Since there might be some who start reading this blog that we aren’t regularly talking with, we figured we should probably give a bit of background about what exactly is going on. The situation is as follows. We are buying an old farmhouse in Germany. At the moment, there is tons of stuff in the house and around the property. The previous owner was a collector of sorts, and seems to have assembled just about everything he ever came across in this house. So every nook and cranny is full of random things that I guess he was hoping would become useful at some points…and piles of furniture in various states of disrepair.
Some might look at this house and think that the projects which need to be done are far too great. Some would never be able to look past the junk and see the true beauty of this home…but thankfully we are not those people and are ready to take the bull by the horns lol.
So what exactly needs to be done?
- Clean out three storage rooms located at front of house.
These rooms are full of various cleaning products, home appliances, building materials, craft project items and other random things, most of which will likely end up in the trash container. There is also quite a bit of shelving in the rooms, which is great for storage at the moment but some of it has been cheaply constructed and is no longer in great shape so much of which will also end up in the trash at some point The rooms also need to have at least 9 months worth of cobwebs and bugs removed along with numerous trays of rat poison since we don’t want Ayla (our dog) to end up eating it. And there is also a lot of dust and other debris which has started to come off the wall where they have used the wrong plaster. Projects, projects lol. - Clean out the courtyard.
Here we have lots of leaves and dirt which have collected over the months. In addition, this will be Ayla’s main play area during the day so we must remove several piles of bird guano which have accumulated under the eaves. Several swallows have built nests (7 nests to be exact) around the barn area so each nest has a rather large guano pile to accompany it. At some point, we will also focus on trimming back bushes and vines that are growing. - Clean out and move workshop to the barn.
There are currently 2 workshops on the properly. One is located next to the main house and we will be knocking out a wall to join the workshop with the rest of the house. There we will locate our kitchen, pantry & laundry room with a walk-through to the other half of the room which will contain a home office. This means everything needs to come out of the main workshop and be moved into the workshop in the barn. We will need to clean out all the junk currently in the barn workshop, throw a lot of things away from the main workshop and then move the tools and all that. - Trim bushes around house and remove weeds from garden.
Since the house has been empty for about 9 months, the garden has taken on a life of it’s own. When we first started looking at the house, there were still raspberries, red currents, strawberries, peaches, tomatoes and various herbs growing in the yard. All of those plants are still there and we plan to keep them but there is a huge mass of weeds growing all over the place now as well and we will also be changing the layout of the garden a bit so we have better access to everything. We plan to plant a wide array of fruits and vegetables for next year and are very much looking forward to getting all that going. - Remove furniture and trash from main house and attic.
This is one of the projects that must be completed by the time our construction crew starts. We’re hoping that will be October 1st but there are not too many things left in the house so we don’t expect to have any problems. There is some furniture in the attic still which we will keep and likely need to refinish but most of the stuff in there is small and it shouldn’t take more than a day to clear it all out. We also need to remove the kitchen in the house since we will be removing the wall behind it and replacing the cabinets and appliances. At some point the wood floors will also be refinished in the main house. - Clean out horse and bird stalls.
Thankfully there is no horse manure in the horse stalls…but there is plenty of bird waste which is still not so pleasant. We have 4 rather large areas which used to house birds and all of these need to have the waste removed and then be pressure washed and sanitized before we can do much of anything with them. One small bird area will be kept for novelty factor…and perhaps we’ll even get crazy enough to keep some chickens some day. All other areas will become functional rooms of the house for storage and so on.
As I look at this list again, I think that it doesn’t seem that overwhelming…but I know that when we get in there and start working, it’s going to be a whole ‘nother ball game. These are really the more pressing projects but once these are out of the way there will be quite a few more that come along.
Once we have full possession of the house, we will also be building out the attic of the main house which is around 500 square feet and likely use it as a master bedroom. And, as I mentioned before, we wi
ll be knocking out the wall in the kitchen & dining room to extend the kitchen into the former workshop which will add around 500 square feet. We will also add a second bathroom upstairs in a small bathroom and install all new appliances in the current bathroom along with refinishing the wall tile. We will attempt to do all the renovation to the current bathroom ourselves. The other projects we will be using a construction crew for.
So that’s a general overview of what we’re going to be doing around here. We’re looking forward to getting started and hope to have some good insights to share or at the very least a few amusing stories. 😉
