[jyl]

I'm imagining being five or ten miles out from a town that is small but still has stuff going on including music, art, etc. Easy enough to go into town daily, far enough to make utilities impractical to run.

Sewage seems not terribly hard - a septic tank that gets pumped out as needed, and you'd design the house to separate gray water from black water.

Fresh water - hmm, in the PNW you could use rain water collection/filtration for washing, and bottled or tap water from town for drinking/cooking. In California, off grid water might be tricky, unless groundwater was shallow enough.

I imagine that you can get internet most places that aren't too remote, using satellite down and cellular up, if not LTE all the way.

In the PNW, electricity could be tricky. We don't get much sun in the winter. Might have to combine solar PV + solar water heat + wind + battery + diesel genset. In CA, I'd think solar + batteries + backup diesel genset would be the way to go.

Heat from wood and propane, seems simple enough in the PNW where firewood is ample.

As for size of house - we'd have to downsize massively but I'll want to do that. 1000 sq ft would be perfectly fine. 500 sq ft would be doable too. Not sure what the wife would think about much smaller, but if she had her own separate studio/girlcave and it was sunny and warm, I think she'd be okay. In the California climate, seems you can live in outdoors space much of the time anyway.