The Farmhouse

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Shocking News!


Before I begin reporting on the Farmhouse I have some shocking news to report.  This has nothing to do with renovating an old house, but newsworthy nonetheless.  While watching CNN the other day I was shocked to learn that Captain Crunch has eyebrows on his hat! Not on his face, but on his hat!! I know - take a deep breath - it is overwhelming.  And I have proof:

While you are digesting this news, I have more.  He isn't even a REAL 
Captain.  You see a REAL Captain wears 2 silver bars, this clown doesn't even have one bar.  I guess the fact that he goes by Cap'n instead of Captain makes it OK. WOW!

Now back to our original programming:

The foundation has been poured and ready for framing.


Wes decided to add dirt to change the grade around the front of the house.


Cliff and I did some clean up after the storms.


That's all for now, but please calm down about the Captain, oh, sorry Cap'n!  These scandals seem to be forgotten quickly.  The next thing we will hear is that Count Chockula isn't even a Count.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Feeling Unpopular

I have decided that having a house on the market is like being back in high school. You do your best to make
the house attractive and you hang out a shingle and you wait.  You wait for that phone call.  You wait to be chosen for the team.  You wait for that cute guy (the buyer) to pick you. You want to fit in so you lower your price.  You want to smell good so you clean frantically.  Your heart races when the phone rings and you see it's your agent, only to be let down when you find out you weren't chosen....again! Why?  You wonder what is wrong with you (the house)? You start to take it personally.  You offer yourself up to the public (the open house) only to be judged. Not enough bedrooms, too many steps, chopped up floor plan, bad schools.  How in the world could I live here!! This place must be awful.  Why I have wasted 28 years living here!!  But wait - this is a great house- I can't listen to the naysayers.  The right guy (I mean Buyer) just hasn't come along.  So for now I wait by the phone and I look forward to meeting the new owners!                                                                               

9 Dorset Hill Ct, Owings Mills, MD 21117

Monday, June 24, 2013

A Few Things I Will Miss


I think we are ready to downsize and leave this large contemporary house behind.  This is the only house I have lived in as a married woman.  My father built this house for us and we have years and years of memories made in this house.  Today I thought about the things I will miss about this house.  Surprisingly the things I love the most are outside. I do love my kitchen, but I am replicating it in the new house.  Here are a few things I will miss:


The Arbor with it's beautiful Vine. I bought this for Cliff's birthday
one year.


This magnificent Hydrangea. It is LUSCIOUS! 


My neighbor John's grapevines. I love to snag a few grapes while
walking Bella. These are delicious and so juicy.


My 5 minute ride to Starbucks. It will take me 10 minutes from the new place.


Our pool. Ha ha - just seeing if you are paying attention!

Things are rolling along at the Farmhouse. The outside wire was buried, the foundation was parged and waterproofed and they started tearing down the stone wall inside.


We met with Wes to discuss exciting things like windows and doors.  Stay tuned....


Saturday, June 22, 2013

Brownies and Foundations


So far we are very happy with Wes, our contractor.  He shows up when he says he will and is keeping on schedule.  This makes us very happy! We want to keep him happy - so yesterday I whipped up a batch of these: 
 
 
Some may call it bribery, I call it incentive and there is more where this came from!

We now have a foundation.
 

Today I took Bella down to the new house and let her explore.  There is a natural spring running behind the property and she is very pleased with it. Have I mentioned the charming stone walls and the little bridge?  These are just a few of the things that we think makes the place special.
 


This is the little bridge.
Notice the VERY tall trees. Wow.


As an aside I have to tell you all about our trail ride this morning.  We rode through a cow pasture after a delightful ride through "Blue's Woods", affectionately named after my old mare Blue.  She loved to trot around those woods!  Anyway laying by the fence was a newborn calf that had been abandoned by it's mom.  We were lucky to find a neighbor and she went to find the farmer.  I am happy to report the calf will be bottle raised by the farmer.  Very exciting ride!

