.  Howland Reed, man.  You don't mess with him and the Viet Cran.  Just ask them Iron Babies at Moat Cailin.

I realized, though, that I needed something personal to me.  Yeah, I like Greywater Watch and all, but there was a better answer out there, and it was right in front of my face.  That answer, was Varn.

I guess you guys are gonna need a little background info here.  Varn is a massive in joke with my D&D/Pathfinder group.  One session, our DM got his notes mixed up, and the name of the town, which we were already told, got switched with the name of the baron for the town.  Our DM, being one of the best I've ever had the privilege of sitting at the table with, rolled with it, and suddenly "Varn" became much like the word "Smurf," because Lord Varn was that egotistical.  Hilarity ensued, and after that, whenever someone couldn't think of a name for something, the fallback option was forever "Varn."  It was our running gag, and we found it hilarious.

When we transitioned into an ASOIAF RPG campaign, it was only natural that for a house name, the gang chose Varn.  It was there that Varn sort of took on a new meaning.  Rather than being our running joke, Varn became us.  Like all great houses in Westeros, words were needed.  We decided to go with an old standard among us.  These were words said, usually by my friend Mike, whenever something was attempted, whether it be real life or in game.  Want to explore that dark cave?  Radley planning on dating a woman he's already dated twice and we all know it's just gonna go to shit again?  One more drink can't hurt, right?    Every time, the same thing was always said:

"This can only end in tears."

Yeah, this blog is starting off with a whole bunch of optimism.

Anyway, we decided to get a standard as well.  I mean, the Starks have the direwolf, the Boltons have the flayed man, Lannisters have their lion, what of us?  Why, the only thing important to us!  Booze and gaming.  So our standard flew with drinking horns and dice.  With this, Varn truly was ours now, and no longer just a joke.

The artist behind that work up, a Ms. Rae Kochanski, is currently working on a version of that very coat of arms burned into wood.  I plan on hanging it from my porch, officially making my tiny house The Varnhold, the name of the seat of house Varn.  Granted, I won't have the sprawling keep, but my tiny house will be all I need.

In the future, you can expect more updates on how this is going, videos of the actual building, and probably more bullshit like you've already read today that has absolutely nothing really to do with tiny houses.  I'll try for the most part to keep things on topic, though.  Until next time.

TTFN