Saturday, September 25, 2010

Sunflower


I have really enjoyed my sunflower plant that my pastors wife gave me this past spring. I planted 3 of them in front of the chicken coop, but only one survived. I have enjoyed looking out at it every day. Sunflowers are my favorite! This one plant has had so many blooms!

I came home last night and the wind must have knocked it down. It was laying on the ground looking sad. It made me sad. Now the chicken coop just doesn't look the same when I look outside. :(

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Home renovations begin...

When we moved to this house, we had just finished completely renovating the house we were living in. It was a long 5 years of step by step renovation of every nook and cranny of that house. I had a new kitchen, new main floor laundry room, new hardwood floors, etc. Everything was tailored to the way I wanted it. I was spoiled!
Then we decided we wanted to move. What? Hadn't we had our fill of renovations? I guess not. Well, the real reason we wanted to move was because we wanted land and a farm. God gave us our dream farm. The view is stunning, the peacefullness is amazing. We have 53 acres of land, a barn for the animals we want to have, a chicken coop, garage for Justin, maple trees for tapping and a c.1910 farmhouse.

The first few weeks in the house I got rather depressed. I had forgotten the tremendous gift that God had given us and was focusing on things that really are just cosmetic. The previous owners did everything they could to make the house "not" look like a farmhouse. Every room except the kitchen is carpeted and the walls are painted horrible colors. They even painted the beautiful exposed wood beams (pink and white!) The previous owner had a love for using particle board for everything! The front porch is clad in particle board, the garage is sided with particle board, they covered a heat vent in the living room with particle board! YUK!

My husband is such a handy man. I am SO thankful for him. He can do anything he sets his mind to. I slowly learned that room by room in our other house. He did things that I wouldn't even dream of tackling and his work is particular and quite frankly, beautiful. He added lots of little finishing touches to our other house that are little "fingerprints" of his work. But we left that place behind. I am excited to see what the future holds for us in this house. It seems rather daunting though!

So, when we decided to build a hearth in the front room of this house for a wood burning stove(because rebuilding a chimney from our chimney fire is NOT in the budget right now) I was excited at what was to come! Let the renovations begin...

We were just going to cut around the ugly blue carpet and place the hearth there for now, BUT we decided to see what might be under the carpet...plank floor, which I would love to expose and refinish! Needless to say, we ended up ripping the carpet up, tearing the luan out that was underneath to expose the 1910 plank underneath. There are some patches, but I think once it is finished and the furniture is put back in, those patches will add character!


After we ripped up the floor, we thought, "we might as well tear down this wall paper board," so that is what we did. As we did that, my husband starting looking at this little entry way wall and decided to take a look at possibly tearing it down. So he started ripping into sheet rock to expose original studs with evidence of lath and plaster and original square head nails. Hmmm, maybe we should leave this wall up? We decided to leave it, because we think it is supporting the stairs, but we did take the first stud out, which opens the room up nicely!


I am excited to see what the Lord has for us in this house and what kinds of "fingerprints" my handy husband will come up with to give this house "Anderson character!"