Things I've Got My Eye On

Just a quickie post for today...a few things that I found over on Pinterest that made me go hubba hubba.

THIS ROOM.


via House and Home
Tommy Smythe is a brilliant man.

So this next things doesn't make my heart flutter, but I'd like to give it a shot and see what happens.


via DIY Natural
I made some of these two weeks ago and they've been working great, so I'm definitely interested in seeing what else I can do.

Next up, this stone.


via Home Depot
I'd like to use something like this to pretty up the two small walkways we have outside, and possibly also for a little patio to put our picnic table on so that we don't have to deal with grass growing up underneath it. We thought about putting the picnic table on the back porch, but it's so big that it's not a good use of space.

Finally, this shower curtain.


via PB Teen
You can see it in action over on Making it Lovely. I love her entire bathroom and kind of want to copy her colour scheme.


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That Which Has My Heart

I love my barn.

Ok, I know it's not mine, but I will develop a permanent twitch if I have to explain how we live on a shared property every time I talk about it. No one likes a twitchy Ashley.

Things might get a little weird now.

I was in exploring the big old bank barn the other day, and although it's full of mud and cobwebs and racoon poop and old hay, it could easily become my happy place. Putting on my boots and walking through the door, traipsing down the dirty aisle, pushing open gates, unlatching doors, imagining feeding and watering animals of some sort and cleaning up their mess...it felt good, like it's something I'm supposed to be doing. Not supposed to be doing because it's part of being a functional adult like vaccuuming, but something that my soul feels like it should be doing.

And now I feel all awkward and dirty for talking about souls and purpose. Insert Hank Hill-esque shudder here. Blerg, feelings.


It needs a good scrub down, but it will never be one of those fancy barns you see in pictures. And if I'm ever going to have something like chickens in here, I'll need to do a bit of retrofitting to make sure no racoons (or cats) have a feast. It's a job for next spring, because with us still needing to finish and sell our old house, everything that I would like to do at the new place is staying firmly in the dream stage.

Except for the horseshoe pit. We're building one of those soon.


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I shared this post at the Homestead Barn Hop #115.

Floor Plan

When I shared a quick house tour the other day, a few of you mentioned in the comments that you were confused and would appreciate a floor plan...so here you go! Please note that not a damn thing is to scale, since I haven't measured a single wall.

The first floor...


And the second floor.



I used FloorPlanner to make these, and found it even easier to use than my previous go-to, The Make Room.

I didn't include the porches, and I'm sure I probably missed a window or misrepresented the swing of a door here and there, but at least I hope you kind of get the gist of it now.

On another note, I'm still trying to get my image mapped header to center. I've been unsuccessful with everything I've done up until now, so until I get it figured out, I've widened my entire blog so that it at least appears centered. This isn't a permanent solution since the posts are really wide and it's driving me a little bit crazy. Content in the pages is a little sparse right now, but over time they'll fill out and hopefully be a little more dynamic.

Mike and I have a friend coming home for the summer from Igloolik, so we're heading out with friends tonight to see him. Tomorrow we're taking a day trip down to Buffalo to see the Book of Mormon - has anyone seen it? We've heard it's hilarious and are really excited! Sunday we'll hopefully sleep in (we won't get back home until laaaaate Saturday/early Sunday morning), and then it's a day full of slo-pitch. What have you got going on this weekend? Hope it's a good one!


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Appearances

I think I owe you guys a bit of an explanation.


We don't own this whole property.

Of the 100 ish acres, Mike and I own only maybe 2. The rest is owned by his parents, who we co-purchased the entire property with. On paper it's a two-thirds, one-third split, with them owning the fields and us owning the house. What Mike and I got the house for is way under market value (thanks to my in-laws), and for that I am so unbelievably thankful.

As for the outbuildings, that's still sort of up in the air. The drive shed (which I haven't shared a picture of) is entirely Mike's Dad's for his equipment. Though we did sneak our snowblower in there...

As for the bank barn, it's basically empty. We have some stuff being stored in it from when we started renovating the upstairs in our old house, but that's about all that's in there. There's the potential for a corner of it to be used for chickens, but that conversation will happen when I'm ready to actually get some nuggets.

The horse barn will never house horses again - as long as we live here, anyway. Mike wants to build a bar out there, and it's also where the majority of his tools are going to live. The haymow has a huge amount of potential in it, too. But what that ends up being, who knows.

As for the old house, we're still working on it. We're incredibly lucky to be able to move into the new house so that we can finish what needs to be done in the old house without having to live in the construction. Again, big thanks to my in-laws! This honest-to-goodness would not be happening without them.

I just wanted to share all of that so you didn't have conspiracy theories running in your head about how we could go from a shack to a really nice house with a huge amount of property. Drug lords, we are not.


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From the Outside

We're slowly getting settled into the new house. None of our furniture is here yet (except a rocking chair and our bed) but that'll come over from the old house this week. I spent the weekend schlepping boxes from the old house, in what is the most inefficient method in the history of the world. Mike's truck is a wee guy, and only has a five foot pick up, so there's a whole lot of back and forth happening. Thank goodness it's only around a three minute drive. I also got to give mowing the lawn a try. Zero turn lawn mowers are hilarious when you've never been on one before and you can't quite figure out how to turn smoothly. I don't think I've ever laughed doing yard work before.

The weather was gorgeous, and just after dinner the dog and I headed outside to snap a few exterior pictures. Here we go!








There are dairy cows across the road and they make me happy. You can just barely see them in this picture, but believe me, they're there.


One of my favourite things about living here is the big old century barn - it's amazing. It needs to be cleaned out, though (think old hay and racoon poop).



How was your weekend? Anyone find a dead coyote in their yard? Because I did. I need to find a shovel. And get the wheelbarrow from the old house. Blerg.