We Also Did Some Finish Work

At the farm, there is pretty much always something that you could paint. This year, we have painted...

The trim in the living room

Yes, it's basically the same color as the old trim.

All sorts of exterior trim

Love that bucket van

And, over Labor Day weekend, the back wall of the dining room and the doorways!

Blue!

We also painted the ceilings in both the living room and the dining room, which was an absolute nightmare. In the future, remind me how much I hate painting over my head.

We also got some new furniture, which is at least exciting for us.

In the master, we found a dresser at a barn sale and some nightstands in my best friend's storage unit.

Now we don't live out of suitcases. It's like we're civilized or something.

That allowed us to move the little dresser up to the yellow bedroom, which is now pretty overnight-guest-worthy.

Who's coming to visit me?

We also got a barrister bookcase for the living room, which I apparently don't have a good picture of. And then... we got a wardrobe.

The thinking with the wardrobe is that in the bedrooms upstairs, there isn't really any good storage space -- there are no closets, and the room you're seeing above is the big one -- the others are going to be lucky to get more storage than a nightstand. So we figured one wardrobe in the hall would give some shared space to hang things up, etc.

We measured. Then I went out to Massachusetts with the aforementioned best friend to do some antiquing. We found many fascinating things that were not wardrobes.

Not a wardrobe

Perplexed Bigfoot is not a wardrobe.

Terrified goat head is not a wardrobe.

Garden-art velociraptor is not a wardrobe. I don't know how this didn't come home with me.

I don't know what this is, but it isn't a wardrobe. I hope.

 Then, after much searching, I found a wardrobe! It was the art-deco style Chris likes! It would fit in the space! And that was when my BFF said "well, if THAT'S the kind of thing you're looking for, I have one in my storage unit. I actually have two."

So then I came home and bought hers. And we measured it. We really did. And we decided it would just barely fit in the space... and then we got it up to the farm, and into the living room... and decided we weren't actually sure how to take it up the stairs.

After some false starts, during which we each ended up having to climb onto and over the wardrobe while it was half in the stairwell, we took off everything that would come off.

Now with 100% fewer doors and drawers!

At that point, we were just barely able to carry it up the stairs, slide it along the hallway, and shimmy it into position, where it is, as measured, a perfect fit with roughly one inch to spare.

Narnia not included.

So now if you visit us at the farm, you could hang things up, if we had hangers up there, which we don't. Note to self: take a few hangers up next time.

Gutteral

Another big-ish project for this summer was that we installed gutters. Well, gutter. I don't have a lot of pictures of this one because it was the kind of project where you're busy getting everything laid out and measured and dry fit and then actually fit, and then you have to try to figure out how to hold the stupid gutter with one person on a ladder and one person in the bucket van, and then you finally get it attached and then it leaks anyhow and you have to take it apart and reseal things.

You can barely see the gutter, but the downspout is kind of visible?

But eventually, we think we got the gutter sorted out... just in time for the bucket van to start making a kind of terrible noise that eventually required me to scramble out of the bucket onto the porch and the rest of the day's projects to revolve around Chris trying to fix the van so that we could retract the bucket and get the van out of the lawn. If he wants to eventually add in what was actually wrong and how he fixed it, I'm going to let him do that because honestly, I don't really remember what all was involved. It was broken, but he fixed it. Then he was able to figure out what parts it needed and fix it more permanently the next weekend.

We're still hoping to run a gutter along the north side of the house (in the picture above, you're seeing the corner where the south and east sides meet). The hope is that this will help get water away from the foundation and a) keep the foundation sturdy and b) maybe help keep water out of the basement.

Bonus Roofing Project

Once we were in the groove and had figured out the slate ripper, Chris and I got up on the roof one more time after the Huge Chimney Deconstruction to replace some other tiles that had long been cracked.

Out with the old

One of the things I've enjoyed about this farm project is that we're having to figure out and learn skills -- like repairing your own tile roof -- that most people, even sometimes the people in the modern version of that trade, no longer have. And as a bonus, we're on our way to a pretty sweet looking roof!

