A cat way to spend the day

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Home from work one day a few weeks ago with a bad cold (my third time being sick this winter–I am not impressed), I discovered how Ralph spends her day when she thinks no one is watching.

While I set up my laptop on the dining room table and went to work, Ralph blithely ignored her day job of keeping the rodents and other small animals in line.

She had a friend over to visit.

We’ve seen Cow Cat a few times, but he’s pretty shy. As soon as he saw me snap his picture through the mudroom window he took off.

Lonely, Ralph came to the dining room looking for company.

She napped. She sunbathed. She talked to me through the glass.

And occasionally I responded.

No screens for the winter mean we have a walk up scratching window.

What Ralph did not do at any point during her day was hunt. In fact, by late afternoon, she turned her back on me and focused her attention down the driveway, waiting for Matt to come home and feed her.

Ralphy, I think you’re going on a diet now that it’s spring. Agri-Cat kibble will be rationed, and you will have to put a little more effort into fending for yourself.

My displeasure at Ralph’s behaviour aside, I hope that you have a relaxing weekend.

Searching for my dream ‘man

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Never fear, Matt, you are still the man for me. What the title of this post refers to is my search for the perfect ottoman.

In case it hasn’t been clear, I’m loving our big, beautiful, brand new basement. However, things are a little barren down there. Between the two very large main rooms, we’ve only furnished one corner of one room–the TV area home to the most comfortable sectional ever and my homemade custom TV cabinet.

Our two lone pieces of furniture were both working out great. What wasn’t working so well was the big empty space in the middle of the sectional. We had nowhere to set a glass, a snack or a remote control.

I knew I wanted an ottoman–somewhere soft and cushy for people to put their feet up, something that could serve as extra seating if needed and something that had storage inside.

I was still in the looking around and seeing what’s available stage when we stopped into the store where we’d bought the couch. They offered a large storage ottoman with a hinged top made by the same company that made our sectional, Decor-Rest. I was planning to take it under consideration, but then Matt said the magic words, “Just buy it, woman.”

The guy really wanted a spot to set his drink.

We put in our order, and a few weeks later it arrived.

But now that it’s here, I’m not sure that I love it.

Faced with placing the order more quickly than I expected, I chose the same fabric that we used on the couch. My original vision had been for a contrasting fabric with a bit more pattern, rather than matchy-matchy.

I didn’t want the same fabric, but I did want the same feet. The feet on the ottoman are in the same finish as the feet on the couch, but they’re narrower and taller than the feet on the couch. I realize this probably isn’t noticeable to most people, but the fact that the ottoman is an inch or so taller than the couch bugs me.

While the ottoman is too tall outside, inside it’s too short–or at least shorter than I expected. The top cushion is very thick, which limits the depth of the storage part. There’s still enough space to put the video game accessories, DVDs, throws or whatever else I decide to hide away, though, and the shallower storage will save me from losing things in the depths of the box, I guess.

Allow Guitar Hero to demonstrate the interior capacity of the storage ottoman.

The biggest thing I’m not sure about is the shape. Back when I was imagining the basement, I had envisioned a square ottoman. This one is rectangle. It is a very large rectangle–36 inches by 28 inches by 20 inches tall–and fits comfortably in the centre of our sectional. And I guess the rectangle gives more breathing space between the ottoman and the TV, which isn’t a bad thing.

I’m not planning on returning the ottoman or reupholstering it any time soon, so it’s not as though our relationship is doomed. It does what I want in terms of storage, seating and providing a soft space to put up your feet. The overall style matches the style of our couch. I may trim the feet a little bit–we’ll see.

Even if the ottoman isn’t my dream ‘man, it accomplishes one other important objective: it gives my two-legged dream man a place to put his drink.

Isn’t there some saying about this situation? Happy husband, happy life? Somehow that doesn’t sound quite right to me. What about you? How do you approach furniture shopping? Have you ever had buyer’s remorse after a big purchase? Are you an ottoman or a coffee table person?

Coming to terms with my crafty side

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I don’t consider myself to be a very crafty person. If I’m going to work on something, it’s likely going to involve large power tools, lots of dust, potential of injury and probably take over a whole room. However, as we’ve moved from the construction phase into the decorating phase in the basement, I’ve found myself working on crafts.

I made a large wooden die, as in singular dice.

