Buying a farm – House wish list

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

You already know what we were looking for when it came to the property. Now for the house.

Growing up in a custom built home and with a Dad that worked construction (and working construction so much myself), I always planned to build my own house. So initially, our search was just for the property. I wanted vacant land, a blank slate, something that I could make completely my own.

Unfortunately, on the type of property we were looking for, a blank slate meant we’d have a lot of extra costs: septic, well, hydro, driveway. Never mind the plans, permits and actual construction costs.

So, the criteria evolved. We decided we wanted a house with “potential.” I won’t go as far as saying we wanted a fixer-upper, because for me “fixer-upper” means major problems. I wanted something that I could put work into and make it into the dream house I’d always envisaged. Matt was just hoping we ended up with something we could actually live in, because there were a few along the way that were a little iffy.

So here’s the house wish list:

Potential
Traditional farmhouse look
Useable basement (Matt’s biggest priority)
Wood burning fireplace or the potential to have one
At least 2,000 square feet
Generous-sized rooms
3 bedrooms
2 bathrooms
No pool

And here’s what we ended up choosing:

Our new farmhouse.

It soon became clear that a few of our criteria were at odds. Old farmhouses for the most part don’t come with useable basements or generous-sized rooms. I eventually realized I wanted the old fashioned farmhouse exterior with a new, built for the way people live today interior.

So when we found a 30-40 year old bungalow with many of the elements we were looking for on the perfect property, we decided it was the one.

The house is just a smidge under 2,000 square feet. It has three bedrooms and two full baths, lots of closets and a huge useable basement.

On the potential front, this might be a bit more of a fixer-upper than we hoped for (to-do list includes new heating/cooling system, new roof, adding insulation, upgrades to the well and water system and dealing with some weird electrical before we get to the “fun” stuff), but we still think we made a good choice.

A great, large, bright living room open to the kitchen with a vaulted ceiling and plenty of room for lots of comfy furniture.

A stone-faced wood burning fireplace.

A cold cellar (not a necessity, but I grew up with one of these, and they're kind of hard to add-on once a house is finished. I'm glad I have one of my own now). And yes, Matt shops with the apocalypse in mind.

A huge main bathroom with double sinks, a huge vanity and tons of storage. (The cracked sink, 1970s tile, painted paneling on the walls and Care-Bear-colour-palette on the counter top are examples of potential.)

On the compromise side of things, there were two major things I compromised on. Here’s the first:

Yes, this is our lovely indoor pool (and Matt on home inspection day demonstrating how to hold your breath in imaginary water).

So I didn’t want a pool in the first place, and now I have one in the house! As far as we’ve been able to determine, the pool has not been used (or filled) in at least 2 years. There are some issues with the equipment, and there may be some issues with the pool itself. We’re not sure exactly what we’re going to end up doing with this space, but suffice it to say that you probably shouldn’t plan on bringing your bathing suit when you come to visit.

The biggest compromise is on the traditional farmhouse look. But I think there’s a solution for that one too. Don’t you think this…

… could become something like this?

Original image available here (I made a few edits)

Can you see it?

Obviously, this is a very long term renovation plan we’re working with. Good thing this is our forever house. We’re going to need to be here for awhile!

Forsythia

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Forsythia bushes at the side of the drive shed.

One thing about buying a property in January is that you don’t know exactly what you bought until the property reveals itself in the spring.

It’s been fun watching the new shoots poke up out of the ground and the buds sprout on the bare branches as the plants come back to life.

These forsythia bushes revealed themselves at the side of the drive shed. There is some old lattice tangled in them that needs some attention, but they’re a pretty addition to the property, and the cheerful blooms are a sure sign of spring.

Forsythia always reminds me of my youngest sister. She has gorgeous blond hair that’s bright like the yellow flowers, and her name is Cynthia.

Cynthia lives far away now, so this blog is a way that she can be part of the farm, even though she can’t be here in person. Seeing the forsythia come into bloom this spring has been a nice reminder of her.

I always think of forsythia as “for-Cynthia.”

Buying a farm – Property wish list

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

For all of the time that we’ve been together (this is our 15th year for those that are counting), Matt and I both knew that we eventually wanted to live on a farm. However, for most of that time “farm” was just an abstract concept in our minds.

