Whew. When did August get here?! I guess the obvious answer is...today. It's like it was May, then I blinked and three whole months were gone. Just like that. So, here were are, August. And at our house that means we are celebrating a birthday! One year ago today, we handed over our completely demolished family farmstead fixer upper to our contractor in hopes he could help us transform it into our dream home. (Spoiler alert: he totally did.)
In celebration, I have FINALLY (yes, we moved in January) taken some "after" photos to share with you! Over the course of the next week, I will be sharing the "before & afters" a room at a time to show you just how we transformed this 1979 model family farmhouse into a beautiful, functional home for our family. I thought I'd start by sharing a little background on the FFFU.
The house was built on the farmstead where my mom grew up, but it wasn't the house she actually grew up in. It was built her senior year of high school. The original farmhouse, which stood about 20 yards away, was moved to another location and my uncle actually still lives in that house today. My mom is the youngest of her siblings, so she's the only one who actually lived in the "new" house.
The FFFU is a ranch style home with an unfinished basement (that is still unfinished). We decided tackling the main floor was a good place to start. It was originally a two bedroom, two bath, then we added on a master suite so there are now three bedrooms.
Along with the house, we bought the "homestead" acreage that includes a good sized machine shed (aka junk collector), some old grain bins and the original barns my Papa ran his dairy out of. This fall, we actually plan to convert the old milk barn into a chip barn for baby pigs. But...more on that later.
For today, I have just a few shots of the exterior of the house. Besides the addition, we just gave it a little facelift with some new paint and updated landscaping. But, a little facelift can go a long way if you ask me :)
So here's a flashback to BEFORE:
And AFTER:
And HERE is the view from our front yard:
I'm looking forward to giving you all a look inside of our home the next few days! A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into it (the blood and sweat mostly my husbands...I'll take credit for the tears). But seriously...we could not ask for a more perfect place to plant our family's roots and build our babies future.
Until next time,
Jen