Painting the House

First off, I want to say a huge thank you to the followers and friends that have commented, emailed or spoke to me in person about how much they are seeing a transformation in the farm.   Thank you for your encouraging feedback.   We love it here...and knowing that it shows in our efforts, our smiles and our ambition is a huge support network that I feel truly blessed to have.   Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

It's been a busy 2 weeks here at the farm.
Our back 40 is now planted in soya beans that have started to sprout.   The roof is on and looks fabulous.   The new facia, eaves troughs and gable vents are up and changing them all to white has updated the look of the house.   The entire second floor (3 rooms and the bathroom) with the exception of the office / junk storage room have all been painted...INCLUDING the huge hallways that start in the kitchen downstairs.   The gym has been painted, the mudroom now has 2 new doors as well as new insulation and new drywall.   Still need to paint the mudroom but DH put the primer on so it's on it's way to finished as well.

I now have a new BIGGER studio which was formerly our guest room.   The guest room is now the small 3rd bedroom in the house which is fine as a guest room since it has a queen bed and a side table.   Not much more room than that and I doubt the guests we entertain would complain.   :-)

This is the new colour for the studio at the beginning.

And here it is with paint on.   I will post pics later on when I actually have the studio put back together!

PS - Don't look at the hideous light...that was there when we moved in and it hasn't been changed yet!

The new guest room...sorry about the TV...That's actually destined to my studio.  AND time for a new quilt!  :-)

I have to send a big shout out to my mom for spending the weekend and working her butt of with us to get this done.    We would never have got so much accomplished without her help.   Painting has been on the to do list for awhile but had really never made it to the top of the list.   We are approaching one year here on the farm and the house hasn't really been much of a priority so getting this cleaned up and looking smart will make the day to day life inside that much more enjoyable.    Now we can start the process of decorating!   O how I love (insert sarcasm font here) decorating!!   Seeing what I like in magazines is really easy and fun.   Seeing what I want at a store and buying it to pull it all together at my own house...not so much fun!    

Here is my mom painting the hall upstairs.

My mom took this picture of me cutting in the top edge of the 17' wall that goes from the kitchen to the top of the stairs on the second floor.   She thought she had better have proof when she submitted my death notice for the Darwin Awards!   Don't try this at home folks!

PS - DH was thinking I looked like a thing of beauty wearing shorts and my wool socks!   I always remind him in moments like that He asked ME to marry him!

Here are a few shots of the mud room as it underwent it's transformation.   You may remember this post when Dora made her mark.   Molly then helped here to leave a bit more mess by chewing the drywall.   We still have to finish the colour and trim...will post more pics when that's finished.

From an equestrian perspective, this weekend was dry.   No riding at all.  :-(   The horses however didn't seem to mind in the least!   All 3 (Izzy included) are covered in mud from this mornings rain and are happy, fat and relaxed.   It's still a beautiful site to see them eating grass or dozing in the sunshine.

This is a shot from this week at morning chores.    Morning chores are my favourite...its a wonderful time of day and now that the sun is actually up when I do chores in the morning it makes it that much more wonderful.   The sun was just cresting the tree line when I went out.  5 happy horses waiting for breakfast!

 Last but not least, we must have a brief posting of Molly!   This shot is from outside our kitchen bay window looking into the house.   We have a small table that is a heirloom handed down to me from my Grandmother.   Miss Kitty has taken to sitting up in this window sill to watch the birds and chipmunks in the yard.   Well...Molly has learned everything she knows from the cat...and thought it a splendid place to sit and keep an eye on us as we surveyed the work from the roofing contractor!    What a little stinker!

Please excuse the peeling pain on the windows...that's another painting project on the list before winter this year!

HP Haven Happenings

Lots on the go around the farm.   All the spring projects are now rolling around to the summer projects. There is never a shortage of things to do and I am really starting to get comfortable with the fact that I just can't do everything...at least not as fast as I want to and not in the first year!   I know you peeps that are reading this who know me well are laughing out loud about now.   My A Type personality is scream with pain and my reality portion of my brain is calling "uncle"!   So...even if I am making a muck out of letting go...I am trying to consciously not get bogged down in the details of the long, O so very long list of things I see on a daily basis that I want to make changes to.

DH and I bought the place with the thoughts of a 5 year plan.   I know, I may have pulled the wool over his eyes just a little on that 5 year thing...but he has played along so far so Shhhh...it will be our little secret!   Five years is an optimistic view of the future but I know we will get there.   AND even tho it's far from perfect it's still home and I can feel how right being here is for my insides.   This place has felt like home since the first night.   Even tho I have experienced the odd melt down over simple things like knotted fencing after 3 straight days of 12 hours of stringing new fences.   But hey, if the biggest road blocks are a few knots, a bunch of weeds and a half empty bank account...I have gained far more in joy than any of the troubles this places as presented.

The only flowers that this house has are four lovely clematis vines at the back door and side of the house.   I miss my gardens and all the spring bulbs but as the summer rolls forward I know I will get more time to address the loss of those beds from Decewsville and have the joy of creating a complete new perennial garden from scratch here.

 

My mom and I also did a bit of a transformation on the garden at the barn entrance.   

Here is what it was when we moved in.

This is what it looks like now.   Just need to add the cedar mulch to help keep those weeds at bay.

My mission on the weekend was get rid of the ugly garden at the front of the house.   When we moved in the old owners had taken out some of the boards on the front deck and filled it with soil to plant the veggie garden.   Yes, you are reading this correctly...the veggie garden was directly out the front door!

This is how it looked when we moved in.

This is what it looked like when I started...we had already ripped out the ugly broke fence, weeds and over grown shrubs late last fall.

This is now.   We still have a lot of landscaping to do here but the structure is mostly gone, with the exception of the little walk out.

We are in the middle of having a new roof put on the house.  As I type we still have about 1/3 left to be redone.   It's been a big job as there were 3 layers of old shingles on some portions and some of the boards were broken as the roof had no plywood sheeting.   That has now been added and we will follow this with new eves and new venting.   We chose a brownish colour shingle as in the future 5 year plan we will change the colour of the house.

Here are the guys at work...more photos to come after the weekend.

Here is the damaged roof with no shingles that needed to re-sheeted.

DH has started to rip out the drywall in the mud room.  We knew this had to be done when the new door was replaced.   This started as just a repair to the holes that Dora and Molly had picked away at.  But being an old house, one thing always leads to another...so this will be a full gut and re-do.   **Reminder to self...Rome was NOT built in a day.**

And LAST but not LEAST...there must be a Molly update!

She is growing like all the weeds in the yard.  It seems like everyday she gets just a bit bigger and fills out just a little more.   She is back in full force from here spay surgery.  I even took her on a 8km hack earlier this week with Izzy and I through the bush.  

She has taken to getting up on the foot rest at the island bar in the kitchen.   She also has taken to squirming her way into position to see what might be up there to eat.  Like all golden retrievers there is nothing more important than food!   I am not condoning this behaviour...but as you can see someone at the homestead is!!!!