Another busy week here on the farm- contractors, projects, hiking with the pup, running to Boston to pick up Allie from the airport, the almost daily trips to Home Depot…. little by little, things are being accomplished.
We’re locking down contractors and getting on their schedules for the larger projects that we can’t do ourselves, such as: repairing the sill and framing structure under the hearth room, new salvaged flooring in the hearth room (ours is mostly too far gone to reuse), remodeling both bathrooms with tile showers and floors, repairing and tuck pointing the brick above the firebox in the hearth, capping the summer kitchen’s chimney, tuck pointing the top three courses of brick on that chimney, then running a liner down for a range hood, raising the barn, restacking the stone perimeter foundation, then stabilizing and leveling the timber frame structure, and adding plenty of drainage around the outside to keep water from further eating away at the freshly repaired foundation….
While the drainage is being dug around the barn, we’ll also have the contractor dig a hole for the installation of a 500 gallon underground propane tank on the north side. This will allow us to purchase a season’s worth of propane during the summer, when the prices are the lowest. Most of our heating is accomplished by means of a heat pump, but that is only effective to about 20 degrees, anything below that, the propane furnace takes over.
Projects we’ll be taking on soon will be: begin pulling out the window sashes and stripping, repairing, reglazing, and adding weatherstripping before reinstalling, repairing sills and frames where necessary, helping with demo on the bathrooms, installing fixtures, painting, etc., stripping and refinishing the floors in the parlors, remodeling the kitchen, stripping the millwork/doors/paneling and repainting or coating with linseed oil, and addressing the yard.
Our yard is an obstacle course of mostly-buried boulders, or “nuggets” as we call them here, various un-tended flower beds and shrubs, woodchuck holes and divots, rock walls, and many stumps. We’re hoping the excavator comes back this week to pull the stumps and thickets of overgrown lilacs, so we can start filling holes and leveling the ground, so we can build up the landscape as fall approaches. We’d like to add a Catalpa tree to the front corner, add some apple trees, relocate some plants to different areas, install a new walkway from the front door to the relocated mailbox (likely brick or granite cobbles), take up and reinstall the brick walkway to the main door in the ell/kitchen mudroom, and add a new granite slab that’s big enough that you can step aside while opening the door. We’ll also install some critter fence and begin laying mulch/wood chips/compost/soil for our garden next spring. We’re going to use the deep mulch method, as we can get all the wood chips we want, and we have plenty of leaves and compost from under the barn.
Below are pictures of some of the granite “nuggets” and overgrown beds that are scattered about:
Recently, we finished up the back screen porch and the back laundry/mudroom. The screen porch was unfinished when we moved in, so we added shiplap to the walls, board and batten to the ceiling, and painted the walls a lovely “Shark” gray, the ceiling and window trim “Dove” white, and stained the floors a light “Cape Cod” gray. We’ve also hung one of our antique barn lanterns in the corner, and have another on a table for ambient lighting. The porch has become one of our favorite places, both for coffee in the morning, and for a glass of wine at night, while listening to the quiet sounds of nature around us. The porch is located on the east side of the kitchen, off the back mudroom/laundry, so it’s a cool spot to relax at night. Below is the before-during-after:
We also (finally!) finished reinstalling the laundry room/closet doors in the relocated wall. If you remember, we had to take out the wall that separated the laundry area from the mudroom, as the washer/dryer we purchased didn’t fit due to the new dryer’s vent location. We ended up having the run a new vent straight back through the wall into the front mudroom, then down through the floor, and back around to vent under the screen porch. We also changed out the switches, outlets, and cover plates to a new crisp white.
We’ve been hiking pretty much every day, as there are trails everywhere around here. Tennessee loves the country life, and enjoys the hikes, although he usually collapses onto the cool hearth floor and takes a nap as soon as we get back. We still find ourselves awed by the beauty of this place, and often exclaim to each other how lucky we are that we LIVE here. We really love this place. It’s definitely our forever home.
The rain is softening up, so we’re going to go take the pup for a walk. Stay tuned for kitchen remodel progress pictures. Thanks for following along, and as always, let us know if you have any questions or comments- follow us on Instagram (we just don’t have time to keep up with Facebook anymore), and we’ll see you again soon!
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