Back on Wise Road

Dear Blog.

It has been a long, long time. The fact that you exist still on the internets has haunted me for almost a year now. But I needed a bit of a break--from the blog and, if truth be told, from the farmhouse on Wise Road as well. 

Things were tough at the farmhouse for a long time. Devin and I have been humbled, truly, discovering just limited our renovation knowledge and abilities truly are. Every trip up to Wise Road seemed to be fraught with peril, anxiety, and an inevitable disaster of one kind of another. The sunsets were stunning, the quiet mornings awe-inspiring, but the days between were hard. Overwhelming.

So last Fall we made a decision. 

Some friends of ours introduced us to a wonderful family of missionaries, back in KC between assignments. Mark and Lora were living with family but looking for a little bit more space for their kids. Mark, a talented contractor, was looking for some renovation work. 

Would Mark and Lora, we wondered, be interested in living at the farmhouse and helping us finish the work we found we were unable to do? We offered them the house and the work and they accepted. 

I can say without a doubt that having Mark and Lora's family up at Wise Road has been the best decision we have made to date. They are a family filled with joy. Their children truly enjoyed roaming free on the beautiful land and taught our kids how to interact and enjoy a hitherto intimidating landscape. Just having their happy, holy family in the house completely changed the feeling of the place, like all our own anxiety, frustration, and exhaustion had been driven out.

Beyond this--let me just say that Mark is magical. He is a talented and resourceful worker, I can hardly remember all of the things that were wrong with the house that Mark put right. In the first week after they moved in he had disposed of our resident pack rat, who was living under our kitchen and causing no end of expensive and disgusting damage. Little things that had somehow overwhelmed us he fixed: Ikea cabinets that were misinstalled, cracks in floors that weren't repaired by the floor people, patching that the contractors left, window shades that I had funked. All these things Mark fixed. 

And then the real work began. Mark tore off our "third bedroom" (i.e. nasty, stinky, rotting lean-to) and used salvaged wood to rebuild it into an *actual* bedroom with a closet and AMAZING built-in bunks and a mudroom with a utility sink and (heated!) stone floor:

BEFORE

BEFRORE

After that Mark built our amazing front porch, complete with tongue and groove floor, Haint Blue ceiling and outlets *specifically* for Christmas light installation. As if this wasn't enough Mark and his kids found huge pieces of limestone around the property and dragged them, Stonehenge style, to the front of the house and built them into stone steps. One of these pieces is probably 7x7 feet across and an 18 inches thick. It must weigh a thousand pounds. I have no idea how they moved that piece of stone.

I can hardly remember all the things that Mark and his family have done on the property. They have cut down trees, removed underbrush, planted and pruned fruit trees. They sealed and insulated the underside of our drafty old hardwood floor, installed a new washer and dryer, chopped firewood. The list goes on and on!'

In March Mark and Lora finished the project and we have, once again, taken possession of the house on Wise Road. We celebrated with barbeque, a bonfire and a house blessing.

Now Devin and I are ready to give the Wise Road another go--and I hope I can find time to get back to the blog as well! 

A lot is going on these days! Not least a NEW BABY, who I will introduce in the near future! In addition to THAT (!!) this year will mark the first year of official homeschooling in our house. I have so much to share about our kindergarten year (now complete) and my hopes and plans for the next year! 

So till I find time to sit down once again at the computer I will leave you with sunset on Wise Road.

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real on Wise Road

Pretty

Against all odds, I installed shelves in the kitchen. They are "crafted" from "reclaimed" "barn-wood." That sounds so Pinterest-worthy, urban homesteading sophisticated, right? But don't get too excited. Note the sarcasti-quotes. When I say "reclaimed" I mean "pried from the walls with a crowbar and scraped down with a shovel to get rid of the hornets nests." And when I say "barn" I mean "the old shed covered in corrugated iron where we keep the tractor lawnmower." (We don't have a tractor, much to my husband's chagrin. If we DID have a tractor it wouldn't fit in the "barn.") Livin' the dream.

But still. The wood, once I sanded it down and oiled it was...pretty! And after a trip to Home Depot to pick up some metal brackets, we have some nearly free shelves. And they are (once again) pretty, yes?

