Putting the Kids to Work!

There are no lack of jobs to do in this renovation! There are even things the little kids can do! I was surprised they stayed at it for quite awhile. They thought it was fun. Thank you to our friends who came to help!

The kids were using plastic knives to scrape. It is such fun destroying things!

Fixing the Garage Loft Space

An earlier photo shows the space above the garage. This garage is HUGE! It reminds me of the barn at my parents place. It was full of old junk! Old letters and bills, mattresses, old chairs, old funeral floral stands, tons and tons of old junk, and none of it worth anything. We will have MANY trips to the dump to take care of all of it.

The spots all over the picture are from the flash reflecting off all the dust floating around! None of the boards making up the floor were nailed down. They were all just loose.

Here are some of the things hidden behind the mattress.

I couldn't believe how much dirt and dust was up here. It's a good thing we wore dust masks!

After the guys worked all day up there, cutting boards and nailing them down, it looks pretty good! (will put up the after photo next time)

Attic Demolition Part Two

Work on the attic took a few weeks to accomplish. All the boards that formed the walls were removed, nails pulled out, and stacked up. All the insulation was removed except in areas where the electrical wires were a total maze, and downright scary to be around. 

                     The next step was to remove the carpet.

Cleaning the Well House

This has been the rainiest month EVER! The moss and green stuff is everywhere! Every time I walked by the well house it drove me nuts looking at how dirty it was. Time to clean! 

After I had spent hours cleaning it, the rest of the group showed up and they couldn't tell I had done anything! It's a good thing I took a before/after picture.

After scrubbing the house, I climbed up on the roof and removed the dead moss after the Moss Out did its job.

Uncovering the Concrete Floors

This farm had a lot of outbuildings that are no longer standing...but there are a lot of concrete floors left. We thought it would be fun to remove all the moss and weeds that have grown up over the years so the kids can roller skate and use their side walk chalk on them. We will also have a patio for BBQ's when the weather is nicer (not raining!!!).

The kids thought scraping moss off the concrete was fun!

                   A few weeks later the job was finished! 

Attic Demolition Part One

Today we started working on the attic. It was a treasure hunt finding out how many layers of wallpaper were up there! Six different layers and time periods. The wallpaper was put directly on top of boards, and every time it was ripped off where the boards butted against each other dirt would fall out. Handfuls of dirt! Back in the old days they didn't wrap houses with tyvek like they do now, so dirt from the surrounding farms would blow into the walls. We are going to salvage all the boards to use in the garage. I forgot to take an after photo, but by the end of the day we were down to bare wood, except for the front wall. A lot of flies, ladybugs, and a wasp were at the window. We were afraid of what would come out if we removed the wallpaper. We will tackle that one last.

Another reason we left the front wall, we were afraid the window would fall out! It is in such poor shape! Maybe all those layers of wallpaper are holding it in!

We found ladybug nests underneath the wallpaper. Not exactly where we would like to see them. Next week we will take down the boards. I'm afraid of what we will see up above them! Hopefully, not bats!

This is what it looked like after the walls from the small bedroom were removed. We plan on putting two bedrooms in the attic space. We also decided to remove the chimney and the fireplace to make more space in the upstairs. 

Can you believe that someone would actually sleep in this room with how it looks? Yuck!

Winter Day on the Farm

Jim and I decided to go out and do some of the smaller jobs that need to be done. I climbed up above the garage area and started pulling out all the garbage that had collected over the years by previous renters/owners. Lots of dust and dirt and 3 really old chicken eggs, which were VERY carefully taken out and tossed in the field.

I found sacks of old letters that I put in some garbage bags. We will sort through all those later.

It started snowing when we were out there. I wish we could have camped out in the living room of the house and watched the snowfall, but we had to get home before it got too bad.

Here are some of our new neighbors! Yes, that is a herd of elk! This was taken near our place on a neighboring farm.

The Work Begins....

There is much work to be done under the house. There are beams that need to be replaced due to rot and insect damage. There are rotten floors to replace. There is a concrete foundation to be poured (how does someone put a foundation under two sides and leave one side without one??? This is on the back porch.) And all the floors need to leveled. Then the wiring will be replaced, the place sprayed for bugs, and finally black plastic put down and pipes wrapped. But first things first....digging the crawl space out under the porch area so we can fit!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

 We took possession on Valentine's Day! Here's to a grand adventure!

Jim and I are signing the papers. We now officially own a Farm!

We went out to the property that night to make it official! And to start a long list of things to do! We toasted to a great adventure to be had by all.

Motto To Live By

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming, "WHOO HOO, what a ride!"

(I found this quote on a plaque in a gift store in Oregon. I sure wish I knew who wrote it.)

Let the Inspections Begin!

Now that our offer has been accepted, we are in the inspection stage. We don't want any big surprises. We have a very limited budget to work with and can't afford something major like replacing a well or septic system!

 Our son-in-law is the fixer upper specialist! He has his handy notebook for taking notes on what needs to be done, and how much it will cost to do. Our plan is to fix up the house so it is more livable, and then to sell it to our daughter and son-in-law after they sell the house they are in. 

Time to check out what's under the house. It's a very tight fit! He actually got stuck and had to come back out and take off some of the clothes under his outer clothes so he could get in.

Let's put new wiring on the list....

I'm glad I'm not the one crawling under the house! 

Our Adventure Begins!

So how did this adventure begin? Maybe it was a mid-life course adjustment, or the fact we wanted a place to go camping. Life was getting a little too predictable. We were in a rut. We also have a daughter and son-in-law that wanted to live in the country, so we started looking at property with them. We looked at some real doozies! Some were house rich and land poor. Some were land and house poor. We don't have a lot of money, so whatever we got had to involve a lot of fixing so we could afford it. One of the places we looked at was an ex-puppy mill with a dog breeder living next door. When the neighbors 50+ dogs started barking, we literally ran off the property! Then we looked at a place with an amazing house, but out of the 13 acres only the part with the house wasn't a swamp. And a bank would not touch it due to water issues.

And then we decided we had had enough of looking...and then this came up.

It was on the market for four days. We put in an offer and were competing with four or five other offers. All our offers were about the same, so they wanted us to give our next best last offer and tell how we were going to finance the purchase. We were the 3rd highest, but they liked our financing better. In case some of you are wondering where this is...east of Sedro Woolley in Washington state. 

The house has three bedrooms, is 1,200 square feet. It has been a rental for quite a few years, and EVERYTHING needs updating and fixing. The garage is huge, and actually looks more like a barn on the inside. 

These are some of the outbuildings. This use to be a working dairy farm. The farthest building was where they milked the cows. The white building is where they put the milk while they were waiting for it to be picked up. The original huge barn burned down, and the horse barn was torn apart and recycled. All that is left are concrete foundations and floors.

Now that our offer has been accepted, we will be going through everything and making sure there are no deal breakers that we just cannot afford to take care of (like the well and septic). We have a certain amount of time to do this. We will be getting inspectors out to look at things.