We are officially moved in! + Touring the Upstairs

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks!

We moved in October 31st! Above is Evelyn & Will with our newest addition and protector of our farm - Haus! He has lived here since he was a pup (11 years ago) and we were so excited to have him greet us when we drove up!

Home sweet home!

There was a LOT of cleaning to be done on move-in day but my family (parents, siblings + their families) completely rocked and helped nuke the entire place while furniture and such was being brought it. Less than 24 hours after move-in Tommy went to Detroit to work for the week but that gave me some time to settle in with the kids and get as much unpacked as possible without wanting to dive-in to renovations right away. I was excited to be completely "box free" on the main level by the time he got home Friday night - there are still a handful of things in the basement that need to come up (mainly books and decor) but for now the upstairs is starting to feel like home!

Here is the general layout of the upstairs (by no stretch is this to-scale!)

Here are a few pictures of the living room from move-in day (pre-cleaning mind you...) and then a few of now as we're "settling in".

 Walking in the front door.

 Larger part of the living room.

 View of the front yard.

 Small part of the living room (which is now the "play area").

Big living room cleaned up and getting settled in!
The long shelf was used to hold the previous owners oil lamp collection (she had over 300 of them!) I'm not sure if we will keep it up forever or what I'll put on it but it's staying up for now at least.

Here is the kitchen (pre-cleaning...)

 Cleaned and moved in.

 We had to replace the faucet as the old one was broken.

The side door walks into the laundry room on the other side of the kitchen. There is also a half bath and a large closet. This will probably end up being our main mudroom area for shoes and such for now so this week I made a little bench and coat hooks.

 Half bath (this was from when we came to visit a few months ago)

Laundry (again, from a few months ago).
Also - I am in love with main floor laundry! Outside of the side door is the wider part of the deck where we have the grill and eventually plan to have a table to eat outside at.

 Side deck looking towards the front of the house.

And looking back!

This peninsula divides the kitchen and dining room. Right now I have the bottom cupboard storing all our extra homeschool materials/books, etc.

The dining room is one of my favorite rooms. The windows, doors, and skylights make it SO bright. Also - the incredibly view outside! We changed out the lights in here when Tommy came from his week at work and I have a few other things I plan to do in here to update it a bit (once our first big renovation downstairs is done). Before pics...

And some moved-in pictures with the new lights!

Next is the master bedroom.

I didn't love the idea of having a main floor master (or just having our bedroom on a different floor from the kids) but it is a nice big room with great closets and a great bathroom (although it needs some updating)... so no complaints! It also has a walk out onto the back deck (which is currently blocked by kids Beds.

Cleaning the doors to the master bath... whew!

And that's it!
The entire main floor is actually really big - over 1250 square feet! And even though it's not the layout I wanted at all (I'm a two story-house lover) I'm learning to love it and appreciate some of the aspects it has to offer.

This week Tommy's been busy finishing phase one of the basement renovation... which includes one of the three bedrooms (which the kids will share for now) and the basement living room... which will be the kids main play area. And I've been busy continuing to clean up trash and leaves outside, explore the area, paint the rest of the chicken coop, and of course we're anxiously counting down until gun season starts Sunday!

Fresh coat of paint on the garden shed door.

Three sides of the coop/garden shed are painted - one more to go!

 Picture of our road while getting the mail.

 Early morning deer-watching (we see at least a half a dozen if not more during breakfast!)

The creek is nice a clear/algae free right now too.

Basement tour to come soon!
Blessings!

Wood Cutting and Garden Shed/Chicken Coop Makeover Part I

We weren't officially scheduled to move in for another two weeks but the previous owners (who are amazing!) were happy to let us come up before they move out to do some work outside! So yesterday we went up (and brought my parents) with hopes to get some wood chopped and stacked for winter. We have both an indoor wood burning furnace and propane but are hoping to use as much wood as possible.

Earlier in the week Tommy cut up a pile of wood my parent's had and was also able to get another 3 truck loads from a friends property. Because time is tight (and Tommy is technically still recovering from his shoulder surgery in June) - cutting down trees from our woods and hauling them out to cut wasn't super practical this year, so we decided whatever we couldn't find for free we'd look to buy pre-cut.

We want to have 5-8 cords total. We're told we'll use 5-6 cords/year and an extra 2-3 would gives us some cushion or put us ahead for next year. We ended up finding another 2.5 cords for sale not too far from the farm for a good price so my dad and Tommy took two trips loading up both trucks, and a trailer and then bringing them back, unloading them, and stacking in our unfinished barn. I think total we have about 3.5-4 cords... as well as some that needs to be split... so we're not done yet, but we'll do as much as we can before snow falls!

While my dad and Tommy were stacking wood (and my mom was entertaining the kids) my other big project was de-weeding the area surrounding the Garden Shed/Chicken Coop. The left side of this building is the garden shed half. The far/right side is the coop. I also power washed the entire outside in preparation to paint. The building was made with leftover metal so it's a hodge podge of different colors. I decided to paint it all white to make it look at little nicer :)

before

after weed clearing and power washing

They haven't had chickens in about a year so the fenced in areas were ridiculous overgrown. We removed a fence that was by the entrance of the coop because it was a little janky and we didn't think it was necessary. We'll save the fencing to use for a garden trellis or something later though. I had hoped to get the building painted as well but it was raining off and on all day so I only got a quick first coat on a small section. I can't wait until the whole building is done!

before

progress

I love how rustic the coop door is!

The main run attached to the back of the coop is actually separated in different sections which made it even more inconvenient to clear... but now that it is cleared and I can actually see it I think it will make a nice run for pullets (young chickens and young turkeys) before we let them free range a bit more.

Weeds cleared, pre-power washing.

Power washed (minus one small lower section)

Overall it was a productive afternoon. I'm so thankful for my parents help AND we are so excited to find out that the owner's will be out next Saturday morning (the 31st) so we can move in TWO WEEKS EARLIER than planned! That means tons of packing and organizing to do this week! We're almost there!