Happy

The happiest thing about Wise Road is the evening. The light is gorgeous, slanting in, everything turns gold, even the long weeds grass that we didn't get around to mowing (again).

We are trying to take advantage of the lovely spring weather and (relative) absence of bugs by enjoying the following outdoor activities: mowing, making campfires, mowing, eating s'mores, mowing, eating dinner outside, and mowing. Hattie and Hugo are entranced by my fire-building skilz.

Hugo would not relinquish this smashed marshmallow, even to eat it.

Devin rigged up this old (what the heck IS is?) pallet thingy that someone used to keep firewood on...or something...so now we have a table outside, which has improved our life by approximately 28%.

And I am finally getting the hang of getting meals prepared out here, thanks, in part, to a working stove and a trip to Ikea. Mealtime has gotten a bit more civilized.

Of course i this picture you can't see the plastic silverware or the power tools which were also on the table. Never ignore what is just outside of the frame!

Funny

With all the reclaiming of barn-wood and sewing of curtains (stay tuned) I have been a bit distracted from child-related duties. Usually while I am working the kids are outside, engaged in some wholesome countrified activity--like playing with barbed wire and broken glass. KIDDING! Usually their just digging in the dirt with sticks (why? what do your kids do all day?). But the other day Hattie got into my car and found my makeup. She was there for a while.

Here she is just before I decanted her into the bath. The photo unfortunately doesn't do justice to her artistry or adequately capture the gallons of foundation on her skin and clothing.

Real

I bought a sewing machine.

I didn't exactly intend to buy a sewing machine, but I was at Ikea. You know? Come on, I know you've had this experience. It's like this. You are in Ikea. You have been in Ikea for more time than you would like to admit, weaving back and forth through tastefully modern kitchens and sleek bedrooms. You actually don't know exactly how long you have been there, you don't, in fact, know if it is day or night Outside because *there are no windows!*. Both of your children have reached The End and are throwing epic tantrums. (Yes, those were my children.) You just pried the four-year-old from the floor for the tenth time. The two-year-old is about to make another desperate escape attempt into the basket, box, and random container department. Your ability to think rationally left you back where you buy wall-mount shelves. You start to look at objects you didn't even know were Things and think: "Wow, this Enudden Toilet Roll Holder and Magazine Stand is so cool! How could I have survived this long without a toilet roll holder that incorporates a MAGAZINE STAND! And it's so cheap!"

So, when I saw a shiny new sewing machine I bought it (obviously!!).

"What are you going to do with a sewing machine?" Devin asked me once we were safely back in our car with all our stuff and the still-screaming progeny. Suddenly I was swept away in grand delusions: With my new sewing machine I was going to become a Truly Accomplished Woman, I would sew all of my children's clothes, I would make ties for my husband to coordinate with feast days and liturgical seasons, I would craft elegantly austere tunics for myself from organic linen. ...

"Why don't you start with some curtains," he replied.

And so I did. And let me just say this: Sewing machines: SO complicated, okay? I had NO idea how many pieces and steps and tiny movements were required. It took FOREVER just to find the bobbin (I didn't even know what a bobbin WAS!). It took HOURS of fiddling before I finally sewed a stitch. And then I had to stop: because I had sewed the edge of the curtain to the middle of the curtain. It was awesome.

But I did it. I sewed some curtains. And they don't look too bad.

(Of course I forgot to take pictures so have no documented proof.)


This post is linked to Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real at Auntie Leila's blog!

Farmhouse Update: Spring Cometh

I apologize for the previous (wordless) post, though I hope you enjoyed the pretty pictures. So much has happened and we have been so busy and I have been so exhausted that I just couldn't muster up anything except...pretty pictures.

Needless to say, since this post the situation at Wise Road has improved. The last absolutely necessary changes and repairs were made. A new electrician fixed the horrible mistakes of the Dude. A plumber (like, an ACTUAL plumber) hooked up the sinks and toilet (yes!) with relatively little incident. Things weren't perfect with our new set of workers. They fixed some things, but not to our standard of quality/neatness. They left a big mess. We are pretty convinced that we will have to call in Kansas City workers for future work and pay them the big bucks. We have become just a wee bit disillusioned with the standards out here in the country. Sigh.