Look how nice it can be!

Chim-Chiminey, Chim-Chiminey, Chim-Chim-Cheree

One of the very first projects we anticipated when we bought the farmhouse was taking down the extra chimney. From what we could tell, it maybe wasn't in great shape, and more importantly, it served absolutely no purpose.

The chimney on the left is purely decorative

At one point, the chimney may have served a cookstove in the kitchen, and we know that it once served the wood burner that's still in the house. But prior to our ownership, the wood burner got moved to the dining room and got a new chimney (which featured in its own blog post last fall). To keep the chimney from collapsing into the house, the previous owner decided to just put in a small closet, which is clearly to code.

We almost did this project last summer, but the threat of rain coupled with some indecision about exactly HOW we were going to get up there and remove the chimney when the roof is fairly steep and also you can't step on it because you'll crack the tiles. That meant that by THIS summer, we'd had a full year to prepare our game plan and gather supplies.

And it turns out... that actually paid off.

First, we got ladder hooks, which are pretty much what they sound like -- they attach to the ladder and allow it to slide up the roof and hook over the ridge, distributing the weight of the ladder. Like so.

Testing the ladder hooks

Then my father brought up ladder jacks, which look like they should be used as bear traps or something, but actually attach to the ladder and allow you to set boards across the two ladders to make a flat, stable platform. For added safety, we had harnesses tied off to the bucket van. So from there, dad and I were able to spend a morning up on the roof, trying to gently take out the chimney without dropping bricks or loose mortar onto the roof tiles. Chris took the hard job of trudging up and down ladders all day to haul down the bricks and mortar we removed.

The actual taking down of the chimney was not significantly harder than playing Jenga. A fairly light tap with a hammer was enough to loosen up most of the chimney, and bricks came out with basically no effort.

By the time we were reaching through the roof into the attic, however, the whole chimney was swaying significantly every time you touched it. That didn't seem great, since we didn't really want to knock down ten feet of chimney into the attic. When we regrouped inside for further demo, Chris and Dad rigged up a couple boards to brace the chimney a bit... and then the rest of the chimney was also super loose and in about the same amount of time it took to measure, find boards, and screw in the braces, they'd taken down the chimney past the point where the braces were helpful.

Good-bye, chimney.

Soon enough, we were finding the tools that had been dropped down the chimney earlier, shockingly well-preserved bird skeletons, and a lot of years of soot and dust and dirt and general nastiness that had to get scooped out. But eventually, we reached the kitchen!

Yes, this is the "closet" that was supporting the chimney.

I'm standing in the kitchen, looking up to the hole in my roof.

So then the chimney was gone, and we were left with a hole in the roof, which is the downside to removing a chimney. Fortunately, this was easily remedied.

No more skylight!

This was the point where we decided to be smart and let this be a two-day project. The next day, we were sore, but back at it. After a little aerial YouTubing, we figured out how to use a slate ripper, which is a tool that looks like it's not going to do anything, but somehow manages to slip up between roof tiles and rip out the nails so you can remove a tile without having to remove every single tile that overlaps it. Then we set about taking out the partial tiles, installing new tiles... and fixing the tiles we accidentally broke with the ladder. Oops.

New tiles!

Finally, it was time to splice in some new metal over the ridge, re-attach the lightening rod assembly, and ta-da! -- a totally fixed up roof!

Roof, now with less chimney!

From up close, it's pretty obvious which tiles are the new ones, but from the ground, it's like the whole chimney never even happened.

No chimney!

All in all, this was one of the more rewarding projects. Once we took the chimney down in the attic, for instance, we were able to get in and finish up the insulation project from the last post. Having the chimney out is also going to let us (hopefully yet this fall/winter??) move ahead with putting a wall back in between the kitchen and dining room. So I guess the "reward" here is more projects, but it still felt really good to get this big one done.

