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.

Curb Appeal: We Have It (Now)

So, when last I was posting, I believe the exterior of the farmhouse looked about like this:

Already better than when we bought it.

Since then, a LOT of things have been done to the outside of the house, and I have to say, it's looking pretty darn spiffy. For one, my dad painted us a faux-window to even out the visual balance of the big window into the parlor.

Symmetry. It's a good thing.

We also got the weird bit of siding over the front porch primed and painted so it would match better with the actual siding.

We also got the lean-to painted to match, and repainted the trim. But the biggest improvement is that my dad rebuilt the porch steps, using the old stones to create new pillars. It was a huge job -- the old steps had to be broken up with a jackhammer, and there was a LOT of debris to clear away -- but the result makes an amazing difference.

So nice!

That sidewalk was an unexpected bonus -- while he was clearing out the porch debris, my dad uncovered the pad at the bottom of the steps. It looked like it kind of disappeared into the grass, and after a lot of digging, Chris discovered a sidewalk that goes all the way around to the lean-to!

Just recently, we were at work on the porch again, but this time, we were just cleaning. Cleaning the cedar siding along the back wall of the porch had probably last been done... never. So just a little elbow grease made a visible difference.

Unwashed on top. Washed on bottom. Yes, that's a backward way to clean.

This past weekend was sunny and warm, with no rain in the immediate forecast (it's been a surprisingly rainy summer this year), so we were able to get out and seal the wood -- the walls and the new steps and the porch swing -- and the masonry, which will hopefully help protect the mortar against future weathering.

It's like a real house!

We're pretty pleased with how things are looking -- and so are the neighbors. We've had a lot of comments about the snazzy new porch steps, and everyone agrees it looks a lot less like an abandoned, haunted house than when we first bought it.

That Time I Didn't Die

The best thing we have purchased for this farm so far is a bucket van.

It's a van. With a bucket.

We thought the bucket van would be a much safer alternative to a ladder when it was time to work on high up places, like the roof, or a chimney, or any of the second-floor-level exterior siding and windows. And it is.

The first thing you should know about the bucket van is that it's pretty fun. Ok, my sister didn't think so, and I'm pretty sure that Chris places it squarely between "better than a ladder" and "not nearly as good as solid ground." But I think it's fun to ride in.

This next photo was taken just before I probably would have gone to the emergency room if not for the bucket van.

But everything looks so calm...

See those two pieces of siding right below my crowbar? Under that siding was bats. I took off one piece of siding, and a little bat was staring at me like "hey, there used to be a roof over my head..." and then it flew away. Then I pried up the next piece of siding... and seriously about seven bats dropped out and zoomed away. And when bats suddenly come whooshing out of your siding... you jump.

Had I been up on a ladder, I am quite certain I would have jumped two stories down. In the lovely bucket van, though, I jumped about a foot, which brought me to the other side of the bucket, safely enclosed by the high sides.

Have I mentioned I really like this van?

Not only did the bucket lift help keep me safe, but it allowed us to make pretty short work of the rest of the siding on this end of the house. Just three more sides to go!

Shed Flip-Flop

So far, I think this is the most fully completed project, in that it's actually all done and not just advanced to a new stage of needs-to-be-worked-on: Chris turned the shed around.

This, you may recall, was the shed as viewed from the road.

It was basically fine, but Chris decided that it needed a door for added security. And a lean-to, for added storage. And for the door to face the back of the property, for a bit of additional security and privacy.

Spoiler alert -- at no time did we actually move the shed in order to achieve these goals.

Flip-flopped!

 

Instead, Chris just took off all the siding on the back of the shed, moved it to the front, and vice versa. A relatively simple inversion! Then it was just a matter of building a door and lean-to out of scrap boards (of which we're gathering a fairly large collection) and putting up a section of fence to keep the neighbors from having to look at our storage.

Shed -- now with working door!

Building supplies -- now out of the neighbors' view!

View from the back

I think the new inverted shed looks a lot more put together now that you don't pull up to the house and immediately find yourself staring into its dark recesses. And I guess I lied just a little earlier -- the shed does still need a fresh coat of barn red paint, so it's not quite "project complete" just yet. That should only be a quick hour or so of work, so hopefully it's a project we can check off the list fairly soon.

What's Under That? Siding Edition

I'll be the first to admit that the exterior of the house looks... weathered. Or, as our niece said, like a haunted house.

It's a bit gray. Gray is the new black, right?

We knew the siding would have to go. For one, it's gone unpainted for so long that I'm pretty sure it wouldn't really accept a coat of paint. For two, we already had a pretty good idea of what was under it... wasps. Lots and lots of wasps, building their nests in between the top layer of siding and the layer underneath it.

So, on the first nice day of spring, the Great Waspicide of 2017 began. The good part was that they were very, very sleepy wasps. Basically, I'd pull off a piece of siding -- with my hands, because it's really at the falls-apart-if-you-tug-on-it stage -- and then use the pry bar -- and, ok, often just my gloved fingers -- to squish all the wasps. They just sat there and took it.

The lean-to has been the easiest part. Under the hard board siding is a layer of real wood siding, which has now been entirely uncovered and de-wasped, and which after some scraping and cleaning, should be ready to get painted something less pink.

Calling it "cotton candy" instead of "Pepto Bismal" doesn't really improve things.

The main house is harder. Mostly, that's because a whole lot more of it is way above our heads, which so far has meant one person on a ladder removing siding, and the other person on the ground, holding the ladder. This makes for pretty slow going, as it involves a lot of going up and down and moving the ladder around. It's also slow because apparently the one weather feature we can count on up there is wind, which doesn't really inspire one to get up on a ladder to tug at siding.

At this point, we've pretty well decided that there's some bucket lift rental in our near future. But even with just two of us and a ladder, we've achieved almost one side of the house. Ok, it's the smallest side, but still.

This is far less pink than expected.

This new layer of siding is made of asphalt, so it's basically like roof shingles, but as siding. We've been patching up holes as we go, but we're still not sure what we'll do as a final step. We'll probably at least see if this can be primed and painted. From what I've seen, I'm not super hopefully, but I've been wrong before. In the meantime, there's still siding to remove and wasps to murder.