But, one way or another, the work was finished enough for us to "move in." Devin and I went up without the kids and filled an ENTIRE dumpster with the trash that various workers had piled on our back porch. And trash that had blown off the back porch all over the meadows and down into the woodland. And trash that had been left in every room of the house. We worked for a good two days, clearing, sweeping, scrubbing, vacuuming. There was a lot of dust, a lot of mouse droppings, and a lot of bleach used. I almost asphyxiated myself by mixing two cleaning solutions that...um...weren't supposed to come into contact. One should always read warning labels.

After all this the house began to look like a house. We actually ate dinner in the kitchen! We made a little campfire and watched the stars! We actually slept in our bedroom.

There is still a lot of work to be done. The trim was left with primer alone and nail holes, so...more filling and painting. We still haven't replaced the drawer in the kitchen that the Dude misplaced. We still haven't fit the dish washer with its matching white front.

A lot of the remaining work should be fun and exciting. It's mostly decorating, finishing now. We are going to build open shelves in the kitchen from wood salvaged from the barn.The hollow-core front door will be replaced with a solid door with a window (the view out this side of the house is beautiful). The chairs will get new cushions (no, orange was not the original plan). I am going to make some curtains. We will get a local carpenter to build us a new table (the one we are using is usually on our front porch and is a bit too weathered for indoor use). Bookshelves will be installed. We'll swap the bare bulbs for some interesting overhead lights. There will be wallpaper on the huge blank wall in the kitchen (I'm excited about that one!). And the list goes on.

But there is a place to sleep. (Here is Hattie's little nook. We are hoping to build bookshelves around her bed, kind of like this.)

There's a place to bathe and...powder one's nose.

Outside is much the same. An almost infinite amount of work to be done. For instance, here is my garden:

Since this picture was taken we planted a row of onions and some pumpkins, just "to see." But next year (or the year after that) will bring a total overhaul.

The fruit trees are in bad need of major pruning and I have NO IDEA where to begin. There are a few venerable pears that still bear... But what do I do? Any ideas??

There is plenty of room for dreams, plans, failure and success. But for now I am content: a place to sleep. A place to be quiet. Every time we are there I am struck again by the quiet. And the darkness: how dark it is at night, how lonesome. It's wonderful.

Farmhouse Update: In Pictures

Farmhouse Update: February

It has been a while since I wrote an update on the farmhouse. Actually, it's been a while since I blogged at all. The radio silence can be explained in part by the frantic busy-ness of the holiday season and the ensuing exhaustion and winter-induced lassitude. Then I broke the computer.

No, really. I broke it. I put it on top of my car and drove away. My mother-in-law found it a few blocks away on the side of the road. 

Anyway, I got a new computer. Then that one stopped working, through no fault of my own, I swear. Though I am beginning to suspect that I harbor an anti-technology poltergeist. I cannot TELL you how many devices have expired on my watch (like the computer in graduate school that literally CAUGHT FIRE while I was writing an essay??). 

Anyway. Those are a few of my best excuses.

But the real reason I haven't written about the farmhouse lately is: ...that I haven't had the heart. Remember the last update? The one about asbestos floors, and warped doors, and I can't even remember what else? Well, it got worse. Many of you counseled me to fire our contractors. And we did, my friends. We did.

After we fired our contractors our first action was to hire a guy to finish the painting we had been unable to finish. We found a local Dude at loose ends looking for odd jobs. He came up and painted the ceilings and the room we hadn't finished. So far so good. Painting=not rocket science. Dude then offered his services for exterior painting. We agreed. And this is where Devin and I took a wrong turn and found ourselves "within a forest dark [...] the very thought [of which] renews fear, so bitter it is, death is little more."

Well, not quite that bad. But bad enough.

After the exterior paint was finished (also to our satisfaction), the Dude continued to offer his services for tasks that we had yet to finish. Our Ikea cabinets were still in boxes. Would we like him to assemble them? ("Well, why not?") The finish carpenter wasn't returning our calls, would we like him (the Dude) to finish the trim? ("Um, can you do that? Well, okay..."). The electrician was hard to pin down, so would we like him (the Dude) to install the switches and outlets. ("Well...") Can you see a pattern here? We were exhausted, frustrated, extremely strapped for time and cash. We were vulnerable to the temptation. In fact, we were so naive as to be hopeful. Maybe the Dude could finish up these last few things for an absurdly small amount of money. Maybe?

