Our last weekend

Goodbye Farm, See you in the Spring

Well, last weekend we closed up the farm for winter. Greg built his box around the pipes downstairs to keep them from freezing. A light will go on when the area reaches a certain temperature. 

I put up the other panels of drapes and we put in a white bookshelf Greg got from his mom's house. I have now bought a new bedspread for our bedroom and so the gray one on our bed will be moved to the yellow room. I am still thinking of putting up some white wains coting but I have all winter to decide.

I also did get to priming some of the walls in the room that will be my studio.  Staying away all winter will be hard. I miss it already.  However, spring will be grand.  I can't wait to see the bulbs, peonies, and day lilies I transplanted.

A little white wains coting will really match this bookshelf.  

 

This will be my art studio.

Still Thinking but Done for Now

Letting it Rest Awhile

Well, we went to the farm this weekend and installed the carpet and put up the drapes. Of course the drapes I bought were only one set with two panels. I thought it would be two sets of two panels because the package said it was a 2 pack. So, for now, there is only one panel on each window. 

We also put up a day bed that we got from Greg's parents. I am now on the lookout for a matching comforter.  What is on there now is just temporary until I find what I am looking for. 

I am trying to decide if there is too much yellow in the room and if I should possibly put up some white wains coting or paint a wall white or gray. I wanted a bright room but some say it looks dark even though it is a very bright yellow. It could be the lighting and the drapes blocking any sunlight from the cloudy day. 

For now, she rests while I think.

We have only one more weekend at the farm before we close her up for winter. This will be hard!

Laurie

Finishing Bedroom #2

Almost There

Well, this weekend we went to the farm in hopes of finishing bedroom #2.  As usual, we forgot to bring some things such as the "kicker" to put in the carpet. We also forgot the staple guns for the padding but we used small nails instead. We got the carpet and padding down but not installed fully. As Greg began to unpack the curtain rods I bought, one of the decorative ends broke like a glass Christmas ornament. So, those did not get put up. Hopefully, next weekend will be more successful.

Here's where we are now.

Getting ready for carpet.

Padding has been added.

Greg vacuuming the new carpet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next weekend we will fully install the carpet, hang the drapes, put in the trundle bed and put up the rest of the base boards. 

This old farm house is getting renovated.

Finishing Bedroom #2

Holding Back

I have to hold back, I feel, and be patient.  We are on our second bedroom and things are going well. This weekend I finished priming the ceiling, painted the ceiling, and painted the walls. I had to touch up the baseboards, clean the windows, and sweep the floor. I wanted to hang the drapes I bought; I'm so excited to see them up because they will look great with the wall color. However, I don't want them getting dirty and Greg and I have decided to look for some carpet remnants so we can truly finish the room. Once we get carpet in the room, I will hang the drapes. We still have to put up the baseboards on one half of the room.  All in all, it was another productive weekend. Oh, we also have a bed in our room now and it was so nice to sleep on a real bed. Still looking for a head board and foot board though. We are getting most things from Craigslist or restores, auctions, Estate sales etc.

On our trip up on Friday night we saw the most amazing sunset.

Simply amazing!

Doing some last minute touch-ups!

We found this great ceiling light/fan at the Habitat for Humanity Restore.

Oh, I also worked on my garden. I transplanted some peonies, planted spring bulbs, and transplanted Day Lilies and Mums.  I'm all set for fall and spring.

I'm so excited to look for carpet, head and foot boards, and hang the drapes. Hopefully, we will have some luck locating some of these items this week. I'm also very excited about next spring so I can see the results of my work in the garden.

Moving into Fall

Time is Running Out

Well, as Fall approaches, our time on the farm is slowly ending. With no furnace we can't work through the winter. Our goal at this point is to finish one last bedroom and prepare it for winter. Last weekend we had to go up on Saturday morning instead of Friday night because I was part of Art on the Plaza in West Allis. I also had to pay a bill in the morning and so we got a late start and did not actually arrive there until around 11:00 a.m.

Regardless, we still got a lot accomplished. While Greg tackled the electric in the bedroom, I sanded the walls and ceiling. I was able to prime everything except for the ceiling before we left. Greg was able to finish all of the electricity. The week before we found another great fan light for the room at the Restore and so we are looking forward to finishing the room and installing that.

