So, for several months now we have been in the process of purchasing our first home. It's been a long, slow process, but we're finally nearing the end! We're hoping to have a closing date soon (the sellers moved to Texas months ago, so the house is already empty). We are SOOO excited! It's not technically a farm, but it will be by the time we're done with it! We got it for a pretty reasonable price between the way the housing market is and the fact that the sellers needed to get rid of it to be able to purchase a home in Texas. We paid less for it than they did a little over 2 years ago.
It's a brick ranch home (3 bedrooms, 1 bath) built in 1956. It was built well and is in great shape. The floors are beautiful hardwood except in the kitchen and bathroom. It has been updated, but we'll still do some painting and such before moving in. It has a 3 car garage (built in 2002) with a bathroom in it (which is a wonderful bonus!). Both the house and garage are heated by an outdoor woodburner with natural gas as a backup heating source. It sits on nearly 42 acres (we'd love to have more acreage someday, but this is a GREAT start... we feel very blessed to have found a place with room for us and our animals)! A lot of it is wooded, but I've looked at some old aerial maps and it used to almost all be open ground at one time. The plan is to leave some of it wooded, but clear some of the scrubby acreage to make more pasture area, since the trees there aren't high quality anyway and we need more pasture (and it used to be hayfield/pasture at one time).
It also comes with some extra bonuses. One is an underground dog fence (and 4 collars to go with it) that surrounds about 5 acres!
It makes me feel better since there are more neighbors and a busier road and we don't want anything to happen to our dogs. We're also getting the (newer and nicer than our current) refrigerator and stove that are there, as well as a portable dishwasher and a piano! They also left their 4-wheeler, lawn mower, and a gas brush hog that you can pull behind the 4-wheeler. They talked about selling those 3 items to us, but the seller's father (who had been caring for the place since the sellers moved) said they would probably just give those to us!
A couple of things that are both good and bad - it's on a state route just outside a little town and there are quite a few neighbors. It's bad because we're used to backroads, more privacy, and fewer neighbors. But it's good because we hope to sell our products (beef, pork, eggs, pumpkins, gourds, & crafts, too), so those neighbors, the drivers on the state route, and the people in the nearby town are potential friends and customers!
We don't have a name for it yet. I have come up with a few ideas, but DH isn't crazy about any of them. I hope we can come up with a good name so I can make us a farm sign and get it up this spring!
The house:
The house and garage. There used to be a garage under the house - that's why you see the concrete walls and slope down under the side porch. It now just has a man door. That old garage area is where I hope to set up our meat freezers, egg fridge, and sell our products from.
The garage and outdoor woodburner:
Out behind the house is this awesome fenced in play area! It will be great for our nephew... and someday kids of our own (who am I kidding - I'll probably play there, too! lol
).
Side yard and little shed. The chickens' permanent coop will end up over here somewhere, but they'll live in a chicken tractor of some kind and will be rotated through the pasture in the summer.
Other side yard. This is where I'm planning to plant my vegetable garden this spring. I'll have to plant some trees along the road, though - I prefer not to have people driving by and watching me in the garden (I'm weird like that
).
This is the field behind the house. They had been mowing it like a yard (it's nearly 4 acres!). This will become pasture for sure, once we get to building fence (we'll have lots of fence to build since it will be split up into smaller paddocks to facilitate our rotational grazing).
This was taken from the field, looking back towards the house (it's on the other side of those big pines).
This was the house in the snow about a month or so ago (I snapped this pic driving past it on my way to work).
It's a brick ranch home (3 bedrooms, 1 bath) built in 1956. It was built well and is in great shape. The floors are beautiful hardwood except in the kitchen and bathroom. It has been updated, but we'll still do some painting and such before moving in. It has a 3 car garage (built in 2002) with a bathroom in it (which is a wonderful bonus!). Both the house and garage are heated by an outdoor woodburner with natural gas as a backup heating source. It sits on nearly 42 acres (we'd love to have more acreage someday, but this is a GREAT start... we feel very blessed to have found a place with room for us and our animals)! A lot of it is wooded, but I've looked at some old aerial maps and it used to almost all be open ground at one time. The plan is to leave some of it wooded, but clear some of the scrubby acreage to make more pasture area, since the trees there aren't high quality anyway and we need more pasture (and it used to be hayfield/pasture at one time).
It also comes with some extra bonuses. One is an underground dog fence (and 4 collars to go with it) that surrounds about 5 acres!
A couple of things that are both good and bad - it's on a state route just outside a little town and there are quite a few neighbors. It's bad because we're used to backroads, more privacy, and fewer neighbors. But it's good because we hope to sell our products (beef, pork, eggs, pumpkins, gourds, & crafts, too), so those neighbors, the drivers on the state route, and the people in the nearby town are potential friends and customers!
We don't have a name for it yet. I have come up with a few ideas, but DH isn't crazy about any of them. I hope we can come up with a good name so I can make us a farm sign and get it up this spring!
The house:
The house and garage. There used to be a garage under the house - that's why you see the concrete walls and slope down under the side porch. It now just has a man door. That old garage area is where I hope to set up our meat freezers, egg fridge, and sell our products from.
The garage and outdoor woodburner:
Out behind the house is this awesome fenced in play area! It will be great for our nephew... and someday kids of our own (who am I kidding - I'll probably play there, too! lol
Side yard and little shed. The chickens' permanent coop will end up over here somewhere, but they'll live in a chicken tractor of some kind and will be rotated through the pasture in the summer.
Other side yard. This is where I'm planning to plant my vegetable garden this spring. I'll have to plant some trees along the road, though - I prefer not to have people driving by and watching me in the garden (I'm weird like that
This is the field behind the house. They had been mowing it like a yard (it's nearly 4 acres!). This will become pasture for sure, once we get to building fence (we'll have lots of fence to build since it will be split up into smaller paddocks to facilitate our rotational grazing).
This was taken from the field, looking back towards the house (it's on the other side of those big pines).
This was the house in the snow about a month or so ago (I snapped this pic driving past it on my way to work).
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