But as the days turned into weeks we began to suspect that Something was Up. The Dude became increasingly hard to get hold of. He was never at work before noon. Sometimes he said that he was working at the house and then, when Devin arrived, he would be gone, and there was no evidence of further work completed. The project stalled. We finally decided to go up one Saturday and assist, hoping to encourage efficiency.

We arrived on that morning to find a complete and utter disaster. How can I explain it? Every wall was scratched, smudged, and banged. Every room needed to be substantially repainted. The newly finished floors were filthy. Someone had been "working" on the electrical outlets, obviously with no knowledge or skill. There were bare wires everywhere, tangled and cut. The outlets that were "completed" were crooked and the walls around them damaged. One outlet was so poorly installed (glued?) that the sheetrock for a foot on either side was soaking wet and disintegrating. You could put your finger right through the wall. The trim had been installed using tacks nailed in every inch or so, with gaps at the joints and between the quarter-round and the floor. The cabinets had been partially constructed, but incorrectly. Some of the drawers were missing. Every bag of screws/nails/parts had been dumped out on the floor in no order, with no way to tell what pieces went with what piece of furniture. The same had been done with all of our light fixtures. Every floor, every surface, was covered with trash, nails, scraps of wire, old food, tools, and mouse droppings. 

It was truly terrible. I sat with the children huddled on the couch, afraid that they would hurt themselves or contribute to the general chaos. For a good half and hour neither Devin could say anything. And then we said things. Many things. 

Needless to say, we sent the Dude packing and spent the rest of the day trying to clean up and take stock of the damage.

All of this is, of course, our own stinking fault. "Sarah and Devin Learn a Lesson" in good American Girl Cautionary Tale form. Never again will we hire a worker without references and credentials. But this has been a costly lesson for us to learn, both emotionally and financially.

The next week Devin hired a very referenced and credentialed electrician to come out and take stock. He brought along a similarly skilled plumber and finish carpenter. They were possibly more shocked by the state of the house than we were. But, unlike us, they have the skills to diagnose and treat, which is what they have been doing in the past few weeks.

All of the electrical had to be redone. Every socket, every outlet. If we had hired this electrician in the first place it would have cost around $500 total. With the damage done it cost us more than twice this amount. The trim also had to be completely ripped up and reinstalled.

So after many, many steps backward, we are now finally making our way forward. In fact, despite EVERYTHING, we are now very close to being really and truly finished. This past week the cabinets were hung and I went up to watch the counters being installed. We found a really gorgeous remnant of white marble which we had honed by a responsible workshop here in Kansas City. Thank goodness for professionals. Look at this marble!

Ignore the unfinished painting.

While the counter-guys worked like pros, I spent the day repainting the walls and cleaning the house. By the end of the day I felt much better about the whole situation, glad to have been able to do something that actually HELPED, happy to have finished a project. The day was gorgeous and I was able to walk through the fields, enjoying the silence and the melting snow.

It is going to be okay, people. It's going to be great. The end is in sight, there is light at the end of the tunnel. But the tunnel has been pretty dark.

   

Farmhouse Update

So just in case anyone had gotten the crazy idea that we have it all together (ha. ha.) here is a house update to disabuse you of such silly notions.

Renovation at Wise Road has reached the constructive stage, in other words, the demolition is finished and now “all” we have to do is put everything back. Anyone who has done any renovation knows that, of course, the constructive stage is almost infinitely more difficult than demolition. Demolition is fun.  It makes a lot of mess, and you fill a couple of dumpsters, and you feel like you have accomplished lots and lots. Then you realize… “Oh, I have no walls, and no sink, and no toilet.” And then you must argue and fight with your contractors about the walls, the sink, the toilet…and the siding, and the paint, and the trim, and the windows, and the electrical. You know the drill.

So this has what has been accomplished at Wise Road to date: the walls are framed, the drywall finished. The siding is on, but not painted. Apparently, “people in the country” don’t paint their siding. Or so say our contractors, to explain their surprise when we gave them our paint color of choice. Apparently this wasn’t included in the quote for the exterior.

