Work on the farm

It has been quite awhile since we were able to get work done on the farm. We had a crazy winter with lots of illness and never enough time to start or finish a project. We did have gorgeous weather yesterday and Paul was able to take a few hours to get started on the new tin that's going up on the chicken house roof. All of the buildings will have new tin on them, but we're buying tin as we can afford and as we have time to put it up. Paul was able to get more than half of the north side of the chicken house done last night. This covered the biggest hole in the roof so now the Mustang will be kept dry no matter the season. Within the next month we should have the electrical dug in (FINALLY!) and will be able to finish the bathroom, laundry room and pantry. We have our kitchen layout designed and our cabinets picked out so we're hoping to begin kitchen demolition this summer. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Lots of summer work

The new Bloomquist mobile. 08 Town & Country with Stow & Go (my favorite part!)

Paul's been working really hard at getting the siding up and replacing windows. You can see the two bottom level windows that have been replaced are so much wider and taller. They let SO much light in. I absolutely love them! The X pattern really dresses the house up too.
You can see the ledger boards are up for our wrap-around porch - next year's summer project.

More farm updates

We've been working hard on the farm the last few weeks. We've gotten lots of small projects done but are still in the middle of lots of big projects.

With the help of my sister, Kristi, we got the front living room painted. It's a sage green color. We were able to get a few decorations up on the wall including Paul's great-grandmother's quilt up on a quilt rack shelf. We still have more decorating to do, but there's plenty of time to do that.

Paul got a new window put in on the east side of the front living room. We found a fantastic deal on some Jeld-Wen double paned windows at Menards last year. These windows are taller than what was in and they let a lot of light in. They also have the criss-cross pattern in them which makes it look dressier.

Been working hard on siding and insulation the last week. Unfortunately we've had big storms almost every single night and two of those storms took our insulation and ripped it right off the house. We found bits and pieces of it in the fields nearby. We're planning to get the ledger boards put on for the wrap around porch and gazebo when we put the siding up.

Major landscaping work done

Paul and the tractor have been VERY busy the last 24 hours.

The two grain bins that were directly east of the house are no more. Paul pushed them over with the loader on the tractor. They've been there since 1944. It's very different to look out and not see them.

Look closely in th eback and you can see the crushed remains of the bins. Our plan is to clean up all the saplings, farm tile and other stuff back there and edge it out, mulch the heck out of it and put up a big play set for the kids.

Paul also went to town in the back of the house cleaining up the lilacs that had gone wild with the honeysuckle. I love lilacs, but they were so wild that the two plants were choking each other out. Paul was able to pull them out with the tractor. Unfortunately though he got a bit too rammy and sheared some bolts off of the loader. Looks like we'll soon be looking for a new loader!

You can see what's left of the lilacs and honeysuckle.

The plan is to clear it all out, level it and make a gorgeous brick patio running nearly the length of the house with an outside wood log fireplace and plenty of raised garden beds for me to plant lots of annuals.

Below is an idea from BHG that has formed our ideas for what the new patio will look like:

I so love having a green thumb!!

Striped walls

My dad spent the day taping and mudding our new pantry, laundry room and bathroom remodel. Grace just saw it and walked out to say "Grandpa is in big trouble! He colored and striped the walls. Go to timeout Grandpa!"

New bathroom/pantry pictures

A picture from the south to the north side of the old pantry. What a mess all of that plaster was!!

A shot into the new bathroom. You can see that we'll have two separate vanities and storage in between the two. The door inside - which used to lead into the pantry until it was boarded up in the early '50s - will lead into the new laundry room.

As of last night, this is what the pantry wall to the south looked like.

And the pantry wall to the north. You can see that they built in a half wall off of the old chimney. This wall will separate the old pantry into a laundry room and a much smaller pantry which will be accessible off of the kitchen.

The old pantry - facing south - after being gutted down to stud.

Grace & Emilia found a new place to play hide & seek - inside one of the new bathroom vanities!

A picture from the inside of the old pantry before it was gutted. The white built-in shelf unit we were told was built by great-grandpa Emil for great-grandma Esther. Unfortunately we were not able to keep it as time had made it a bit rickety and this area will soon be our laundry area.

A picture from the bathrom looking at the old pantry - now laundry room door. All of this plaster and lathe has been removed and is now covered in lots of insulation and drywall.

Grace made a sitting area for her and Emilia so that they could watch some of the construction.

Landon's room

Yes, we are still alive and now finding time again to work on the house! It has been a busy few months between school, concerts, church events....we were running ragged there for awhile!
We had hoped to get quite a bit done on the house over our Christmas break from school/work, but instead were snowed in for much of break with cabin fever and not enough supplies to work on our projects. We are thanking our lucky stars that we found a good tractor earlier this fall because it is really helping to keep us cleaned out on the farm. This last snow took Paul more than 4 hours to clear out with the tractor and loader and now we hear that there's more snow coming in next week!
We just had the bathroom flooring laid down on Saturday. I will post pictures hopefully soon.
The most recent project that we've tried to tackle is to get Landon's room ready for him. We are only a few weeks away so it was definitely time to get going on it. It took a few days to get Paul's old room cleared out and ready but then we started working on the walls with hopes of getting them painted. We didn't realize how much old wallpaper was on the walls and we had to scrape most of the walls down to bare plaster before we could paint. It took A LOT of paint for the walls, ceiling and woodwork, but it's finally done! Paul doesn't want me to forget to add the fact that every Bloomquist male has slept in this room for the last 94 or so years, so it's pretty special!
We found two great antique dressers for him (you can see the girls cleaning them in the pictures) and Gma & Gpa Linn bought a really nice mission-style crib too. Now we just have to get clothes put into the dresser, his crib made and pictures on the wall. Hopefully we'll have time to finish the room up soon!

