Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Country Living

So it's official, we're in the country. It's amazing. Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. Big creek in our backyard. There are big, big trees with ancient trunks so wide that we could hollow one out and make our own replica of the Pit of Despair inside. The view is breath-taking. It's why we bought the property.

The house is a simple cape cod. The kitchen is tiny, smaller than the kitchen John had in his Arlington apartment. It's also dirty. The entire house is dirty. I'm not sure what happened here but there is a bedroom upstairs that appears to have soot on the ceiling, which is very odd since there isn't a fireplace anywhere near there. And the carpets are discolored. The vinyl floor in the main bathroom is peeling up. The hardwood flooring has been worn down to the bare wood which is scratched and stained. The roof, HVAC, and water heater are all original to the house and the house is more than 20 years old. There seems to be dry rot setting into some of the wood on the porch and around some of the windows. Honestly, the house hasn't been kept up.

We love the area. We love the property. The house has a lot of potential too. We plan to redo the kitchen first, make it amazing and huge. The rest of the things will come later. I have a Honey Do list a mile long and I think many of the things on it will turn into Mommy Dos. The nice thing is that we can take it a little at a time since we plan to stay until we die.

As we add and change things to the house, we also plan to add other things like chickens, cows, and horses. The chickens will come first. Not sure where we will keep them but we'll figure it out as we go. We're also hoping to add a lot of fruit trees and a huge garden. You should know, though, that I'm not a gardener. Gardening has always been my mom's thing. I'll be a person with a garden not a gardener. Can't call myself a farmer either. Seems a little snotty for a former city girl, most recently a suburbanite to fancy herself a farmer just because she's got some land. Maybe in time.

So for now, I'll just be a person with a garden and some amazing land and a house that needs work.