Maybe you are getting the feeling (Devin and I certainly are) that our contractors *might* be trying to rip us off. As the project progresses more and more items (essential items, I would say) have become “extra.” Like exterior AND interior painting. Like insulation. And apparently the stain that *we* want on the floors is about $1000 extra. But not to worry, no extra charge on the Tang-colored stain the floor guys have in their van. Anyway, the $$$ have really started to stack up and we still have not spent a night in the house.

So we have started contracting for ourselves to save money. And we decided to paint ourselves. Painting is the one renovation task we feel confident enough to undertake. Wait. Did I say "feel"--present tense? Sorry, let me try this again: painting is one renovation task we *FELT* (past tense) confident to undertake. 

Here we are, still feeling confident.

So last weekend the kids went to stay with their (amazing) grandparents while we went up and painted for two days. Surely, we said to ourselves, we can paint one tiny little house one shade of white in one weekend? Not so. We worked like mad for two full days with hardly a break to use the toilet (oh wait, we don’t have a toilet…), and we didn’t finish.

This was very disappointing, mostly because the floor people were coming in the next day and painting is better before the floor is done, for obvious reasons.

They went on and sanded the floor. Then they got to the kids’ room, which, if you recall, used to be the kitchen. And there they stopped, because under all the dust and crap there is a solid sheet of asbestos. Not tiles, a sheet. We knew it was there, and we (mistakenly) assumed that our contractors, who we had just paid many dollars to rip up the old floor, would have taken up this mess as well. But no. They had not. And they did not plan to. They suggested that maybe Devin and I would like to tear it up ourselves.

So a couple days after our failed painting trip we farmed out the children yet again and headed back up to the house to try our hand at asbestos removal.

We had to go up there anyway because we had to meet our carpenter (the one *we* found. Apparently our contractors don’t know any carpenters). Now our carpenter was up there putting in The Doors.

The Doors… (Cue ominous music.)

Old Door.

There are only three doorways in the house. Three. Two bedrooms and a bathroom. We knew from experience that contractors *will* put in plastic, hollow core doors if you let them. So we had this brilliant idea that we would buy old doors from architectural salvage, with lovely brass hardware and heavy old nobs. There isn’t a lot of inherent character in the house (the previous owner saw to that), so we realized that the few details like this would be our way to restore a sense of history and integrity to the place. We had the doors up in the house for MONTHS while the contractors were doing other things. They knew from the BEGINNING that we were planning to use old doors.

So they day came when they went in to install the doors. We got a call. Apparently (I seem to be using this word a lot) they couldn’t do the job because “the doors are weird.” So they had brought in (you guessed it) plastic, hollow core doors. They were just going to put them in—in spite of my explicit instructions otherwise.

So we called up Mike, who is a carpenter.

Carpentry is a noble trade. Remember that Our Lord was a carpenter. And Mike is a good carpenter. We have so much respect for Mike. He is a craftsman and a man of integrity. I wish he could do *all* of the work on our house.

Mike drove more than an hour to Wise Road. When he got there the power was off. He problem solved and hooked up his tools to an exterior power-line (?!). Then he realized that we had gotten a door that opened on the wrong side. Then he realized that we had bought *one* hinge that was the wrong size. Then he realized that one of the doors we had brought was warped and unusable. An on and on. Basically everything that could possibly go wrong with the doors went wrong. And it was all our fault. But Mike powered through. Despite everything we have our (old) new doors installed.

While Mike was Getting It Done, Devin and I were madly scraping up asbestos.

Floor of Death.

We worked for a long time and maybe scraped up 5 square feet, not even a fourth of the room.  We don’t have time to do this job, and since cash is running short as well, I think we are going to have to carpet this room, at least for the time being. Maybe later we can go back and finish the job properly.

I hate that we are going to have to do this. I hate how we have failed over and over again: the painting, the doors, the floors, and many other aspects. Our own stupidity, ignorance, overconfidence have combined with lack of time, lack of energy, lack of funds to create some major issues.

So this wasn’t such a good week. Here’s hoping that the next update will bring some sunshine!!

I will say that I am excited about the floors. I am so happy that we were able to salvage the original wood, at least in most of the house.

I also like the painting I was able to finish. Here is a picture of what will be the living room:

There will be wallpaper to the left of the door.