This was my first crafty project, and I felt really weird doing it. Like it wasn’t worth my time. I did use my skill saw and power sander and kicked up a bit of dust, which made me feel better. But then there was the miniature paint brush and the stencil. What the heck am I doing with a stencil?

The finished die is living on top of our TV cabinet in the basement, serving as a bookend to some classic tomes.

If you’re feeling crafty and want to make an oversize wooden dice yourself, here’s a link to my printable stencil. It’s sized for a 6×6 block (so each face is 5 1/2 inches). And if you’re a bit of a fiend about getting the details right, my stencil includes a pattern for the accurate configuration of the faces based on my Yahtzee game.

I also painted a tray.

In keeping with the fun and games theme we have happening in the basement, I was planning to make a backgammon inspired tray for the top of the ottoman. When I found one at Value Village, I snapped it up–leaving the glass chess board that sat on top behind at the store.

The blond wood base and black and grey backgammon markings worked well for our decor. The red wood frame did not. A sample pot of Benjamin Moore yellow green perked it up in a hurry.

You already saw the umbrella stand that I made for the Pinterest Challenge. I’ve also done some wood cuts–for gifts, so I can’t show them yet. I have plans for some more gifts and more fun and games inspired art for the basement.

It seems like now that I’ve started crafting I can’t stop. I’ll admit there’s something rewarding about working on a project that takes only one evening to complete, but I am starting to feel the need to demolish and rebuild something.

Sunrise special for breakfast

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

With the switch to daylight saving time last weekend, the view from my breakfast table has changed a little bit.

Yesterday, a week of cloudy days gave way to a beautiful pink morning.

As I watched the sun come up, I thought of my Auntie Anne, a great cheerleader, a loyal blog reader, a sometimes commenter and a sunrise watcher. When we first moved to the farm, she asked if we got sunrises and sunsets. Yes, Auntie Anne, we do.

And then this happened

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

You realize it’s inevitable. But still you want to believe it won’t happen to you. After avoiding it for 10 years, I thought I might escape. But then one day, driving along minding my own business, it happened.

This followed soon after:

My little 10-year-old car has turned 100,000 kilometres.

I realize she’s a little late to reach this milestone, but walking to work for five years meant very low mileage.

Since moving to the farm, the kilometres have been rolling over very quickly. Along with higher mileage comes more trips to the gas station, more oil changes, more tune-ups and more money.

Small price to pay when my drive home ends at the farm.

This is last March’s picture looking up the driveway. The scene this year is still snowy heading into extremely muddy and very, very grey. Yoo-hoo, Spring? Are you coming?

Odds and ends

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Thanks everyone for all of the comments, likes and hits on last week’s posts about our one year farmiversary and blogiversary. I have lots of updates and projects on tap for year two. Today, some smaller updates all at once.

To start, some very exciting news:

Yes, the woodstove is finally sold. In the end, kijiji came through for us. My roadside sandwich board probably generated the most inquiries, but no one followed through. The saga is not over though. The guy who bought it didn’t want the chimney or the heat shields, so we still have those to get rid of. Will we ever be done with this woodstove and its associated parts?

A year into farm ownership, and we’ve finally had our first overnight guests. I won’t say the guestroom is fitted out particularly well, but we do have a bed. That it was set up mere hours before our first guests arrive is just SOP for us. Oh, and I did patch the hole in the wall from where we fished the internet wire. I didn’t paint it, but it’s patched.

Poor Wiley had to do a balancing act for a few days while we had his tire repaired.

You may recall he came up lame while plowing the driveway after our snow day. The tire was extremely flat–and folded and frozen. Matt’s Dad took care of the repair for us, and fortunately was able to just get a tube to go inside the tire. We reused the original tire and rim, which saved some money.

And in news unrelated to farm living or home renovating, I’ve started sewing another fancy dress. My youngest sister is getting married in two months, so that means I need another bridesmaid dress. If this one goes anything like last year’s, I may have another most-read post coming up.

In the course of writing this post, I’m realizing that what I originally thought are little accomplishments actually highlight tasks I still have to complete. For the year two to-do list, I need to add

Sell the rest of the woodstove parts
Fix up the guest room to be a little more hospitable
Finish sewing my bridesmaid dress

Well, at least Wiley’s good to go… although I’m not sure how proficient he is with a needle.

Who’s driving this blog?

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

When I first boarded the blogging bandwagon last March, I told myself I’d give it a year and see where I ended up. Well, it’s been a year. Earlier this week I posted some of the highlights from the journey.