It was also Cheese Days in Monroe and we wanted to check that out. We managed to make it to the festival on Sunday for about an hour and saw the parade. I got to try Limburger cheese for the first time. Which, I did not think had a horrible odor like I was told... and I enjoyed the flavor. After that, we drove home to West Allis.

While at the farm on Saturday night we had a visitor. Greg will introduce you to him.

Laurie

Yes, we had a visitor.  We were cooking a late dinner, and chatting about what we had accomplished, and Laurie saw a shadow fly by.  And then again......

Suddenly, she jumped up, grabbed her purse and ran out.  I followed.  She had seen a bat.  We had seen one in April, but have not seen any since.  I went in, turned on all the lights, and found our cute friend hanging in what was the dining room.

I decided to close off the room as much as I could, so his only exit was the front door, which Laurie (who was still outside with her purse) agreed to open as he came. No matter what kind of noise or action I took, he decided to just hang in there.  I finally nudged him with a long piece of drywall. He flew around and landed on a screen I had used to block off the kitchen.  After a moment, he (or she, I never got close enough to check) was off again, circled the room twice and found the space I was unable to block into the living room and parlor.  

He disappeared.

I looked in every place the bat could be hiding, and he could not be found.  Eventually, Laurie came in with her purse, we locked the door and went to bed, with our bedroom door firmly closed.

-Greg  

PS Good thing I had my purse! (Laurie).

Untold wealth

We have now owned our dream homestead for 4 months.  As you can read in other posts it was a Gordon Van Tine super fixer upper, and we have 5 years to complete it.  There were no big completions this weekend, but the rain has put me in a reflective mood.  I would like to look at how truly blessed I am.

I truly am the richest man in the world.

I have a loving family.  I have my Beautiful wife, Laurie, who shares my dreams, and whom I am able to work beside day in and day out. While I love art, she is a fantastic artist and art teacher.

(You can find her art teacher blog at http://pledlspalette.blogspot.com/)

 I have 5 wonderful children, two of which will be giving us our first grandchildren within the next six months. I have my loving parents, brothers and sisters, who love me as much as I love them.

I have a job I love, managing a program for seniors with Alzheimer’s, where I plan to work until I retire. 

(The Walk to End Alzheimer’s in Waukesha, WI takes place this weekend.  Please consider donating to help the cause!!  http://act.alz.org/site/TR?fr_id=11638&pg=personal&px=14532767 )

And then when I retire……It becomes a farm!

Our remodeling is going great!!  In 4 months we have completed 2 rooms, which include all new plumbing and electric.  We have started 3 other rooms, all slowly moving to completion.  We have started reclaiming the property, with paths leading to newly planted trees, and others leading back into the 15 acres. 

Thank you for visiting to keep up with our progress.  Since a furnace for the home is not planned until next year, or maybe the year after, things will be closed up over winter, with lots of time to plan for new progress in spring.

No amount of money could make my life any better!

Moving Along

The first and third walls here will be replaced (too many repairs needed). The center wall is one I was able to save.

Finally...

Finally we have been able to start moving onto another room in the house. We are tackling the bedroom next ours which is a room I love because it is so bright. It had charming yellow flowered wallpaper in it. However, it still needed to come down due to it being old and worn. The color yellow really did this room justice though and so we have plans to stay with that color when we paint. I patched one of the walls that had a big gouge in the plaster. To my amazement, I did a pretty good job. We will now need to replace only two walls and the ceiling. This was decided of course after I took down the wallpaper. While I was stripping wallpaper, I decided to go ahead and do the next room as well. Greg had started to tear this room apart in the very beginning and used it to access the pipes for the bathroom which is right next door.  This room had paneling, wallpaper and acoustic ceiling tiles in it. Now, it too is almost ready for repairing the walls or adding new ones.

Piles of stripped wallpaper.

This wall will be replaced.

Scraping off wallpaper.

Greg's bathroom pipes.

Almost ready to do wall repairs in room #3.

Stay tuned for how these rooms clean up.

A Productive Weekend

Goals Accomplished and More

It was a rough start to our visit to the farm this weekend due to a lost wallet. However, all turned out well and we were finally on our way.We arrived around 1:00 in the afternoon on Saturday. I mowed and it took about 2 hours. Greg worked on the electricity in the master bedroom hooking up the dimmer to the fan light.  When I was done mowing I also fixed some more cracks on our second bedroom and stripped the carpet in another bedroom. This was the "More" listed above.  The carpeting that was down left black rubbery padding on the wood floor that did not want to come up with the carpet. I sprayed it with water and scraped it off with a large scraper. This worked really well and to my amazement I got it all off and we got the carpet out of the house. It was a short weekend but very productive. After that Greg and I hung three pieces of drywall in the second bedroom. We decided that we did enough and cleaned up our mess before leaving on Sunday.

