Inside and Outside the Farmhouse

We've lived on Coal Creek Farm for fifteen months. Within the first week of moving in I started ripping off the wallpaper in the dining room. Clay begged me not to start a project, but I just couldn't stand that wallpaper, it was too dark and gloomy and it didn't match anything we owned, it had to go.

This is a photo I took during the open house. We put a contract on the house, the same day we saw it. My poor kids were in shock, they thought we had lost our minds. Then I reminded them that we had been looking for a house for over two years. I think they thought we'd spend the rest of their lives going to open houses.

I just showed these old photos to two of my children and they asked what they were. I said, "That's our dining room" and they said, "Oh. No it's not".


As I ripped off the paper there was one area over the pass through between the kitchen and dining room that started to crumble and then a whole bunch of termites started to fall out of the wall. It was so gross. You can read the whole dining room saga here. Also, I was trying very hard not to learn how to set the date on my camera, so for about a month or more all my pictures have the date 01/08/2005 on them even though it was 2008. Guess what? I learned how to set the date. Now if I could just learn how to program my cell phone.



We lived with that hole in the wall for quite a few months while we were trying to decide just how to patch the darn thing. Then one day we both decided we'd just get the job done.


I spent several days sanding, patching, sanding, patching, sanding... you get the idea. And then I painted that darn room three different colors before I finally got to one I liked.



While I procrastinated the work in the dining room I got a bug in my britches to paint the kitchen.
I painted right over the wallpaper since it wasn't peeling or ripped. It was so much easier and I got the whole thing done in one night.


You can see more photos of the kitchen here and here. I wonder when I'm going to be able to get rid of those weird X tiles? They used to drive me crazy, but I've been here long enough that their not bothering me as much. I have a feeling they're going to be there for a very, very long time.



Moving outside the farmhouse. This is a photo I took before we bought the house. This was the lean-to or shed that housed a bunch of lumber that the previous owners left. We had thought about making it into a chicken coop.



Here you can see the shed in the background and Levi trying out the swing we hung with one of the tires we found in the shed.


It's a good thing we didn't have anything precious stored in the shed because it was blown to bits during a storm. The entire windy story can been seen here.


Clay had to use his truck to drag the big pieces of the shed out of the field and then we started sorting through the mess.

We used some of the lumber to build our garden beds.

And build the pig pen.

My favorite use of the broken shed was when my son took it upon himself to build this masterpiece.



It's a fort that he can hide behind when playing air soft gun wars with his friends. Isn't it lovely?

We also used a bunch of the lumber to build a chicken coop and patch the roof of the barn. I know why farmers never throw anything away now, because you just never know when you might need a piece of lumber or scrap of metal to make a patch or build a pen.

I don't know about you, but going through all these photos and seeing the green grass and garden are sure making me ache for summer.

I'm starting to think a lot about a chicken tractor. I was reading about meat chickens. Do any of you chicken people have opinions on raising Cornish Cross meat birds? I have mixed feeling about those birds. I'd sure love to hear if any of you have raised some. Clay told me he doesn't think he can make a decent chicken tractor out of the remaining lumber from the shed, but I be he can squeeze out a few more raised beds.