Now the question is where to next?

Some of the goals on my year two road map are fairly simple:

Add some new sections to my homepage to set the tone for the blog and feature some favourite posts.
Make sure my About page gives a clear picture of who I am and what the blog is all about.
Add some additional pages, such as a house tour, a before and after gallery or a project catalogue.
Make more connections with other bloggers and readers.

Some of my other ideas are more hypothetical possibilities at this point rather than defined destinations. I may detour from these over the year:

Add some extra functionality to my template–maybe even find a new template or hire someone to make a custom design.
Set up the blog at my own url.
Buy a better camera and improve my photography skills.
Consider participating in a conference or blogging event, such as BlogPodium or Alt, to learn some new skills and also make some connections.
Attract more readers–I think 100 views per day over the next year is an achievable goal.

Excuse me, do you have any friends?

The biggest thing I’d like to do over the next year is decide where I want to go with this blog over the longer haul. I blog for myself and for all of you reading out there. However, I am also trying to approach this professionally, with a regular posting schedule and thoughtful posts that will be helpful and interesting to readers. So I feel like I need to figure out what’s my destination with the blog?

Do I want to sell advertising and make money? Extra income sounds good to me, and right now I think I’d be open to it. However, I’m cautious about how this might change my tone and my overall approach to blogging.
Do I want to take on some side work as a freelance writer? Exploring possible new career paths and considering some independent work is intriguing to me.
Do I want to want to work with sponsors? Seeing bloggers whose renovations are sponsored is obviously appealing. If there’s a company out there that is interested in building an attached garage, converting an indoor pool into a useable room, adding on a front porch, doing some major landscaping, or helping with any of the other projects on my wish list, I’m up for partnering… I think.

Who knows where this blog will end up? Right now, all I can say is I’m open to the bends in the road ahead, and I hope over the next year I can define some directions for myself.

I’d also really like to hear from you. I’m not going to do a reader survey… yet… but I’d love to hear your thoughts. What’s working and what’s not working for you on the blog? What would you like to see in terms of the design and functionality? What are your favourite topics to read about? Are there any topics you wish I wouldn’t write about anymore? From other bloggers out there, how have you attracted more readers? What are some of your goals? Please leave a comment or feel free to email me with your feedback at homeon129acres@hotmail.com.

Thanks everyone for coming along for the ride so far.

Blog-iversary

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Along with it being the one year anniversary of the farm this week, it’s also the one year anniversary of this blog. Today, I’m taking a look back at some of the highlights of my first year as a blogger–and, yes, after a year I am calling myself a blogger.

Here are some of my favourite things that have happened this first year:

Having the bridesmaid dress I sewed along with a link to my blog featured in Vogue Patterns magazine
Talking to the Toronto Star about our experience paying off the mortgage on our first house
Being nominated for One Lovely Blogger Award by Julie at Outtakes on the Outskirts
Seeing my blog listed in another blogger’s blogroll
Experiencing the support and input from the blogging community–Dyson dilemma, where I asked people what vacuum we should buy, got the most comments of any of the posts I published this year
The friendships and connections I’ve made over the past year with people I’ve never met, but who share some of the same interests — Diane, Lyndsay, Mathew and Carly to name a few

In the first year, I published 171 posts and uploaded 652 pictures. At the start, I was posting four times a week, but now I’ve moved to three times a week. I like having a regular schedule for posting, and I find it pretty manageable to think of and write three posts a week

The blog had 16,815 views in the first year. It averaged 44 views per day in 2012. So far in 2013, the average is 57.

The busiest day of the year was July 23 when I had 543 views in one day. This was the day I published Change of pace, the post about the bridesmaid dress I sewed for my sister’s wedding.

Surprisingly, for a blog that’s supposed to be about home renovation and country living, this sewing post was my most popular for the first year.

Here are the posts that make up the top five from the first year and the number of views they had:

Change of pace – 828
The reveal… aka how to strip wallpaper – 363
How to install a pot light – 223
Free furry friends for you – 157
Umbrella-ella-ella, the country version – 114

This list shows some of the different ways people find the blog. Most of the traffic on Change of pace came from Pattern Review, a very active online sewing community where I shared the dress. This post continues to get a few hits every day and got a little boost in the fall when the Vogue Patterns article was published. The second and third top posts are how-tos, which turned out to be popular for online searches. The fourth most popular post was our free kitten promotion, which Matt and I sent to pretty much everyone we knew. Number five, which I posted only last week, was my Pinterest Challenge entry, which got a lot of traffic through Young House Love.

