::kitchen - hopes and plans::

I am beyond thrilled for the kitchen.  These are the designs that our builder/designer has come up with our crazy input.  I just can't stop looking at it.  

The cabinets against the window and the wall (the L shaped area) are going to be white shaker cabinets with a dark grey solid surface counter.  

The sink is going to be this vintage sink from the barn.  I have a feeling many years ago it got taken out of the house and put in the shop.  Time to fix it up and bring it back inside. 

link here for the etsy shop

Above and on each side of the stove will be walnut shelves with iron handmade brackets.  

The island is going to shaker style cabinets, but it will be green with a microwave built in.  Above is a decent concept of the color and style.  I can't resist that coolness of a bright green island.  

Here is the view of the kitchen when you walk in the back door.  

BUT - The island counter top is being made by a local artist out of antique bowling alley floor.  We bought some raw counter from him for our old house, but we are having him make the island top this time.  We will need to buy 4-5 bar stools to fit under the eating counter area.  I'm thinking something metal and industrial. 




On one side of the pantry pocket door is the fridge with a cabinet above it.  On the other side will be a small desk with a chair and upper cabinets for office storage.  I am on the lookout for the perfect vintage smaller scale and arm less chair to go at the desk.  I know just what I want, now I just have to find it. 

The pantry is HUGE!  I have one million plans for it that will have to wait for its own blog post.    

::update::

New exterior with less porches and farmhouse siding

We have not actually started the house yet.  We closed on our first loan at the end of November 2016.  It is now early February 2017.  BUT – I am not frustrated.  This process just takes a while and we where working around holiday and such.  The big thing is the planning all has to be perfect before the bank will approve the renovation.  We bought the house on the first loan with a conventional loan and now we are refinancing it with a 203K loan.  The previous owner didn't want to wait for a 203K loan to go through and now I see why.  It does take awhile.  203K loan is a federal loan that is designed for people to take structures that already exist within the community and finance money to fix up those structures, instead of ripping them down.

• Rules of 203K as I understand them:
• Zero down   
• Very detailed plan done by a professional
• The work has to be done by a professional
• Done within six months  
• 10% contingency plan built in to the total loan
• Has to make sense with the appraisals in the area 
• Each county has a different max amount that you can loan 
• Work can only be on the structure itself, it can’t be on any outbuildings

That is a very broad overview, if anyone wants more deets, or wants to actually talk numbers, I got nothing to hide and I am happy to discuss it.     

                

     Now that our plan is totally finalized and all the least uncomfortable cut backs have been made (we cut the budget 80K from the first quote to what we actually submitted), we have all our information submitted to the bank.  Now we wait till they say yes or no, and we work from there.  I think we will actually break ground sometime in early March and then it is full steam ahead.  We only have our rental house till August at the very latest, but we will deal with that problem latter.  We might end up living in our barn for awhile!  Wouldn’t that be a fun story to tell the grandbabies?  I’ll deal with that when we get to it. 

     Speaking of the barn – Josh has been working like crazy in his future shop area.  He has the entire ceiling and all the random things being stored above it gone.  He replaced the ceiling with barn metal and is adding insulation.  Don’t forget that it is the dead of winter here right now, so all that is pretty darn impressive.  Once it warms up a little we will power wash in the inside and get started painting.  The barn work is never going to stop, but we saw that coming and think of it as part of the adventure. 

::floor plan::

Our builder/designer is amazing.  She took out crazy little house and found a way to squeeze all the things I wanted into one floor plan. 

The front door faces the road.  It is rarely going to actually be used, but I really think its necessary for curb appeal.  The nice big porch is inspiring me with lots of design ideas.  Max's room in the first room on the right.  It's going to have one closet for his stuff and the second one will be his reading nook.  The middle bedroom is the girls room with a built in queen bed and day bed for Emma.  Two closets for the girls to each have some storage.  Quinn has the little room but he is excited that it is "closest to the kitchen" - his words.  Then the main living space.  Kitchen with no upper cabinets and lots of glass.  Then the gigantic pantry! - with back stairs down to a tiny basement that will be for utilities.  The hall bath is for the boys and the bathroom over by the kitchen is for the girls.  Leading to the garage is a mudroom and laundry closet.  The backroom is a playroom.  Then the kicking garage.  

Details about each room to come. 

Here are the elevations of the front and back of the house.

It's just so damn cute.

Front now

Back now

::dog and goat shelter::

Josh is frantically working his tail off to get his work shop renovated.  But I talked him into taking a little break today and making Gus and the goats/sheep a winter shelter.  He wasn't happy to lose half a day of work but it was a chore we had to get done, as the pasture they are wintering in does not have any shelter in it.  It is getting really cold here and we need to make sure the babies don't get frozen.  Before we got started I made Josh go over to the his brothers house with me and pick up our Gus from his pasture.  Gus was glad to get a break from his goats/sheep.  

