The farm is ours and there so much potential!!! Our farm has 7 buildings on 7 acres. The farm house was built in 1931 and it is not fit to live in. The floor is not level, the wiring is pre-historic, it reeks of mold and smoke so badly that we have to wear a respirator. This house will have to be gutted to the studs and rebuilt to code.
Then there’s the detached 3-car garage with a 2nd floor studio apartment. The garage is filthy and the previous owner left quite a bit of trash. The sheetrock is moldy, obviously from leaks in the roof, and there is no insulation. The studio apartment is not livable, either. The door does not close and it looks like it has not closed for years. There’s a hole in the floor and several of the boards are “spongy” and unsafe to walk on. There’s also a hole in the ceiling where water had come through. The carpet is stained and moldy. There are at least 50 inhabited hornet nests. The bathroom and kitchenette are tiny and disgusting. The water pipes apparently froze in years past, so there’s no running water.
Behind the house, there’s a good-sized, below-ground well house with hot water heater, well pressure tank, and deep shelves filled with hundreds and hundreds of empty canning jars. The floor has at least a half-inch coating of mud and the walls are covered with webs.
Next to the garage is a tool shed that’s big enough to be used as a one-car garage. There’s no door and the inside is wet. The previous owner left all the “stuff” he did not want, and I don’t think we want any of it either.
Then there’s the large tin barn. It has a dirt floor. One end of the barn has two 10’ tall sliding doors (big enough to drive heavy equipment through) and the other end has a small entry door. Again, it is filled with JUNK! If you know of someone who wants old tires, please let us know!
We have a 8×10 (ish) building that we think was used for storage. It has a concrete floor, wooden walls, 2 small windows, and shingled roof, but nothing else inside. Some of the walls are rotted at the bottom.
Last but far from least, is the Stone Building. This building, we’ve learned, was a general store about 75 years ago. It looks like it was added on to two different times over the years. The previous owner will use this building until the end of the year to store what he could not get off the property. We hope to turn this building back into a store and our “hobby” space.
Here’s our challenge – we have to be out of our current home in 4 weeks and neither the house, nor apartment are livable. The plan is to work on the studio apartment first so we can live there while we’re working on the house.
We are undaunted. Let the adventure begin!
Undaunted Farming 