Since so much has changed in the last year I wanted to tell (and show) you what we’ve been doing out here on the farm.
The pictures below will give you a bit of an idea as far as what we did, but I’ll run you through it, anyway.
A few years ago we made the decision that we needed a new home, mainly because we were freezing to death every winter. Our old farmhouse was not completely beyond repair, (it needed a new basement, the walls were insulated with newspaper, we needed a bedroom and bathroom on the main floor, it also needed a new roof, siding and windows) but it would have cost us a ton of money to get what we wanted and we would still have been living in a 140+ year old house, so we chose another route.
We knew that we wanted to be able to live on one level for old age, and we wanted to be warm, but we didn’t want to go into debt $250,000 either. So after looking at modular homes, and the prices of stick built homes we lucked out and found a perfect little rambler (4 bedroom, 2.5 bath) was not only built like a tank, but it would save us money, and give us everything we wanted if we were willing to work for it. The house was moved from about 35 miles away, and had been on another farm place up until the owners decided to build a new home.
Last May of ’14 our old farmhouse was torn down, and we were pretty much left homeless due to the fact we wanted our new home in the same spot as our old home. Since we wanted and really needed to stay on our property for the whole process due to animals, trucks, we chose to move into my shop.
Because the shop does not have a well, went without running water for 5 months- once the old house was torn down, the water well had to be shut off. Let me tell you that truck stop showers were really pretty damn exciting all last summer! When home, Hubs and I showered under a sun heated camp shower (or early mornings I would heat water in a tea kettle to take the chill off the cold water) next to Hubs shop since none of our shops have drainage indoors. Hubs kids got to the point of honking as they came up our gravel road, and again when they hit our driveway to give us fair warning since there was a lot of bare asses last summer!
I did all of our cooking on a camp stove, weber grill, as well as relied on a toaster oven that my mom bought us for the occasion. I’m very lucky in that my mom cooked and froze a TON of meals for us which made living in a shop without a kitchen much easier. My kitchen stove wasn’t installed until December 10th (my birthday) so it was a long time to go without that convenience. In fact at that point I almost forgot how to cook, and what to cook once I had my stove in front of me.
We also had no television or internet other than what was on our phones for a good 8 months, and I loved every second of it. We spent our evenings when home, outside enjoying each other with no distractions or we worked on the new house, and there was a lot of that.
Our new rambler was still stuck in the 1970’s so we gutted it inside and out. We added new windows, doors, insulation and siding. We found that sometimes you have to rip down a wall (a perfect wall none the less) to really look at what you have and then decide you should have kept that damn wall up and knocked out the opposite wall… Yeah we did that.
Between Hubs and I, we learned (with a lot of help from my mother & sister in law) how to spackle and finish walls- although we are still better at the demolition part!
We have painted, and repainted and I’m still positive I’d still rather scrub toilets.
In the long run we have ended up with a gorgeous home, and my kitchen is exactly what I dreamed of when I first walked into this house when it was still up on steel beams 35 miles away.
Needless to say, we are thrilled with the end product. We now have a wood stove to help cut heating costs, and that’s where we spend our winter nights- parked in front of it. There is still a lot of work to do in the basement, as well as we need to put up a garage, but those will all happen in time and as we can afford them.
I think it’s safe to say both Hubs and I did not know just how big, how crazy, or how much we would learn with this little (HUGE! HUGE!!) venture….