Our first sheet of drywall on the old chimney wall.

Hanging drywall is an art. We are learning. The use of two deadman devices works great after Greg and I lift it onto two ladders.

Cutting drywall.

Even screwing drywall is an art. You must make sure the screw sets into the drywall so that when you mud you can cover the screw completely.

Greg did a much better job of this in this room.

Water, Electric, and More.

Took Friday off of work so we had a three day weekend on the farm.  In the past, that meant just an extra day struggling in the bathroom.  But with the bathroom done, it seems like things are moving along more quickly.

On Friday morning, after a good nights sleep in the teardrop, I started with the water.  As you can see from many pictures of the farm, we have yellow rock everywhere.

No surprise, it is also in the water. The drain pipes I removed were FILLED with the yellow rock, and water left sitting in a bucket leaves the yellow sediment at the bottom.

*Normally, I would insert a picture here of the bathtub filled with yellow water, but the only one we have is one with a person bathing.  If it is Laurie, she wouldn't want me to post it here, and if it is me, you wouldn't want to see it*

So I bought, and inserted this weekend, an inline filter.  It actually went well, and I finished quickly.

Well, with that task done, I quickly moved on to the next.  A few weeks ago, in a storm, wind took off about 7 shingles from a ridge on the roof.  I know enough about roofing to make the repair, but the steepness of the roof, and the height of our home did make me pause.  Added to this, is Laurie's constant belief that I will hurt myself in ordinary tasks, and cannot be trusted (Okay, there was the incident with the circular saw, and well, lets just move on).

The actual work did not take long, and I was done in about an hour, but It was high, and steep, and well, it is done.

The rest of the weekend was spent mowing the lawn, watering trees, working on the garden and.....

The master bedroom has been completed.  That means that working a few weekends a month, for 3 months, has given us updated plumbing, a new bathroom, 6 outlets upstairs when there were none, and two roomsx completed and rewired.

In any job of this size, it is REALLY easy to get frustrated with how long things are taking.  Laurie and I both have dreams of the house done, a few dogs, chickens, and sheep.  A horse or two, and a pony for the grand kids.  Steers grazing.

And Artists.

Artists everywhere, painting, sculpting, exchanging ideas, and community.

But I digress.

When the dreams run deep, it is hard to see all the steps needed to reach those dreams, and to take them patiently.

But we will.

-Greg

Back to Work

Making Progress

Well, once the question about the birds was answered it was time to get back to work on the farm. I always have certain goals in mind of what I want to accomplish. If I can accomplish most of those goals than I know we are making progress. With that said, I would have to say it was a productive weekend. 

My goals

1.) Finish preparing the rock wall garden.

2.) Texture paint the bedroom ceiling.

3.) Mow the lawn.

4.) Water the trees.

5.) Put the baseboards up in the bedroom.

Well, I accomplished all of these goals except the ceiling is not done. I ran out of paint. I guess I did not learn the lesson I passed onto my readers last time (always buy more than you think you need and then take the extra back).  

In addition to completing my goals I also accomplished a few more tasks that were not goals.

Take a look!

A homemade Christmas gift is now hanging on the inside of the bathroom door for robes, towels etc.

After hours of sponge painting a textured ceiling I felt compelled to be creative. I added a wall painting in the bathroom above the tub.

The base boards are now up in the bedroom.

As you can see, some outlets have been completed too, thanks to Greg.

 

Completed rock wall garden; ready for planting. The end dirt will be filled in with grass.

The last highlight of this trip was that Greg finally got the bathtub fixed; no leaks.  We actually took a bath! 

Seeing results

Before & After

      I thought it would be fun to show before and after picks of some of the things we have done.

Bedroom/Before

Bedroom/Before - Starting to dismantle.

Bedroom/Before - fixing cracks

After/without base boards.

After- with baseboards. Please note - floors still need to be done.

Bathroom/Before

Bathroom/Before - Starting to dismantle.

Bathroom/After

Before/Just beginning to dig out the weeds.

  

After/Weeds are gone and rock walls are in place.