The other posts that round out the top 10 illustrate the interconnectedness of the blogging communities. The Pinterest Challenge is an obvious one, but other top posts got a lot of traffic simply through comments on other blogs.

The posts that have been the most popular have been a bit surprising to me. I expected my geothermal series to be more popular than it was. I’ve now realized that geothermal is a project undertaken by a smaller number of people, whereas lots of people want to install potlights and strip wallpaper.

Probably the biggest surprise from the first year has been all of the different places visitors have come from–94 countries in all.

Here are the top 10 countries and the number of visitors from each:

Canada – 8,870
United States – 5,951
United Kingdom – 390
Australia – 241
Switzerland – 156 (hallo to Matt’s relatives!)
Germany – 120
India – 95
France – 54
New Zealand – 48
Philippines – 44

Search is of course a common way visitors make their way to the blog. The most frequent searches were for home on 129 acres (obvious), kioti cs2410 (our lovely tractor Wiley), pyjamas and snow boots outside (???), benjamin moore wrought iron (the paint colour I chose for the basement bathroom), wallpaper newspaper (I didn’t like it, but apparently a lot of people do), and carpeted stringers on stairs.

Most common searches are one thing. The best ones, though, are the ones that come through much less frequently:

tile saw spraying me in face — Yup. That’s how it goes.
why was well drilled by barn and not house — Who knows? I’d really like to understand that myself.
how long will dry wall dust stay in my nose/drywall dust in my mouth how do i clean/basement drywalling how to not get dust upstairs — Answers: a long time/spit, rinse & repeat/not possible, sorry, deal with it
we bought a farm now what — Good question. I’m working on figuring it out.

As we work on figuring out this farm living thing, the blog has been a great way to capture all of our adventures–both for myself and for all of you out there. To all of my visitors, thank you very much for reading. I like knowing you’re out there. Year one has been a lot of fun. Stay tuned. There’s more to come.

Year one theme: Go big

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

For me, our first year of farm ownership can be summed up in two words: big and more.

Everything we’ve done, every experience we’ve had has been bigger and more than I expected. It’s been amazing, frustrating, awful, exhausting, expensive, testing, uniting, surprising and wonderful–all to an extreme degree.

As this week is the one year anniversary of the farm becoming ours, I thought it would be a good time to look back at some of what we accomplished and a few of the lessons we learned over the first year. Click here for the two-week and six-month wrap-ups.

We started big, installing the new geothermal system the very first week. The excavation was bigger than if we’d been digging a foundation for a new house.

Upgrading one central system for the house was quickly followed by another, when we decided to redo the entire water system, including a new well.

Our original plan for the basement to patch the walls, move a couple of things around and redo the bathroom quickly grew to a full gut job that involved reframing, rewiring, reinsulating, redrywalling and recarpeting.

Eventually, we did get to painting, furnishing and decorating. We still need art and furniture in most of the basement, but the TV area is done. And it’s awesome. We spend every night here–if we’re not working on one of our other projects, of course.

So far, the basement has turned out even better than I envisioned.

The bathroom, which was the most disgusting room in the whole house when we moved in, is now one of the best thanks to new plumbing, marble tile, dramatic dark paint, extra storage, a shower bench and a big mirror. After breaking the concrete floor, running all new waterlines, marathon tiling and grouting sessions and, oh yeah, the snake, we ended up with a bright, clean, shiny, functional and modern space.

While the basement has been our longest project and most dramatic transformation, it wasn’t our most difficult. The hardest project was definitely the roof. Over five days in the middle of the summer with average temperatures around 30ºC, Matt reshingled our house. For him, this project is his proudest accomplishment for year one. For me, this project taught me my most memorable lesson: roofing is not a DIY job.

Away from the work and the projects, there’s been a few other big developments in our lives over the past year.

First, the property came with other occupants already living here: most notably, Ralph the barn cat. Sticking with our theme of everything being more than we expect, Ralph kept things interesting by turning out to be both female and pregnant.

Her four kittens were a fun addition to the farm for the spring.

Gratuitous kitten cuteness

Three went on to new homes in suburbia, but one, Easter, stayed on at the farm. Learning that I’m a cat person–as long as they stay outside–has been my most surprising lesson from year one.

