Basement plans

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

So I realized I talked a lot about what we have to do to the basement, but not a lot about what it will be.

The main words to describe this space are cozy, comfy and casual.

Sarah Richardson Sarah's House Season 1 basement

Not our basement. Inspiration picture from Sarah’s House Season 1

We’re starting with a pretty good space. We have great ceiling height, large rooms and really good bones. You’ve already seen a sneak peak of the room I’ve dubbed the long room and heard about some of our early demo work. Here are the other rooms that make up our basement.

The main room. Picture a large, comfy sectional couch where the wood stove is and a big TV on the wall opposite the staircase.

The other side of the main room in the basement. Not sure what the deal is with all of the cabinetry and the workstations. This has all been removed, but some of the cabinets will be reused in Matt’s office. Picture a ping pong table and games table in this space.

The basement bathroom, soon to be known as Matt’s bathroom. This project will get its own post.

Another view of the basement before. The laundry room is to the left and Matt’s soon-to-be office is through the doorway in the centre. The half wall has already been demolished and a new doorway to the office has been cut behind it.

The basement also includes our cold cellar and utility room, but we’re focusing our renovation on the actual living space.

Here’s a floor plan showing how the spaces fit together.

Basement floor plan before (Image courtesy of floorplanner.com)

And here’s the plan showing the changes I’d like to make.

Basement floor plan after. Just subtle changes (except for the aforementioned bathroom). Just moving some things around and dialing up the cozy factor. (Image courtesy of floorplanner.com)

In the end, the main spaces in the basement will be used for TV watching, games and hanging out.

Sarah Richardson is known for putting a full size table in her family rooms as a spot for games, work, crafts or dining.

I think that’s a great idea and we’ve got the space for one, so that’s on the list too.

Inspiration photo from Sarah’s House Season 1.

I’ve already made some fun board game-inspired artwork to go on the walls.

We found a ping pong table top in the barn, so we’ll be making a base for it and bringing it into the basement. There’s a dartboard in the office that we’ll be hanging up somewhere. We’re also storing my brother’s pool table for him and I’ve told him not to be surprised if it ends up in the long room while it’s here.

The basement was Matt’s main priority when we were house-hunting, so I’m excited to make it a nice space that’s special for him.

For more of our inspiration images, visit my Basement board on Pinterest.

And feel free to add your input in the comments. What makes up your perfect basement? Are you a rec room fan or a home theatre enthusiast?

This

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Sunday morning, this arrived at the farm.

And with it came these.

Soon, there was lots of this.

And a whole bunch of this.

By Monday evening (yes, that means this exercise in lumberjacking went on for a full two days), we had this.

Hello, crackling fires on cold winter nights

A huge thanks to Matt’s Dad for all of his work, time, equipment and expertise. He took down the tree on our first weekend and then came back to help us finish the job–and do battle with two huge stumps. End result is three rows of wood, each about 16 feet long, 5 feet high, and all of it cut, split and stacked.

I love my father-in-law’s wood splitter. You might say we cheated and didn’t do it the way a real farmer would. I say it’s magic. The best invention ever.

Scenes from Good Friday

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Forsythia in my grandmother's vase

Table set ready for guests

Mom's lemon meringue pies

A golden moon rising over the fields

Family gathered around the table

We have a tradition in my Mom’s family of getting together every Good Friday. My grandmother hosted every year, and when she died, Matt and I took over.

It was very special to host everyone at the farm this year.

Basement reno

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

When moving into a new house, the first reno project for many people might be the kitchen or the bathroom, something in the main living space. But not for us. Nope, we’re going underground and doing the basement.

Basement demo in progress

We knew from the first time we saw the basement that we were going to rip out the bathroom entirely right away. Very quickly on the first weekend we realized we were also going to rip out the carpet. Then, when Matt started taking down the paneling in the long room, we realized we needed to upgrade the insulation in all of the exterior walls.

This is when scope creep began to happen. Scope creep happens when you say to each other, “Since we’re doing A and B, we might as well do C, D, E, F and G.”

So, here is the to-do list for the basement reno:

Redo the bathroom (this is a big project that will get its own post)
Replace all the carpet
Remove the wood stove
Relocate the built-in cabinetry
Brick up one window
Redo all the insulation and drywall on the exterior walls
Remove barn board paneling
Relocate office doorway
Deal with electrical (remove baseboard heaters, fix lighting issues)

So yeah, this isn’t just a slap some paint on the walls project. Oh well, we just came from a basement reno at our last house. We can do it all over again. It’ll just take a little more time and energy than we’d initially planned on.

Hopefully the scope of this project doesn’t creep any further!

We’ve already made pretty good progress. Most of the exterior walls are opened up, the wood stove is out, the new office doorway has been cut and the cabinetry is down.

Our weekend involved things like discovering peg board, floor to ceiling, wall to wall installed behind the drywall on every single wall of Matt’s new office. Just FYI, peg board is not easy to remove. Drywall, you can usually pop that right off. Peg board, not so much. I now officially hate peg board and will never ever be using it anywhere.

We also discovered that our wood stove is even heavier than our piano. Matt and I were able to get it off of its tile platform together, but we couldn’t move it very far just the two of us, so we decided to save it until my Dad was there to help us (you’re welcome, Dad!). Turns out, the three of us couldn’t move it very far either.

We managed to heave it onto a dolly, which allowed us to wheel it to the bottom of the basement stairs. Then we set up planks on the stairs and tried to wheel the dolly up our makeshift ramp. We made it about 6 inches.

Plan B involved a very long, very heavy rope that we discovered coiled up outside the drive shed. The rope went around the dolly and the wood stove about 6 times. Some creative knots were tied. Then the rope went up the stairs, out the front door and was tied to the trailer hitch on my Dad’s truck (can you guess where this is going?).

I have no photos of any of this, because, as I’m sure you can understand, our hands were a little full.

With me driving, Matt directing me from the top of the stairs and Dad guiding the dolly from the bottom, the extrication began. Eventually, even the truck gave up as the back wheels started spinning while the wood stove was still about 3 feet from the top of the stairs. The rope was creaking, the planks were sliding and we were still so close–yet so far!–from victory.

But by that point, we were not going to surrender to our iron adversary, so with Matt and me pulling and my Dad pushing we managed to heave the wood stove up the final few feet. Dad’s comment was that he had no choice but to get it up since he was on the bottom and the wood stove was going to go through him if gravity prevailed. When it was finally on level ground, the three of us just slumped against the floor, the wall, the stairs, wherever we were, chests heaving, hands still gripping the stove, a little bit stunned that we actually managed to get this beast out of the basement.

Wood stove, in its new temporary quarters in the drive shed.

So, I now have a wood stove for sale. You want it, you come and get it. I will not be helping you load it.

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.