Pre-Moving Days

     Courtney, Mike and his brother Dan signed a lease to rent a town house.  It is right near State Farm so is close to where they all work. We close on the Farm House at 3pm on April 9th, and have a 26 foot U-Hall rented for the 10th. We plan to get all the heavy/big stuff moved Friday.  Courtney, Mike and his brother Dan will also be moving that weekend.  So, after we are done with the truck Friday, they are going to use it.  We need to have it dropped off back at the U-Hall place before it opens on Sat morning.

     We have invited Carol and boys, Sidensticks, and Leiningers to come anytime that weekend.  We will have plenty of bed mattresses and lawn chair pads, so plan to "camp" in the house....might as well "break it in" the first night with everybody’s help.  We hope to move furniture first, and shed/garage/workroom second. I hope we can make time to hang out more on Sat. and Sun, rather than doing "moving" stuff.  It would be nice to walk, grill out, have a bond fire, watch TV etc.

     We just can’t stay away from the farm.  Last Saturday the five of us (and dog) went out to work on the farm while our house in town was being shown by a realtor.  

Joe cleaned out all of the gutters.  This one on the garage was damaged
by a large branch that fell on it.

Here, Joe is removing the damaged antenna that was swingin’ in the wind.

Courtney tested out the play ground equipment to make sure it is safe
for the kids that come visit.

Daniel helps remove hard to reach branches from the trees and everyone pitches in to stack branches on brush piles.  There is enough for several bond fires.

Britney and I remove junk from the hay mow and then Daniel sweeps it out.  We might just be able to camp in it on moving day.  There is actually a light in it but the switch is at the bottom of the ladder in the lower part of the barn.  The adventurous type might like sleeping up here.

    
Kaysha enjoyed racing around and looking for farm critters.  She is going to love this place.  It is going to be a challenge to keep track of her though.

Courtney and I made sure the dog got plenty of water.  We have since
sent in water samples to have tested to make sure this stuff is drinkable.
Notice how close the car in the background on 74 looks?  It really isn’t
that noticeable when you are outside.

There is still plenty of picking up to do around the outside of the farm.
It will keep us busy and provide us with fresh air and exercise.

The Farm Inspection

Our new farm is on US Route 150, half way between Downs and LeRoy, on the south side of the road.
It is closer to work for Joe.... but 8.5 miles farther for me.







The house is a newly remolded 75-150 year old farm house. There are 13 acres, most of which are fenced. (however the fence is in big need of repair)





Here is a picture of our drive, going east. (a lot like sister Carol’s) As you can see, it is a nice distance away from US 150. Actually Interstate 74 is a ¼ mile south of the house. You can kind of hear it, but it is not bad at all. Once crops are in the field and leaves are on the trees, we are hoping it won't be too noticeable.







Here is a “birds eye” view of the farm, seen when standing on the garage roof. You can see I-74 in the distance. From left to right in the picture is the barn, farrowing shed, 3 grain bins, corn crib, 1 car unattached garage, and potting shed.


In this photo you can see the dinning room and living room with the gas burning fireplace. The stair banister is in the foreground and the door to the office/Dan’s room is in the middle right . The hardwood floors and molding around the floor, door frames and windows are all brand new. The walls are a green/khaki color.









Here is the dinning room and door into kitchen with stairway to the left. There are 3 sets of lights in the wall up the stairs to illuminate the steps. I actually don’t mind the carpet up the stairs and on the landings, but it will clash with our furniture. We will keep it for awhile.





Nice dinning room windows with view to the west and you can see the deck outside off the kitchen. You can see the front pasture to the right of the tree line of pines. The Chandelier has some burned out lights and questionable aesthetic value, but it has character (similar to the guy in the picture).

A view of the deck off the kitchen. There is a nice built in desk to the right. In this and the next picture you can see how the replaced floor cabinets do not exactly match the over the counter cabinets. This will not bother us at all.




Here are seen the kitchen island, south facing windows above kitchen sink, and laundry- mud room left of refrigerator.
We will need to buy a drier.
Nice pantry in left side of photo. You
can kind of see the extra tall ceilings.


This is the back porch off the laundry/mud room. The door to the garage is from this porch to the right in this photo. Both doors in this photo are brand new. In the left side of this photo is where we will keep coats and shoes.



This is the front porch, out the front door in the living room.
It faces east and north.
It is old and rustic, has not been remodeled, but I really like it. You can see the old crank windows.
 