The Attic Smells Different Now

It seems almost impossible to believe that we could have started this project in February, but Google assures me that I took the initial photos for this project on February 16, and who am I to argue?

And the project is... insulation in the attic! I know, I know... we're so cutting edge.

Chris stapling the insulation

This took longer than you'd imagine.

The easy part was adding insulation to the lower walls of the attic, although even that seemed to take forever, mostly because there's all this stuff in the attic, so we had to keep shifting all the attic-stuff from wall to wall in order to get at the next section to work on.

Then the hard part -- sorting out the ceiling. This occupied most of the next work day at the farm. We decided that since the ceiling is so high and we're not actually using the space for anything other than storage, to build a kind of false ceiling for insulation batting to rest on and be draped across. Like so.

See how the peak of the roof is actually beyond where the insulation is?

We figured this way, there would be a clear cold zone, plus we wouldn't have to try to deal with getting the insulation way up to the roof peak. That makes it sound like this was less work. It was not. It's not that it was terrible, but insulation is one of those things that isn't heavy, it's just totally awkward and floppy, like trying to string a slinky across a gap.

We did eventually get it all in place, and then took a break from installing insulation over our heads in a place where we could stand up... in order to install insulation underfoot, in the "real" attic where you have to mostly crouch down and try to keep your balance on the joists lest you go crashing through the ceiling and suddenly create a lot of plaster work for yourself.

And by "we," I mean "Chris." I'm usually not claustrophobic, but that attic makes me want to scream.

So fluffy and warm!

But eventually, we got back to the big attic to add the finishing touch -- craft paper to cover the interior side of the insulation and keep it from dropping strands of fiberglass all over everything. This, too, turned out to be rather more involved than initially hoped, but it also took up far less of the roll of craft paper than I was expecting.

Speaking of pillowy...

The unexpected bonus of all this work is that now the entire attic smells like brown paper bags, which is, at least in my opinion, an improvement over the previous smell of... whatever it is that old houses smell like. Old wood, guano, and dirt? In any case, brown paper bags is definitely better.

This summer never got super hot -- we never even bothered install the window air conditioner in the bedroom at the farm -- so it was hard to tell if the insulation was helping to keep the house cooler. But hopefully this winter we'll notice some benefit!

Final 2018 Projects?

Well, 2018 wasn't quite as productive a year as we might have hoped, but we had another good push on projects here in the 11th hour. Now that we have heat, December was actually a little project marathon.

First, we wanted to keep all that lovely heat inside. Most of the windows have storms, but a few didn't, so Chris built new storms for those. We also moved the storm door that was previously on the (modern) door between the kitchen and the lean-to out to be on the (original) door into the parlor; Chris also added plexiglass to the dining room screen door for some additional insulation.

              

Probably the biggest end-of-year project was painting the parlor. It was covered in wood paneling, which over the years had taken on a decidedly greenish tinge. Plus, we'd patched in a fairly large section where the front window no longer existed, and that paneling was darker and less green, so the whole thing was looking a bit shabby.

This took forever (ok, it took basically one full day) because of all the trim and because we had to brush every single groove in the paneling where the roller wouldn't reach. In the end, though, the room looks so much brighter and fresher!

Also, we put up some Christmas decor. Because Christmas.

The TV is sitting on an impromptu project -- it used to be on a rickety folding tray that was barely big enough to support it, and we'd picked up this old radio cabinet at an auction way back when we bought the farm. It's been sitting in the lean-to ever since, but Chris got a quick coat of polyurethane on it, and now it's all shiny and doing its job holding up the television (and providing a little much-needed storage). 

The next day, we had dueling dining room projects: I was patching the plaster, and Chris was turning the wood burner so it didn't stick out into the room so much. As you might expect, both of those seemed like they were going to be quicker projects than they really turned out to be. But we did get an unexpected bonus -- behind the wood burner, covered by the protective mat, we discovered another heat register!

