Country Charm

I'm sure some people wonder why we are bothering to spend so much time and energy on an old farm house.
Every picture above was taken on our property, we love this place and all we can do here. It is a labor of love and sometimes just about growing up a big family.

Project Warm House - Wood Stove

Our new wood stove has received the nicest compliments from everyone, including being called "angel" and "my hero" I think it likes it here. The dogs are in love...

We chose a the Canyon by Lennox, as it is the biggest model available that we could find. It has all the latest and greatest, double burn, automatic blower control, fire brick and all.
Where it sits now, used to be a huge floor to ceiling patio door and window trio. On the opposite wall where 3 big windows, well two and a hole. They where old and let cold air in like a wind tunnel. We began by removing those.
I don't have as many "in process" pictures as I would like, because we didn't know we would blog about it at that point.

The deck pieces and hot tub are going to be a spa like area, with deck chairs and nice plants, the whole nine yards, it is a household of mostly females after all. But the door and windows are the after picture.

This is what the other side looks like now, we will side both sides when we paint the house...

 On the inside we cut up the floor and laid a tile floor pad and back, we used tiles that people had generously given us, leftover from their projects.

We did a similar wall and tile pad in front of the door on the other side.

We love our new stove, and it has kept us so warm and happy, we plan to put one in on the other side of the house too.

Project Warm House - Chimney

Last winter we found out that the old chimney in our house was built with wood in it, causing a near chimney fire. We used a sledge hammer and put the fire out, but our heating system was now in shambles.

So this year we decided to put in a new wood stove, a free standing one and to tear the chimney down.

Tucker and his friend John had the time of their live tearing the chimney down, for the bigger parts they took a rock bar and slipped it down the holes in the blocks and then hooked the tractor up and had tug of war with the house.

The next step was to insulate and side the end wall. There was a really big hole where the fireplace had been, Tucker built a little shelf  that slipped in as a sort of entertainment center shelf.

When all was said and done it looks so white and shiny, it is making us seriously consider repainting the whole house... "If you give a mouse a cookie".