It’s official.  I have a farm!

Things have happened really quickly since I closed last week.  Notice accepted on my place in the city, moving process has already started and Labor day weekend was spent on the farm with some of the most selfless and hardworking friends a girl could ask for.

The house itself was in need of a complete deep clean and has had very little done aesthetically since the previous owners moved in.  Our first task was taking all the appliances and completely cleaning them inside and out.  The Refrigerator smelled richly of every rotting animal in the sea…so that was first.  We pushed it right out the front door and blasted enough bleach water into it to kill any surviving bacteria that had dared to stick around.  I’m not a big fan of bleach, but there was no getting around it for the level of ‘ick’ I’m facing.  It looked reaaaaal classy out front as I had all the drawers and shelves scattered across the front fence/yard to bask in the blazing sun before it was their turn for a nice scrub down.

The pristine cooler featured above was scavenged from the woods by Kelly, the first of many found treasures, I’m sure, around the 106 acres.  It may take more than a bleach bath to get it back to it’s glory days.  But after all the work, the Fridge is looking practically new while only having the faintest odd odor that we’re hoping dissipates in time.

We did a similar treatment to the Washer/Dryer which was in a room SO caked in dirt on the floors and walls that I wasn’t sure if we’d unearth some small village of critters living underneath.

But with a scrub-brush, bleach water and a fairly unimpressive sprayer hose, we managed to get the concrete floor pretty cleaned off and the washer dryer was removed of hair and filth from a variety of previous farm residents that I don’t care to think about.  But after 3 loads of laundry and putting up my outdoor laundry line, I feel like a real homeowner!  Is there anything better than seeing Laundry on an outdoor line?  (i’m sure there is…but to this city dweller, it was like seeing dreams come true!)  I was so enthralled with the process I forgot to take a picture, so use those imaginations!

I can show you Alex immediately getting to the Grill to scrub it down so we could make ALL our food on it over the weekend.  Burgers and Fish and Breakfast sausages oh MY!  Who needs a functioning kitchen right off the bat?  Not us!  Thanks Al!

The biggest undertaking of the weekend, however, was the kitchen floor.  Most of the food grime and ripe smells I’ve discovered so far, in my opinion, all start deep inside this industrial kitchen flooring seen below as it was before we got our crowbar into it.

First we removed the kitchen island, which to my surprise wasn’t bolted down to the floor, making it much easier to remove and take outside.  Alex got to work on it with my very first power tool, My new Bosch Random Orbital Sander!!  I had visions from the beginning of sanding down….well essentially the whole house, so I did a lot of research on what would get ALL the jobs done most efficiently and the Bosch fit the bill.  Alex would know more than I at this point if I made the right choice, but just having that tool proudly sitting in my new and completely empty TOOL ARSENAL makes me super happy.  I plan to sand down the surfaces of all the butcher block counter tops which I think are beautiful and could really get a lot of lustre back.  Here’s Al at work in the yard and probably 20 sanding discs in:

My new 100ft. Extension cord was a good impulse buy so he could stay closer to us over in the house and also away from the inside of the barn so all the wood dust could settle NOT all over the interior.

Once the island was out, Kelly immediately got to work on bringing up the metal flooring trim.  It popped up pretty quickly!

Now the fun part.  Seeing if in fact that wood floor ends or continues?????  And what do you know!

It keeps on keeping on…UNDERNEATH the plywood the flooring was glued to, then stapled to the vinyl flooring which was first GLUED to the original hard wood.   The hardest material to get rid of?  THOSE DAMN STAPLES!  Alex got a good twisting trick figured out by the end of the long weekend, but it will be awhile before I’m able to pry all those little suckers up.  Kelly got at it and with some great evening light coming in we couldn’t resist giving a shout out to The Floor Scrapers.  We are one of you!

After a few hours tho, Kelly had some satisfying moments when good chunks would come up and give us hope to keep forging on.

We stopped before we got into having to remove the rest of the counters and the stove (which will be our real nemesis in this project).  And as of now, I’m really liking the marbled look of the history of flooring.  If it works out, I may just buff it down and keep it as is.  I love the idea of seeing where the home has been.  I’m just A-OK not SMELLING where it’s been…  But finishing up with a little electric hand saw (shoutout to Justin Farkas for the tool loan!!) to clean up the edges for now, we ended up with a kitchen floor looking, if not done…definitely different! (and smelling so much better.)

(it was too dark to take a final final picture before i left, so just imagine that jagged edge on the right side squared off).  Many staples through the middle of the flooring, but hopefully you can see as much progress as we FELT we made!

And to celebrate we finished up with some inaugural rides on the tractor.  The former owner stopped by and was nice enough to give us a quick tutorial on which buttons would activate what and we were off!

Felix is a bit unsure of the tractor, but he is my favorite thing to watch on the farm so far.  Wherever he plopped down this week he just made it look so livable.  Thank you Felix for being such a good sport while the adults worked and cheering us on in all our projects!  You, your Mom and Dad made the first weekend up here so filled with purpose and Love and play and good food and FAMILY.  Next time maybe we’ll have a better place to sit.  Until then….