Ralph and Easter pay a visit to the dining room window sill. This is Easter’s “meow–let me in!” face. Ralph knows better.

In addition to our feline family members, our family expanded with the addition of Wiley, our tractor. He’s been quite handy for the various jobs we’ve had to do, from mowing the grass to blowing the snow. Tractor maintenance and how to use the front end loader are lessons we’re still in the process of learning. Lesson from last weekend: a hairdryer can be used to get a tractor to start.

Outside, we’re still learning how to manage a large property. We’ve had the paddocks and run-in shelters removed from all of the fields, added a gate to the driveway, cut down a few trees, put in a flag pole and cleaned up the property a bit. We’ve eaten apples and raspberries from our own land, and watched two hay harvests. We’ve spent hours walking the fields, admiring the pond, hiking the woods and even managed to go tobaganning on our own hill and skating on our own pond.

When I imagined living on a farm, I envisioned lots of friends and family around, fun parties and big gatherings. This vision has absolutely come true, whether it’s the fun days we’ve spent with nephews, the relaxing nights we’ve had with friends, or big family parties we’ve had for Christmas, Easter and just because. Most rewarding of all, though, has been all of the help our friends and family have given us to make the farm ours over the past year.

We’re still in the process of putting our own stamp on the farm. We know there are more projects and more lessons to come.

Between rural living, a farm, a large property and DIY home renovations, we’ve chosen a somewhat unique lifestyle. And it’s exactly the life for us.

The first year has been more than I ever expected. I’m excited to see what comes next.

Farm-iversary

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

A year ago tomorrow, the farm became ours.

Late in the afternoon on Friday, March 2, 2012, we finally got word that the deal had closed. We immediately drove to our dream property, talking excitedly about our plans for the next week and everything we had to do before we moved in.

It had been a long search for the perfect property. The two-month closing had been a little uncertain, as the sellers were in a very difficult situation and it was not a pleasant sale for them.

The sun was going down as we turned into the driveway, and we could see a fire burning at the top near the house. Ummmm, who’s having a campfire at our farm? It’s ours now.

It turned out that one of the sellers was there with his friend reminiscing. We chatted for a little while, and then as the rain started to fall, they went on their way, and we went into the house.

Dream house it was not. The heat was still turned way down, possessions and garbage left by the previous owners littered every room, lights were burnt out. It was cold and dim and dirty.

The scene a few weeks before the sale closed. We kept the desk, but threw out the dead pillow.

But this is what we had expected. This is how we saw the house for the first time at the beginning of January, and this is what it had looked like every time we’d come back. Now it was ours–all of it. We rolled up our sleeves, tugged on our gloves and got to work.

My priority was the fridge, because we had both of our families coming the next day to help with the clean out and we needed to feed them. Unfortunately, along with having next to no heat, we had absolutely no hot water. Cleaning a cold sticky filthy fridge was a slow process.

Matt started picking up cardboard, paper and anything else that was burnable and carrying it out to the still smouldering fire. Eventually, he had a roaring blaze going, even in the pouring rain.

This is Matt’s “I have made fire” pose

We stayed for hours, finally heading back to the city near midnight. The next morning, we were back–this time with a kettle and helping hands.

When my mother walked into the house, the first words out of her mouth were, “Oh, Julia.” The tone was not happy or congratulatory. Her lips firmed into a thin line–you know the look–and she said, “Where do you want me to start.” I assigned her to our bedroom, where the closet was still full of the previous owner’s clothes–eight garbage bags worth.

My sister got another bedroom. Matt’s mom–who cleaned the bathrooms at our first house when we moved in–went to work on the main bathroom. My brother replaced light bulbs and washed the fixtures. Matt’s Dad headed out to the barn. The seller and his friend returned with pick-up trucks and trailers–told you it was a weird situation–and they, along with Matt, my Dad and me, went to work clearing out the basement. Three trucks and trailers fully loaded went to the dump that first day.

Pick up trucks and trailers full of garbage

That’s Matt playing peek-a-boo from behind the trailer

A year later, the clean out and clean up continues in a few spots. We still have campfires every so often.

But the best part is that the novelty has not yet worn off. Thinking we want to live in the country, have a large property and DIY our own house is one thing. Actually doing it is another.

Now, a year into it all, I couldn’t imagine us anywhere else. It feels exactly right, but at the same time it still feels very new. I am amazed that it’s already been a year.