Renovations | Our Second Year at the Homestead

Celebrating our second year on the homestead

As I write this post I’m sitting in my kitchen, my computer is on the counter and the last two months of paperwork is finally getting tackled... We’re in the midst of refinishing our living room floors which went from a hopeful ‘easy’ project to a massive undertaking. The good news is we tend to find more humor in ‘realistic timelines’ being thrown out the window with every project we begin than we did two years ago. In a week things will be back to normal, at least in part.

This has been another year of learning new things, perfecting new things (when you have 20 acres of fence to put up you tend to have a lot of practice), and continuing to fall in love with home.

I’ve made the comment more than once since we closed two years ago that a “match would be easier” but each and every project that we complete the more comfortable and home-like this place starts to feel. I can’t say it’s been an easy couple years, we’ve had to live outside our comfort zone on a daily basis. Our well-kept home, nightly cooking and a driveway we could always escape are still things we miss about life before moving here. But, the ability to farm together, to work towards something together and to put our name on this place together is still worth it all.

So, as will likely become a yearly ritual, here are a few snapshots of projects from the past 12 months.

Our lower pastures

We completed our 20 acres of fencing and are now in our first grazing season!

The Hay Barn

We started constructing our hay barn in March. The roof is on and we’ll be trying to wrap it in siding before the summer ends. Matt is once again milling our siding and he figures it will be about 26 logs to complete the project.

Studio & Farm Store

This has been a ‘I can’t wait when’ kind of project. This spring we decided that with everything else going on we’d hire this project out. It’s come a long way and the drywall is going up this week!

Living Room Floors

When we pulled the carpet in the living room the day we moved in we found original douglas fir floors. They needed refinishing and we were excited to tackle that ‘small’ project. We decided that before baby we’d get the dusty projects done so these floors were finally on our priority list. It was more than a ‘small project’, more like two weeks of living in our kitchen and front porch, but we’re excited to have yet another home project checked off.

the next year

We’re anticipating things slowing down over the next year. We will have the hay barn to complete but other than that we plan on taking time off to enjoy living here now that the big projects are done!