"Wet paint. Don't touch!" is Grace's new saying. She's right too!
We've been painting fools on the farm!

Emilia taking a break from dusting the new dresser.

Grace spent almost an hour dusting this one drawer!

Doors

We have been working to replace doors on the farm. Fear not, we will be keeping many of the originals, but there were others that we wanted to replace for update purposes.


The new six-panel oak bathroom door - which Emilia loves to "knock-knock" on.


The new family room closet doors that replace the old bi-folds. Once spring arrives with warmer temperatures, the doors will be stained to match the original woodwork throughout the house. But for now, we are enjoying our new doors (tradition & mission-style).

More bathroom pictures

A second round of pictures of the bathroom remodel.

Walls have been sheetrocked - especially the south wall. One vanity and countertop is in (for Thanksgiving Day only - so guests didn't have to wash their hands in the bathtub) The vanity will soon be coming back out as the flooring will be laid soon.

Another shot of the new vanity - a second vanity will be placed along the southwest wall making a small space in between the two large enough for a heat vent and a trash can.

Hooray for sheetrock!

New bathroom pictures

The south wall is now completely insulated! The west wall will be insulated, but we have to run the plumbing/wiring into/thru it for the laundry room which is the old pantry.

The old wash room window and the old bathroom window have been removed and replaced with one new window which will be centered between the two vanities/mirrors/vanity lights.

Our new bathtub located on the opposite wall. And no we did not buy a robin's egg blue bathtub. We just haven't removed the protective film on it. Might be odd, but we are going to wait until the mudding/sanding is done so that we don't damage/stain the new pristine white tub.

The look from the outside of the house - along the southside - showing the new bathroom window and the new south exterior door.

Another pic of the south wall with the new window.

Bathroom remodel - more pictures

I am very much behind on posting remodel pictures. These bathroom destruction pictures are from about two weeks ago. I will take new pictures tonight so that you can compare and see the differences. Right now the walls are down to stud, some insulated and re-drywalled, the new bathtub is in (though not functional yet) and the new plywood floor is in. We have everything purchased - flooring, countertops, vanities, etc. so it's just a matter of getting it all done! Thank goodness for my dad who has been coming down to the farm on his days off to work on our bathroom. It's a mess right now, but will be wonderful when finished!

A picture of the bathroom when the wall between the wash room and bathroom came out. To our surprise, we found a cast iron soil pipe. It took my dad half of a day to relocate it, but it's been done!

View from the old bathroom looking onto the old back porch. No more walls!!

The old bathroom/pantry walls by the toilet. The toilet is staying in the same spot only now the bathtub will be located to the other side of it.

Original walls and rafters.


Our redneck bathtub until the new one gets finished up. We just have to run the plumbing and it's ready to go!!

Updates

Should have lots of new pictures to post this week. My dad took a week's vacation to help us on the farm. Since it looks like today and tomorrow will be the only decent days - minus rain - the plan is to throw up as much siding and insulation as possible. Then they are going to tear into the bathroom and get that project started.

I'll be ecstatic when the bathroom project gets going. As soon as they get the new bathroom wall up (covering up the old entrance to the washroom) the false wall between the washer & dryer and the cabinets can come down, those cabinets moved back to the new wall and I can FINALLY get my dishwasher in! HOORAY!! With all the flu and H1N1 bugs going around, I'll be ecstatic to get my SANITIZE cycle back!

Will post more pics as I can!

Ten years from now

Paul and I have always had a vision for what the finished farm house would look like. Unbenownst to us, so did someone else!! One day while perusing the paint colors, we found this picture on a paint sample for house colors. This is EXACTLY what we were both thinking - gazebo and all! Sp we just had to share our vision for the farm.

Sorry for the glare, it's a picture of a paint sample.

It's in!

The new septic system was installed last night! Hooray!! We passed inspection with the county sanitarian so now there are NO holdups on the paperwork needed by the bank! We can get this thing closed on now! YAY!!

More progress on the back porch

A lot more progress happening on the back porch! Paul got it all sealed up last night - thankfully just in time before a huge storm hit! But we have a new door to the south and two new windows and a lot of insulation. He got the floor installed last night too. Now I just have to decide where I want outlets to be and we are ready to insulate the walls.

Tearing out part of the south wall to install a new window and make room for the new door.

Just a shell at this point, but still lots of progress being made!

Major insulation happening in the floor boards. It won't be cold out here anymore!