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Great Finds


Today we went to Southern Sales Services.  A gem of a place in Halethorpe. 


Our conrtactor told us about it.  They hold an auction once a month and sell surplus building materials and plumbing fixtures as well as doors, vanities, windows, lighting fixtures and you name it.  All at great prices!  They also have a showroom where you can buy things right off the floor any day.
Here is what we bought today:
 

Brand new Eljer toilet and pedestal sink- grand total-$150.00!

Cliff is eyeing a beautiful mahogany front door. I am eyeing the marble tile!

Construction is rolling along.  The footings have been poured.
 

Next step is the foundation.
On another note we still have not sold our house!! I am willing to bury the St. Joseph statue if anyone know where I can get my hands on one. If you have one that worked for you I will pay top dollar!

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Holes Are Exciting!

Well we have a nice big hole. 
 
 

This is the beginning of the foundation.  When I last updated I told you about the water situation.  It turns out we do have public water running right by the house, but, the pipe is so old it would need to be replaced and re-run to the house.  Off course this costs many monies!! We have decided to use the well which was just tested and has a good yield and safe drinking water, too.  This part of construction is not very pretty is it?  Cliff was excited to show me where the mud room will be though.


How appropriate.  Get it? Mud room :)
Tomorrow the footings will get poured, then the slab goes in and then I may actually get an idea of what this place will look like.  You see I basically have no clue when it comes to reading plans and drawings.  I am blindly trusting Cliff that this will actually be, in fact a nice little place to live out our Golden years. 

I hope you are enjoying the blog.  Some folks have said they tried to leave a comment but were unable to.  I think you may need to enter the blog through a Google (Gmail) account.  If anybody knows please leave a comment - PLEASE!

Sunday, June 16, 2013

First Crisis

We were gone for 24 hours and already a crisis has occurred! Our contractor - Wes- started digging and he hit water! Lots and lots of water. Let me backtrack, when we originally looked at the property with the owner we noticed a piece of slate covering something.  We asked her what is this and she told us she didn't know. A different contractor came out and we asked him, "What is this?", he said it is a shut off for something very old. While the home inspection was going on we asked the inspector what he thought it was. Again - he didn't know.  Well guess what - it's a public water line!! Public water? We have well water. Wes frantically was trying to find the shut off, he is Superman because he found it out on the main road and finally got the water turned off.
Gratuitous photo of main road.
Where real public water flows.


Now we have a mystery on our hands.  Do we have public water? Can we forgo our well? Where does the water come from? What will Kim Khardashian name the baby? Oh - I digress.
Stay tuned for updates...

Friday, June 14, 2013

Beginnings

We have now owned the Farmhouse for one whole day. It seems like progress has started, albeit very slowly.
Since we had buckets of rain the ground is too wet and soft to start digging. The fact that equipment has arrived is positive - right? I will show you a few inside shots.  Keep in mind this is an old house, low ceilings,
double hung windows, but oh so charming.
Pretty kitchen, huh? Don't worry we will be gutting and making pretty.
This is the current family room. A really cool space with a stone hearth
and wood burning stove.  Sorry - it's going too.We are breaking out
through the far window for the dining/great room.
The carriage house.  Cool name but really a garage.  Cliff has dreams
of holding a Tall In The Saddle concert in it. Historical tidbit - the Carriage House
was used to store an antique Fire Truck in the 80's, of course it once housed
real carriages back in the day!

One last photo. This is our neighbors' place. A restored barn.  Obviously I will become best friends with them.



Thursday, June 13, 2013

We Bought A Farmhouse!

Today we purchased a 100 year old Farmhouse in the Greenspring Valley. This was not really in our plans, but hey I guess we were getting bored. We have replaced everything in our current house. So...we hope you'll join us in this journey.  We hope to begin construction tomorrow. We are adding about 1000 square feet to the existing house. We are adding a new kitchen, master bath and great room. We are also gutting and re-doing another bath. I will be blogging (my first blog) about this adventure and I hope you read along!