Farmhouse Update & Pictures!

I'm back!  It's been over a month since we've moved and its way past time to do an update for you all!  We absolutely LOVE being on the farm.  I can't even put words to it.  I honestly thought a little part of me would miss living in the city, but that is definitely not the case! Ever since we've moved I've been sleeping so much better, (so nice not getting woken up in the middle of the night from crazy people being loud and blaring music at the McDonald's drive-thru) I'm spending much more time outside which is glorious, and its actually fun to have people over now because we have the space to do it!

Let's face it though, we are still unpacking and while most of the main spaces are in decent shape they are of course no-where near what I picture in my head!  Mostly they are just lacking any sort of decoration or design...those items are still in boxes! Part of me wanted to come back and show you these perfect pictures, but in all honesty who knows how long it will be until my house is the way I picture it in my mind.  Silly me, thinking that I would have it all together the week after we moved in! ha  That of course is not reason to not show pictures though!  So here we go...

Before and after's of the living room/dining room and kitchen.  I'll get the rest of the pictures taken, just didn't have time to finish it all up in one shot. #toddlerliving

There are still some big changes to come.  The downstairs bathroom/laundry room (you can see the doors to it behind the dining room table in the first picture) is still incomplete.  We ran into some sewer issues and are waiting to get that fixed before finishing up that project.  I'm currently doing my laundry in the apartment that is attached to the house.  Not ideal, but definitely better than having to go to a laundry mat. I was hoping this project would be finished before the little man showed up but it looks like it will just be getting underway about the same time as my due date.  No worries though, we'll manage!  We are also still potentially putting in a new kitchen this summer just haven't gotten into any of those details yet either.  Part of me wonders if we are crazy trying to do all of this with a newborn and a toddler... 

All in all, life has been going well here on the farm.  We've definitely settled into a nice rhythm and its really been great.  Of course we will soon have to find a new rhythm as my due date is less than 3 weeks away... ahh.  Nope definitely not ready yet.  I think I've been mentally putting it on the back burner for so long to just deal with moving etc, that its just stayed back there and I just think it won't ever actually come! Within the last week though we've welcomed 2 new babies into the Gibbel family so that's kind of shook me out of my daze.  Time to get some baby prep going on! 

Until next time...
Monica

BEFORE Pictures: Upstairs

Like I promised here are the before pictures of the upstairs!  We aren't doing nearly as much work to the upstairs.  The main thing we are re-doing is the bathroom, and some reconfigurations because of the new stairs that are going in.  The bedrooms are all getting new carpet and paint.

For those of you who asked to see a reminder of what the front of the house looks like, here's a picture!

This was taken last summer so its changed a bit.  The right section of the house with the green awning over the porch is actually a whole separate apartment.  The main house, where we are living is on the left (covered by the tree, sorry).


Here is the upstairs:

The kid's rooms are actually larger than ours, they also both have two closets in them?!  Coming from the city with limited closet space, I almost don't know what to do with that much room! We decided to go with our room though, because its located at the top of the stairs and has windows overlooking the front driveway.  There are some interesting color choices going on upstairs so I'm excited to see the transformation with just some carpet and paint.


Thats all for now!

-Monica

BEFORE Pictures of the Farmhouse

We are full swing into demo and remodeling at the farmhouse.  I went in before all the work started and snapped some before pics that I'll share with you today. These are just of the downstairs.  I'll post about the upstairs a bit later. 

We originally planned on just doing flooring and paint throughout the entire house, but as you can see its turned into a much larger project.  We are now pulling out the incredibly steep and narrow stairs and replacing them with a new set so you can actually walk up them normally.  We are tearing out the textured ceilings and walls in the downstairs and redrywalling.  While we have the walls and ceilings ripped out we are running some new wires to add lighting that was somewhat lacking throughout the space. 

Ripping out the stairs caused some clearance issues for your head once the new stairs are in so we are ripping out the small hallway to the bathroom upstairs and putting in a new door the to the upstairs bathroom out the other side. (more on this later with pictures)


Right now the house is demoed (is that actually a word?  looks totally funky but I'm going with it) and the new electrical is going in this week.  Drywallers come in next week, the painters come in the following week.  And last but not least the flooring goes in after all of that is done.  We had to bump our move date back a week but we are now planning on moving in the 3rd week of April, just in time for Easter!  :)

Well... enough talking lets get to the pictures!


When you walk through the front door this is what you see:

The wall that we will be removing leads into the kitchen, since we are pulling the stairs out to the dining room we needed another entrance.

The breakfast nook is right off the kitchen, you also have our second front door there on the right, and then it also connects to the family room you see below. 

Whew... are you tired yet, cause I am :)  and then we have the upstairs yet! haha

Anyways, I'm glad things are started and everything is going well.  I'm so excited to see it all finished and get to finally move in! 


stay tuned... more to come!
Monica

We're Moving!

Last post I mentioned that we were packing and getting ready to move, which sparked some questions so I decided to do another post!

Hopefully within the next two months we will be leaving our lovely abode in the city and making our way to Lititz to take up residence in an old farmhouse surrounded by many acres of farmland! We've been talking about moving here for the past year or so but only made the final decision this past fall.  Our hope is to be moving in late March or early April, although we don't have a definite date in place yet.

While I've loved living in the city there was always a part of me that knew it wouldn't be forever.  I'm a country girl at heart and so is Matt, so moving to a place that has more space and is surrounded by farmland was a no-brainer!  We will be just over the hill from my in-laws and neighbors with my brother and sister-in-law and their children.  My family will also be significantly closer as well!  Needless to say we are pretty excited!  Its been such a blessing to have all of our family close by, and having children has only made that appreciation grow! 

The property also has a large barn right next to the house that we are pretty excited about!

The barn is what initially sparked our interest in our property. Matt has often thought it would be a great place to have weddings.  Whether or not that is going to happen is still up in the air but its definitely a prospect and we are looking forward to seeing what can be done with the space. 

So these next couple weeks are bound to be busy ones. We've been working on small fixes to our house to get it ready to rent (ps... if you're looking for a place in the city let us know!).  We've also been slowing starting to go through our stuff and start packing.  It still blows my mind how much we've accumulated over that past 5 years... where did all of this stuff come from?!

I'm planning on showing before and afters of our new place once we move in and get everything ready so stay tuned for that!

We've also been busy working on another project in Lititz this past fall, I'm hoping to share this with you in the coming week or so as things are wrapping up, stay tuned for that as well!

-Monica