Digging up the past

In hopes of finding out more regarding the history of our farm, I paid a visit to the Wexford Country Deeds office today. Looks like I have a lot of books to go through! I'll let you know what I find!

First Christmas morning on the farm

May peace prevail on Earth.

Poor puppy.

I love cooking. & Shanti loves it when I cook too.

Here's her best attempt to look starving & pathetic in hopes of getting to taste test our dinner. Not a chance, Pup.

Christmas Elves

Three Acre Farm loves visitors! This weekend I had the best visitors of all... 4 Christmas elves (aka. nieces) to help decorate cookies!

First snow

While sitting in my living room reading, I have the most beautiful view.

Through my grapevine wreath, I can see the first snow gently falling on the homemade garland swaging the porch. 

Happy Holidays to all.

Salvaging. It's still free stuff even if it's in my house.

When we build a ceiling in the pantry, the beautiful aged wood of the attic access will be covered. Not on my watch! I'm pulling it down and saving the wood. I think I see a second life as a coffee table in this wood's future. Well, that is when my living room is no longer also the bedroom.

Learn to speak MI Farmer - Lesson 2 : Floor Joist Support

This is a close up of the floor joist support in the pantry room crawl space. Yikes. Good thing we already had plans to pull the floor up!

Farm House Warming

Much love to all the friends and family who came out the farm to help us celebrate.

Jason & Shanti at our farm house warming party

I love free stuff : My dining room hutch

I pride myself on being able to find a use for just about anything. When I look around my house, I see 2 pieces of furniture that I actually purchased new. Most items were quietly sitting in a basement or a room that didn't get used until their owners decided to pass them my way. The hard part is that after I redo them, they try to take them back!

Bathroom semi-redo

The artist in me has a hard time not planning how I will decorate rooms. But while we go through the renovation process it's only logical not to paint, hang photos, etc  *sigh*

Then Jason made the mistake of telling me that the main floor bath will be last room we will deal with and that it could be 5 years before anything happens in that room.

What did you say? Get my paint brush? Okay!

Bath before

Bath after

Oct 10. The day the gorgeous sunrise was only rivaled by an equally magnificent sunset.

Man down!

Okay, so it's not a man down but chimney #1 is coming down. This is the same chimney that gave us our lovely leaky wall waterfall feature in the pantry. The house has 3 chimney's in total and none are in use.  So, it's coming down.

One of the most beautiful things about our farm is the bounty of items that we have lying around & can salvage for future use. I'm excited to reuse these blocks and build an kickin' outdoor grill next Spring.

Sunshiny rain is the most beautiful thing ever.

Demolition. It's not for sissies.

The first tasks on our agenda are rewiring & reinsulating. And with that goal in mind, the pantry room gutting begins... and so do the fun surprises.

We tore through the layers of the pantry room to get it down to the original bones. With the Winter months fast approaching, Jason made the decision to build a temporary wall to close off the space from the rest of the house. This also means that I lose the use of my office. But hey, what girls doesn't want a dining room/office/closet?  On a good note, we will renovate my office simultaneously with the pantry room.  Hopefully I won't find any more dead mice in there when I'm trying to work.

Discovery : The original exterior wall of the house is leaning outward. This is due to the lack of collar ties in the non-existent ceiling in the pantry. Jason's plan is to rebuilding the frame work to support the exterior and keep it from going out any further. We had planned to put a door to the side yard in this wall but now that will have wait until the exterior gets straightened out in the future.

Discovery :  We have our very own waterfall wall feature!   aka: a leaky chimney.

Jason begins building the temporary wall between the kitchen and the pantry room

Pantry room & my office after complete demo

two words : HOT WATER!

33 days. I made it 33 days. Luckily I grew up vacationing with my family at our rustic island cabin with no electricity and no running water, and my rustic camping skills have served me well this first month.

For the last 33 days, I've been boiling water on the stove to bathe with & do the dishes daily. Every few days, I would finally break down and travel to Jason's parents house for a proper shower.

I love doing the rustic thing. However, I am proud to announce that with the magic of Jason's incredible handy-man skills, we now have hot water.

Did I mention that I also didn't have a working toilet for the first 4 days? I believe in being sustainable but yup, modern conveniences are pretty darn awesome.

Cousin It

Mainly because we have no idea what it is, we named this giant thing growing up the side of the house Cousin It. All we know is it's huge, it's growing through the porch, into the siding, across the roof and it's got to go.  The first photo was taken after the lower branches were removed. The branches went all the way to the ground and spanned 4' on either side of the trunk.

Now if we can just get rid of the hideous chimney we uncovered... 

My favorite room, my kitchen

The kitchen was pretty bare bones when we moved in. Just a few cupboards and a sink, that was about it. I love to cook and until we remodel it in a few years, the kitchen needs to function.

Used appliances & random furniture have rounded out my little sanctuary quite nicely.

Treasures

Is renovating a late 19th century farm house a labor of love? Yes. 

Does finding treasures like these help make it all worth it? You bet.

Let the games begin.

This house has been empty for a long time. The wonderful smell of mold & mustiness that greets you as you walk in the door is, well, unpleasant.

So first things first before move in - the nasty old carpet in the dining room & living room has got to go!

My oldest sister & 3 of her girls came up for the day to visit, sweat, flex & help me accomplish my mission. I'm so thankful for my amazing family.

Learn to speak MI Farmer - Lesson 1 : Light Switch Cover

Three Acre Farm - The beginning

Living Room - East view

Living Room - West view

    

Dining Room

Bath - first floor

Kitchen - East view

Kitchen - West view

Pantry - looking South towards Office door

Office

Antique Sales Addition

Basement Stairs

Stairs to 2nd floor (off dining room)

2nd floor hallway

2nd floor 1/2 bath

North facing bedroom

East facing bedroom

East facing bedroom

the Barn

Shed - Pole Barn