We used only materials that we found on the farm.  We got in the loft and got down some lumber that was left behind in a pile and then we pulled out some scrap metal barn roof pieces that were laying around in a pile.  One of the thing I love about this farm is all the crazy miscellaneous resources all over the place.  While Josh was working I got distracted and went to stare at some of the treasures I can't wait to use.

like these barn doors

and this car hood

you can see the speck on him between the barn and house way in the distance

 And while I was wondering around Gus went on a little walk about too.  He was about one mile away in the very back of this field.  Almost to the white house.  Josh had to drive him truck through the field to get him.  Bad Gus.

So, we locked him in the barn with us while we finished his shelter.  He looks annoyed in this picture but he was actual just sleepy after he found that coyote trail and took off.

Josh built this shelter so it would fit right on to the trailer and off we went.  See the skateboard that Quinn found in the barn?  Another treasure.

We filled the shelter with hay and Josh crawled in to show Gus his new digs.  It was so warm in there!  All that straw makes a nice nest.  You can tell how cold it is by all the layers that Josh is wearing. 

Oz was beyond uninterested in this situation.  He thinks this cold weather is awesome. 

Grandma Willow approves!  She's the boss, and if she says yes then the others will follow her in. 

 After they get done chasing the trailer around the pasture. 

::big barn - before::

 

Our old barn is a BEAST!  Huge building with many different ages of barns built on to each other.  

LOFTED OLD BARN

loft

The oldest section is our Lofted Barn.  The lower section of it is messy right now.  Two walls have a built in closure where hay would have been thrown down form the loft and cattle would have eaten it.  There are two large doors in here, one to the Garage Bay and one to The Party Barn.  There is a small older milking room within that bottom floor that we are using now to store all our old treasures that we have found around the barn.  

treasure room

The kids are actually calling it "The Treasure Room".  We really don't have any short term or long term plans for this lower section.  It will develop when it is ready.  Now The Loft (proper noun) is another story.  We have huge plans for The Loft!  We plan to make a slide from The Loft to The Party Barn, put in a large chalkboard, swings, a stage, and collections of all our treasures on the walls.  The Loft has an old swing in it right now and you can tell that many a kid has played up there.  We can't wait to love it right.  Let's not forget that my old barn quilt is going on the outside of one side of this loft and on the other side I have to paint another barn quilt (which I can't wait to do).

    This picture is the front of the big barn.  You can see that most of the front section is cement block, not just barn siding.  If you start on the side by his truck you have the front of one of the two side rooms of his shop, the second side room is directly behind the first.  Behind the trailer their are two large doors that are open that lead into the main section of his shop.  You can see a fire burning brush that is directly in front of the large milking room.  Then the large garage door that is open leads into the garage bay.  Confusing right?  I had to walk through this place like 10 times to figure it out.  

MILKING ROOM

    This is the interior of the milking room.  For now we plan to use this as our storage room for things like Christmas decorations and such.  Who knows what it will develop into.  I'm sure it will turn into something awesome.

JOSH's SHOP

 This picture is looking from the door of the milking room.  You can see the two doors leading into the side rooms.  The large window looks into the entry bay.  This is a great sized room with lots of old industrial windows.  He plans to make it into a clean project room and a dude room.  The side rooms don't have specific jobs yet.  He already ripped the ceiling out of it, and we have the new barn metal to put a new ceiling up.  Then insulation and new heat/cooling.  We are going to paint it and built in built in cabinets.  It is first on our list of renovations, since the house is being done by professionals we get to use out limited extra time to work on this baby.  Josh is busting this out quickly and I am mostly moral support. 

inside the two large doors that where open in the previous picture

GARAGE BAY

Here is inside that large garage bay area.  My understanding is that this large metal frame Josh is standing under is something to use when pulling engines out of cars???  What do I know?  I took this picture with my back to the Lofted Barn section of this building.  We plan to use this area is a work space for anything with wheels.  Mowers, cars, etc. will get fixed up here.  It has a person sized door that connects it to the milking room, a large barn door that connects it to the Lofted Barn, and it is wide open to the Forge. 

THE FORGE

This is a full step higher than the garage bay but is wide open to the garage bay.  It is down the line a way but we hope to eventually make it into a Forge for Josh to learn about being a blacksmith (seriously, could there be a more attractive hobby). 

THE CENTER ROOM and THE TRAILER ROOM

looking from the entry bay through the center room into the party barn

This name may change when we really figure out what to use this barn for.  We have talked about finish these two rooms into finished space.  One as a workout room and one as a rec room.  That would not be cheap and would be fairly complex, but its a down the road maybe.  Maybe we will need this as work space for other hobbies.  I don't know, but it will come together. 

The trailer room, named for the trailer they left behind

THE PARTY BARN

One side of the barn

Other side of the barn

This barn is going to kick ass!!!  We are going to use this for all sorts of things over the years, but the big goal is to make sure that we can easily empty it out and use it for parties.  I plan on having a party in mid October next year to be our house warming/my graduation/my 40th birthday (all in one party) location.  It's just going to be a great gathering space.  This is a very large wide open space and I can't wait for all the fun to be had in there. 