As you'll see in the pictures, we did even a bit more -- on Boxing Day, my family came up to spend a day just hanging out at the farm, so Chris and I went up early and set up the dining room table. This had been the table and chairs from our house, which we replaced... a year or so ago?... and have had sitting around waiting for the dining room at the farm to be ready for them.

Wood stove in progress and completed...

         

Patching in progress and (mostly) completed...

       

We may still make it up there one more time before it's technically 2019. There's hope that the dining room might get primed yet this year. But basically, it's looking like the end of projects for 2018.

Here's hoping that 2019 brings

• A completed chimney removal, roof repair, and wall (re-)instillation in the space between the dining room and kitchen
• An end to the upstairs bedroom project that was literally one of the very first things we started
• More project wrap ups
• Less bats

Thanksgiving 2018

We've owned the farm for (very slightly over) two years now, and while we still have a lot of projects to work on, we've continued to be pleasantly surprised by how smoothly most projects have gone. It has really been a fun project overall, and we have a lot to be thankful for. In no particular order, here's our farmhouse top 10 list for Thanksgiving.

1. Heat
Seriously, heat is great. We've been lucky to have the wood burner since the beginning that really kicks out a lot of heat, and how we're going to be extra toasty with central heat that we can schedule to turn on before we come up. 

2.  Good neighbors
We've been so lucky with our farmhouse neighbors. They're often stopping by in the summer with garden produce for us, and last winter, one of the neighbors plowed a path up our driveway all season so we could get in when we came up. They've shared what they know about the place, and the guy across the street even took us on a tour around the area. 

3. The front porch was saved
You may remember that I was prepared to cry if we had to lose that nice stone porch, so I'm definitely thankful that not only were we able to support and save it, but improve the steps so that the whole thing is a charming place for some quality front-porch-sitting... in those few moments we have for just sitting around.

4. Doors that open
It seems weird to be thankful for doors that basically just do their job, but in a house where we didn't get any keys at closing, everything's not-quite-straight, and most of the doors are at least a little sticky, we're definitely glad to be at a point where all available doors can be opened, closed, and (where applicable) locked. 

5. People pitching in
From the first moment that Tony Bucket hurried back from his dinner so we could write up an offer on the farmhouse before heading home, people have been lovely about helping to make this happen. My father, of course, has been basically a rock star. He's been ready to help with any project, and always does a careful and beautiful job. My mom has stripped wallpaper and painted. My sister has come from out of town to strip wallpaper and refinish windows. I think just about everyone in Chris's family has been part of the ongoing project to move the leftover rocks away from the front porch.

 

6. History lessons
One of the most fun parts of the farmhouse is that people seem to enjoy telling us about what the place was like before we owned it. We've had a former resident come for a tour and to share her stories. The neighbors are always a good source of information about what's been done and when. One of my coworkers is even the nephew of the man we bought it from. We have a lot of fun walking people through the place and listening to them share what they remember about how it used to be.

7. A roof over our head
The farmhouse roof is steep and can't be stepped on, making it one of the more terrifying parts of the house. Despite that, we've been able to get up to make the necessary repairs to keep the water (and sometimes the bats) out.

    

8. Hyacinth Bucket (van)
We would definitely not have made the progress we have without the bucket van. We've done roof repairs. We've scraped and painted. We've removed and replaced storm windows. We've moved in a boxspring. We've picked apples. We've repaired a chimney. And through all of that, we haven't had to worry about falling off ladders. Seriously, that van is great. 10/10, would buy again.

9. We can actually vacation at the farm
We have a functional kitchen, a television, and two complete bedrooms. We have a working bathroom and a window a/c unit. We're finally at the point where we don't have to necessarily hustle every single second of every single visit to the farmhouse, and that's a very good feeling, indeed.

