Hackett Hill Farm House Renovation Update- Week 8

Can you believe we have been at this farm house renovation for 8 weeks?! I can hardly believe we bought the farm, much less that we are 8 weeks into a full on gut job of this little home. Working full time, raising babies, and all the other curve balls that life throws definitely present some challenges to a timely completion of things. Some weeks I feel like I am 100% just spinning my wheels and not going anywhere. But then I look at how far we have come so far.

The purpose of this blog in the beginning was to document our process through this adventure of remodeling our new home, and while it has also given me an outlet for some of the other things that I love and enjoy, it is still truly at the heart of this blog. With that being said, I wanted to take some time to reflect on where we have been in the past 8 weeks and what we have accomplished.

September 1, 2020

Closing day! Or I guess for us, Opening Day! After months of waiting, hoping, praying, and honestly doubting it would ever actually happen, we closed. What a crazy feeling! To realize that you have officially signed the papers are are now the owners of a little farm that needs some major TLC. Oh My Goodness, what were we thinking! But the excitement that we have about this little place far outweighs the anxiety a project like this can bring. So many things to do! We didn’t waste any time digging right in.

Our first order of business was to have our first family meal at our new home and do some yard maintenance before knocking into the walls of the home. We enjoyed our first evening with the kids grilling out and packing up dinner to have a picnic under our cherry tree while poppa mowed as we savored the sunset at our beautiful farm.

Week 2

After all of the warm and fuzzies were over and the dumpster was delivered it was time to get to work! We went right into tearing into the middle room. I was so ready to see if the six foot eight inch ceilings would be something we would have to sink a lot of money into to change or if we were going to be able to expose the beams of the house and gain a few inches.

Thankfully there were two layers to go through, which got us the extra headspace that we needed to keep us from having to lift the first floor ceiling, as well as the roof on the back half of the house. The beams were just what I wanted to see. For the most part, they were in great shape and will make the cutest little kitchen when it is all said and done.

We spent most of the first week ripping into the middle room, with my husband painstakingly removing the tongue and groove board piece by piece. I have some big plans for this shiplap when the project is all said and done. We want to save as much of the material as possible from the original house so all of the tongue and groove, as well as the trim, is all being stored for later use. During this demolition process we also found that the original log structure of the house was hidden beneath layers of sheetrock. What a find! I honestly could not be happier with finding such a cool feature in this little home.

Weeks 3 through 5

Weeks three through five were definitely busy ones that passed by in a blur of more change. School started for the kiddos and as many of you all are probably dealing with, schedules are anything but normal with the combination of virtual and in person learning. My daughter ended up taking many virtual lessons in the living room of the farmhouse while I continued to work on the middle room and kitchen to get these spaces opened up.

In weeks three and four we finished tear down in the middle room and moved to the red room, off of the original living room. Getting these major dividing walls down really opened up the space and showed the flow of the house.

Week five finished opening the first floor middle room and living space which allowed us to begin planning our focus on the upper floor and remaining kitchen space. While that may not sound like we accomplished a lot in three through five, it felt like a huge accomplishment especially with only being able to dedicate time on the weekends to really focus on the house. Check out some of the progress we made in the gallery below!

Week 6

Week six was pretty full of exciting things as we welcomed our new side by side to our farm family, aptly named Little Ricky to match my car, Lucy, and my husband’s truck, Ethel. We were really excited to add this piece of equipment as it allowed us to just zip back and forth through the field between the two houses without having to touch the road. This was especially helpful on those quick lunchbreaks where the kids were dying in need of a bologna sandwich and red chips (Doritos).

We also added the most important piece of equipment, a tractor. My husband was like a kid when my daddy dropped the tractor off at the house with the brush hog. He spent the rest of the afternoon getting familiar with his new friend that will be an essential part of maintaining our farm. It didn’t take him any time to get comfortable and take to our cow pasture to get it ready for our girls in the coming weeks. It also opened up our land to allow for some additional exploring that we had not yet done. The view from the top pasture is breath taking. The kids also enjoyed getting to check out the creek that is lined with mint, filling the little valley where it sits with the sweet aroma of minty freshness (our cows will have the sweetest smelling breath! haha!).

Week 7

Week seven slowed down a bit for us with my sisters wedding on the weekend horizon. I took a few days off from work to spend some much needed wind-down time with my family. We did have some exciting things that came up in week seven, but not super productive as it relates to renovating the house.

We visited one of our favorite local pumpkin patches and picked out our little pumpkins for the year. This is something we do every year and I cannot wait until next season when we can grow our own pumpkins at the farm. I already have the best place for a little patch all picked out! I plan to keep the seeds from this years pumpkins and use those for planting. I also plan to get some seeds for sweet sugar pumpkins for canning, because I surely do love to eat all of the things pumpkin, especially a pumpkin roll. I mean who doesn’t love a sweet, cream cheese filling contrasting with the sweetly spicy pumpkin cake? Heaven!

We also discovered the Pawpaw trees that have been hiding out on our land for the past few years. Although it was the end of their season, I was still able to create one delicious Pawpaw Bread Recipe. If you are interested in learning more about what the Pawpaw is check out our post here.

We also got our first Hackett Hill Farm shirt! Who isn’t excited when they get their first official logoed shirt for the new farm? I adore this shirt. It is so soft and comfy and everything that I wanted for our first shirt.

To round off week seven, we went to my sisters wedding. I was able to spend some time with my sister the night before the wedding getting our nails done, having dinner, and hanging out. It was a great way to end our busy week.

Week 8

Now here we are closing out week eight of our adventure. These first eight weeks have flown by as I am sure the rest of our renovation year will. I am so excited for the progress we have made, but so nervous that it is not always moving as fast as I think it should. I know in the end it is going to be everything I could have ever hoped for in our first farm, but it can still be a little nerve wracking when you are not always certain of the next steps.

I am so excited you have decided to come along on this journey with us. We would love to hear from you if you have any advice or words of encouragement to share on the process. We would also love if you would share our blog out with others who may have similar interests so they can share as well! Until the next full update!

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