When we started actually looking for a farm that we wanted to buy, we had to give some actual thought to what it was we truly wanted. I thought it might be helpful to lay out our wish list and see how we measured up.

I’m going to start with the property, and next I’ll do the house.

Throughout our search, we (Matt will tell you it was mainly me) were very, very picky. We knew this was going to be our forever house, so we didn’t want to compromise on anything. This is the main reason that the search took a year and a half.

Advice to people looking for the perfect country property? Be patient. It will come and everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.

In the end, here’s the criteria we used when evaluating potential properties:

Property wish list:

A large property, ideally 50 acres+
Not more than an hour (ideally 45 minutes) from work and family
Not too many out-buildings, but definitely a large old wood frame barn
Water of some kind, a pond ideally, but a creek would work
A long tree-lined driveway
Forest or bush that’s not too far from the house
Fields that we can rent out to a tenant farmer
A quiet country road, maybe even a gravel road

So let’s see how we did:

Pond, check.

Old wood frame barn, check.

Long driveway, check.

Forest, check. (Yes, all of those trees in the distance are actually ours)

Creek, check.

Fields, check. (And paddocks complete with run-in shelters).

Here’s the summary of what we ended up with:

A very large property at 129 acres
20 minutes from Matt’s parents, 30 from mine, 35 from my work, 45 from his
One large wood frame barn (estimated at ~100 years old) that’s in great shape and a large wood frame drive shed
A good-size pond near the house (I love to look out the kitchen window and see the water glisten in the sunlight) fed by a small stream that then flows into a huge marsh area
150 metre driveway
Approximately 50 acres of forest, marsh and wild land on the back half of the property, plus a good grove of trees and a stand of huge pine right by the house
Approximately 60 acres of cleared fields
Our road is a little bit busy by country standards–the only miss

There were numerous times throughout our search where we were asking ourselves if we should re-evaluate our criteria or compromise on a particular element. In the end, I don’t feel that we did, and I am absolutely certain that we ended up with the right property for us.

Basement reno begins

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Here’s how we spent our Saturday afternoon.

Basement before

Basement after.

The space that I call the “long room” in the basement had barn board paneling on the lower half of the walls. Matt was not a fan.

It was chipped, water stained (notice the flood evidence in the first picture) and just a whole lot too rustic for our taste (and yes, that is plywood covering a broken window in the photo). The patches you can see on the upper half of the wall are not our handy work and in fact that drywall is now going to be coming down and completely redone, so just pretend it’s not even there.

After Matt finished with the frustration that was attaching the pedestals to our new washer and dryer, he was ready to hit something. That meant the paneling was doomed.

A few hours later we learned several things:

Don’t mess with Matt when he has a wrecking bar.
There is no drywall behind our barn board paneling… Huh, I guess this is going to be a little more work.
The insulation behind the barn board is both inadequate and improperly done… Huh, I guess this is going to be a lot more work.
Our piano (which came with the house) weighs about 3,000 pounds… and when Matt’s adrenaline is up, he can move it all by himself.
You should always find the right breaker before you start to mess with an electrical outlet (my poor Phillips screwdriver will never be the same).

Another angle of the room, including the lovely view we now have into the utility room.

This is going to be a long project, so don’t expect the final reveal next weekend, but I am pleased to say that work inside the house is finally underway.

Misty morning

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Morning mist across the back fields

I love the look of misty mornings in the country, and this past weekend we had a great one.

And across the front field

So nice to see a misty morning across my own fields.

We’ll see what this weekend brings. Wishing everyone a great one.

Farm attire

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I went to the feed mill after work today.

I was wearing my red dress, gold flats, dangly pearl earrings, navy trench complete with colourful silk scarf and carrying my sequined Coach purse. There may have even been panty hose involved.

Yes, that is Ralph one of our barn cats eyeing my Coach purse.

I don’t think I have this farmer thing down yet.

Oh well, at least I wasn’t wearing the leopard print wedges I usually pair with this dress.

Running with the cows

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

A country scene from our Sunday morning run.

This past weekend, we went for our first run from the farm. Once we determined where the run actually started–does a long driveway count towards the final mileage?–we had a great time touring the area immediately around the farm and seeing a different perspective of the property.

It was a nice sunny day, no wind and not too cool. Just warm enough for the first shorts run of the year.

To give you some perspective on the size of our property, just over 2 km of the run were actually along the border of our own land.