10. The water's still flowing
Even when we winterize, we have a steady outflow of water. We've cleared the ditch a bit, and we may have successfully found the outflow for the basement floor drain (which may mean less basement flooding in the future?). In a world where even pretty nearby, access to clean water isn't a guarantee, the fact that we have water that literally is constantly flowing through our house at all times is pretty great.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

All Mod Cons pt. 2

So, this is finally an update to a project that has been (sort of) underway since Labor Day weekend. That weekend, we had planned to remove the excess chimney, but it turned out we didn't have quite the tools we needed and weren't quite sure the weather was going to be good enough to warrant putting a hole in the roof. So instead, we tackled the furnace.

First, there was the matter of unhooking and removing the old furnace. We were anticipating that this might be a huge, heavy job... but surprisingly, it mostly wasn't. It came out easily, and while taking it out the back stairs was awkward, it was significantly easier than when we attempted to do the same thing with the old water heater.

Out with the old!

Then we were faced with the somewhat more daunting task of getting the new furnace installed. This furnace had come out of our primary house when we had that furnace replaced over a year ago, so it had been sitting in the farmhouse basement for awhile surrounded by random pieces of ducting that we hoped would be useful. The initial work took most of an afternoon with my dad getting the gas lines run around to where the new hookups were, and Chris and I trying to figure out how to put a square peg in a round hole -- a.k.a., getting the old duct work to align with the new furnace.

In with the new(er)

By the end of the day, we had everything pretty roughed in, but it took Chris and I a few more weekends to get everything really set to go. Then there were some other matters to attend to. For one, the house wasn't that clean when we moved in, and the furnace hadn't been run in something like 2 - 15 years, so we were confident that if the ducts were just full of dust, we could count ourselves lucky.

We initially thought that we might be able to tape some rags onto the end of chimney sweeping poles and run those through the ducts, but we quickly discovered that even a much more flexible piece of PVC just wasn't flexible enough to make the nearly 90 degree angle through the vents. Fortunately, then Chris realized that we had a very long hose that was exactly the same size as the hose on the shopvac (the hose had previously been employed draining the flooded basement). So we attached that to the vacuum, and down the holes it went.

This job sucks.

Then there was the matter of the chimney itself, which we weren't positive was actually open, which is an important part of the function of a chimney. We kept hoping to get a friend with a drone to come up and look at it for us, but then Chris answered the question in the way that people presumably answered this question for centuries before drones came along... we stuck a mirror into the chimney and looked up.

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is daylight coming through the chimney opening.

The chimney was open. The ducts were clean-ish. Everything was installed. Chris and one of his buddies even stopped up one day and brought the stove in from the lean-to where it had been languishing for the past year and a half.

Just like a real kitchen!

So, yesterday was the moment of truth... we scheduled DTE to come out and turn on the gas. In an unexpected turn of events, they said a technician would arrive between 12 and 4 p.m., and he actually arrived by 12:30, making this possibly the most timely service call ever.

DTE said "let there be heat!" And there was heat. And it was good.

The furnace was the easy part. Despite having sat for quite awhile, it fired right up and immediately started pumping lovely heat throughout the house. The initial whoomph did also blow a bunch of nastiness out of the ducts, but... I guess they're cleaner now?

The stove was actually the hard part because when we turned on the gas at the appliance... nothing happened. There wasn't even gas coming through the lines. This was odd, especially since the furnace was already blowing steadily -- a clear indicator that the gas was coming into the house just fine. Chris and the gas technician looked around the basement a few times trying to see if there was another shutoff somewhere, but couldn't find anything. We all stared deeply into the creepy crawlspace that runs under the kitchen, hoping the flashlight would not hit a shutoff valve that would require someone to actually slither under there. We discussed breaking a pipe open to see if a blockage could be discovered by snaking wire through the pipes. Then we all looked one more time, and I found the shutoff, and then everything worked out just fine.

Cooking celebration ramen. As one does.

It should be noted that about 30 seconds after taking the picture above, I had both the coat and hat off because it was warming up significantly in the house.

So that's how it came to be that two years and three days after initially purchasing the farmhouse, we now have central heat and a working range.