Stairway up to 2 bedrooms,      Master bedroom looking out at stairway
   each with a full bath.          landing, above which is a big attic ceiling fan.

       Master bath whirl pool tub.              His and her sinks with reflection
   Will feel good after farm chores.        of silly photographer (Britney).

 

     Britney's bedroom and the master bath both have the wider wood floors and are right above the dining room and office.  The architecture of this part of the house is from the mid 1800's style and believed to be around 150 years old.  The master bedroom has smaller wood planking and is right above the living room. This addition is believed to be about 75 years old.

Britney got real excited about the old farm house while looking around. She loved the upstairs bedroom that she will have because it feels loft like.  It has it’s own walk in bathroom as well, seen below.













  

And there is this closet (seen on the left) that is right in her bathroom.... not sure if that is good or not.
Will that be bad for the clothes?





The bedroom and bath is way more than Britney needs or would even ask for....so she also commented that she could live in the haymow.
(seen below).
What a silly girl.

 














This is the south side of the house with kitchen windows and deck. Large, 2 car, attached garage to the right.  Old, unattached garage in the foreground. It has a brick floor, needs windows scraped.... but is very usable.

Play ground, fire pit, small shed with the storm cellar underneath. You can see our neighbors to the west....a seed company....with lots of fields all around to grow their seeds in.

The old barn....the two missing doors are around the corner, but in need of re-pair and re-hanging. Two small doors on the barn have been replaced, but the other large ones are in need of work as well.  Paint is needed also.

Here you can see the missing barn doors, and how close the barn is to the house.  The very large tree at center front is dead and needs taking down.

Inside the barn can be seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. There is quite a bit of stuff (trash) that takes up space, and there are three groundhog holes and piles of dirt.  There are problems with some of the cement floor cracking, sinking and shifting.  And one wall has fallen off the foundation which has rolled outward. But, there are also 2 very nice horse stalls. Seen below is one (14X15) stall, with the second (12X15) just behind it. For the most part, they are ready to inhabit.

A closer look at the three grain bins. The hog farrowing shed to the left, is full of aged firewood. The corn crib to the right, has its two south facing doors down on the ground, which just happened last week.

This is looking North (I 74 is ¼ mile behind you) The SW corner of the land is 20 feet from the tracks. These are abandoned railroad tracks, so who knows, someday a walking trail may go through our “back yard” once again.

We really look forward to living out at the farm. The house will be a bit crowded with both Dan and Britney home, but is very doable and adorable. We are down sizing from 12 rooms to 6, and have no basement.....but there are plenty of out buildings and land. We would rather be out mowing than inside cleaning. We are so blessed and fortunate to be able to buy this place, and can’t wait to share it with all.

We Bought the Farm!

     February 09 - The day after the Heyworth house fell through, our Realtor called and said there were continued problems with the sale of the house on US Route 150.  (Maybe there was a reason why the Heyworth place fell through.)  I had preferred the place on US 150 since the beginning....

It was a nicer house, twice the land, and cheaper.  I really believe God was in control of all of this, and I prayed about all of it the whole time.

     The "problem" with the house on US 150 was that the furnace had gone out and a pipe in the kitchen froze and broke and the sellers had to redo all the wood floors on the ground floor including molding and kitchen cabinets and some doors. Their insurance covered all of it.  But the buyers were not happy with the re-model.
The house has sat empty for a year so the outside could use some TLC as well.
There was to be a big meeting between the sellers and buyers, along with the 2 realtors and 2 lawyers on 2/20.  But the buyers failed to show.  So then the sellers attorney submitted a letter requesting the buyer either say yes to buying it with-in 5 days or the seller be let out of the contract to go to another buyer.  Well....we waited 5 business days and still no news on the US 150 farm. The buyer's attorney sent a letter requesting 10 more days to make up their mind. We were finally able to make a back up offer, which we did with a closing asap, assuming everything passed inspection.
  

We dropped the asking price on our house, and continued to wait on both. We waited out several weeks of ups and downs in terms of the farm on US 150.   The second week of March we got the call. The buyers were backing out, now they needed to sign off with their lawyer, and we needed to sign the purchase agreement and get the house inspected. Friday, March 13th the sellers signed our purchase agreement. The inspection was to be done and barring any major problems, it would be ours.  The search was over.  Now, selling our place and continuing to down size and pack boxes with inessentials was a high priority.  We wanted our place to look neat and spacious.

These photos were taken late summer.  Our back yard is really the best feature of our house. It is large, fenced in and butts up to the bike trail.