We ended up going for about 7K in total. Good preparation for my race this weekend after being completely off running for the past two weeks and hit or miss for the two weeks before that.

Running down the quiet country roads was a nice change from the city. We had a good paved trail by our old house, but nothing beats the country air.

Speaking of the air, I’m constantly noticing the smells of the country. There’s the earthiness of the marshy spots as they’re thawing and warming up in the spring sunshine. There’s the manure of the barn yards we run past. There’s the sweetness of hay from the huge bales in the back of the pick-up truck that drove slowly past us. I love it all.

The most interesting moment of the run came when we were going past one farm where 10 calves were penned in a paddock by the road (not sure if I’m using the correct “farm” terminology here). The calves were all penned, but the mama guard cow was not. She came charging down the driveway towards us, and I don’t think it was just ’cause she was happy to see us. I of course stopped to walk because cows, especially ones that are stampeding towards me, are still enough of a novelty to cause me to stop and look. Matt was not so interested in slowing down. His comment as he watched the huge mama thunder towards us was, “Ummm… maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

She stopped just short of the edge of the road and proceeded to pace along the fence, placing herself between us and the babies and snorting in warning and keeping an eye on us.

We talked nicely to her and the babies and then wished them all a good day and jogged away.

It was a fun sight for the morning, and definitely made for a memorable first run.

ETA: We went for our second run last night and met a run away dog while we were out (and his family who was trying to get him back). What is with us and run-away animals!

Company

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

This week we actually had people over just to have them over. We didn’t put them to work or anything! (Well, there may have been a few questions and conversations, but they didn’t actually have to pick up a hammer or a rag).

Before

It was Matt’s birthday, so that gave us an excuse to invite people in. Granted, it was just cake, but it was still really nice to welcome people into our home and celebrate with them.

After

It also gave me the motivation I needed to set down the hammer and pick up a mop! Wow, those floors were mucky. Not sure we’ve come up with a solution yet to keep all of the dirt that’s part of farm living out of the farmhouse and in the farm yard where it belongs…

2 weeks

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

We’re two weeks into farm ownership. It might be starting to sink in that this is all ours. Today in the barn I had a moment of realization that this fabulous old structure is actually mine. Oh, and the forest, and creeks, and marshes, and ponds, and trees, and driveshed, and house too.

After looking for this property for so long, it’s still a bit unreal at times.

Here’s what we’ve done the first two weeks:

Energy Audit
Install new geothermal heating/cooling/hot water system
Have all of the ducts cleaned
Clean out and clean up the house
Clean out the barn (mostly)
Move in
Upgrade the insulation in the attic
Decide that upgrades are needed to the well and water system and meet with two contractors to start getting quotes
Buy new washer, dryer, dishwasher
Make numerous trips to Home Depot, Rona, Canadian Tire, Walmart…
Pick up our newly refinished dining room table and chairs
Buy fabric and foam to recover the seats on the dining chairs
Cut down a huge tree that had a split in it and was dangerously close to the house
Start to get acquainted with our two barn cats
Get internet service
Get telephone service (surprisingly, our high-speed internet was the easier technology to get up and running in an area where modems and dial-up are still in use)
Make numerous repairs to the barn, including adding a door where there was just a door-sized hole, installing locks, fixing the broken staircase, installing lighting and plugs on the main floor, cleaning out many piles of scrap wood and bales and bales of loose straw–complete with four garbage bags full of binder twine
Rehang the driveshed door so that it will now close
Do minor electrical upgrades in the house like a new exhaust fan in the bathroom and a dimmer switch in the bedroom (including installing the latest in modern technology, a cover plate on the light switch! It was a little scary to fumble around in the dark without one there!)
Unpack (somewhat)
Take a few walks across the fields and finally venture into the woods

The credit for the barn and driveshed all go to my Dad and Matt (with an assist from my father-in-law on the new barn door). Dad spent a lot of time out at the farm supervising the contractors when we weren’t there and working to make things nice for us. Thanks Dad!

Funny how most of our attention has been spent outside at the barn. The house still needs a lot of work, but it’s completely habitable and as we unpack and settle in, I’m starting to feel more comfortable.

This is definitely where I want to be. I feel very privileged that we were able to make this happen and that we’ve found the property for us. It’s very special. Tiring and a lot of work, but still special.