::moving to this town::

Seriously, the last two weeks have been insane.  We moved out of our old farm and moved into our new town.  We got Gus and the goats settled in at my brother inlaws house.  We stayed there too for a few nights, and heard Gus going crazy one night.  We went outside and Gus was about to rip apart a coyote that was going after the goats!  He earned his stripes as a life stock guardian dog, because he was going to kick that coyotes ass.  I couldn't love that dog any more than I do.  We went out with a flashlight and once we spotted the coyote Josh went in and got his gun.  He shot it and it went down immediately.  That thing was way to brave and way too dangerous.  I also learned that the DNR says it is legal to kill any nuisance species that is threatening livestock.

Max and Lily started third and seventh grade at their new schools.  It was a little bit of a transition, but it only took them each about two days to find their stride.  I'm so impressed with how brave Lily is.  13 is kind of a fragile time for a young girl and she has just taken in the adventure like a hero.  Mr Max is still young enough that he had six best friends by Wednesday.  Quinn stayed home with us for a week and then started his new daycare.  The lady that runs it is a modern day hippy.  She is peaceful and all the kids call her Nana.  I love her.  She's the best.  I'm feeling so good about those kiddos right now. 

I found us a rental house that is one mile from our inlaws and 1.5 miles from our new farm.  I took the Zillow listings that had been on the market the longest and tests the realtors asking if their clients would be willing to rent their houses out for a few months.  I got lots of no's but I got one yes and that's all it took.  The house is a great rental.  Very clean and in a great location.  It's two stories which is a change for us, but the kids love it.  We are so lucky that we found such a great opportunity. It actually has a master suite which has been a big adjustment for us!  AND an attached garage, which I'm not sure I can ever live without.  We have the lease till May, then they are going to list it back for sale and we can stay there month to month till our house is done.  We hope our renovation is done by late July.  Fingers crossed on that.  I'm hosting our family Thanksgiving at my rental this year for the first time in my life.  Excited and nervous.  

We closed on our new farm on November 21st.  We had the honor of meeting the old owner, who was such a wonderful lady.  Her husband passed one year ago, so we did not get to meet him but he sounds like he was a really great guy.  He collected cars and other "junk" which he had filled the barn with.  She said his four kids worked every day for 1.5 months to empty out the barns.  They still left us a few treasures, and I'll go into more detail about that another time.  We had such a wonderful closing.  I could have talked to her for hours.  I told her that she or any of the family can come by any time they want to see the progress.  When she left we hugged and she told me that she was so glad we were bringing life back into the place and that he husband would have loved it too.  I almost cried, she was just so gracious and kind.  No wonder that place has such good karma.  We drove right out to the farm and just walked around smiling for an hour.  What a great place. 

I promise soon to post a full room by room of the house and barns.  And - we found a designer/builder.  Much more to come about her.  She's amazing!  It was love at first sight.

::moving day coming up::

I think I am going to throw up.  This moving day stuff is actually going to happen.  I can't really believe it.   I thought 100 different times that this was going to fall through.  We close on our current farm we are selling November 15th.  There are going to be some decent tears about this place.  I LOVE this place, and our future land in definitely not as cool.  It doesn't have all the stunning hardwoods and pines like this place.  BUT - the potential is limitless because the land is flat and blank (minus the 12K square feet of barn!!!!!!!).  I am excited at getting to plant the trees I want; like Ginko's (not the smelly kind), Tulip tress, Birch, Walnut, and a BUNCH of fruit trees.  

Still this actually moving process sucks.  I guess I forgot that the family room has a cabinet over the extra fridge out there.  Apparently, it never got cleaned in 10 years.  It had old pictures and frames and some of the most foul dust of all time.  I also found about 25 empty Go-Gurt tubes sprinkled in various hiding locations in the playroom.  The food rules are changing around here for sure.  My kids are really feral.  It's true. We have two big moving days scheduled and hopefully, that with about 15 other one trailer load trips to our new place should get us moved. 

I met with our first design to build guy.  It was nothing like when Chip and JoJo do a walk through but I think it went well.  We meet with him soon to discuss costs, which I am sure will give me a heart attack.  That I will then recover from and move forward.  We have a day in two weeks where we are meeting three more reno companies, so we keep working on gathering information.  We don't actually even close on our new farm till November 21st.  So my poor, patient, kind realtor has been letting us in several times to get the reno process started.  She'd so sweet.  I love the girl.  Our plan is to stay with Josh's brother's family till our place is done.  It's asking a lot of someone to take in a family of our volume so we will keep an eye on how that is going.  I don't want them to end up hating us now that we will be living less than four miles apart for the rest of our lives.  

Let's not also forget that I am trying to keep my head above water with grad school.  Next semester should be my last one, assuming that I pass.  Which I better, but I don't want to get cocky.  I have finally had the wonderful opportunity to go part time at work.  Never in my entire life have I been part time and it feels like a real luxury.  It also feels like I am skipping class, and I feel a little bit guilty about it.  Really, I've only been part time for two weeks but it is amazing.