What I have been working on for the past 4 years...

This is what we have been working on for the past 4 years. These are the BEFORE photos. I am going to be adding photos every couple of days -- since I have a lot. The house was built around 1905. We have found boards labeled with Sears shipping labels, but I don't think that it was a Sears house.


This is a photo of what the house used to look like. Pretty bland. Ugly front porch that had been enclosed somewhere along the way. Front doors that don't open. Old aluminum siding. Overgrown vegetation. And it hadn't been lived in for years by humans (but had been by animals).

A shot of the garage (still looks about the same today). That red building had an unknown purpose. It was pretty gross on the inside. Smelled. Held old bags of dog food and miss-matched office furniture. Needless to say we tore it down and also removed that nasty black walnut tree (they must be the dirtiest tree on earth).



Shot of the front yard looking to the right side. There is a creek down there in the weeds. On the other side is land that used to be a pasture for cows. It is pretty flat, but can stay wet.


This is the view to the left of the house. Quite a steep hill that used to be a pasture for sheep. The hill is pretty overgrown with brambles and scrub trees. I need a DR Brush Mower for cheap!



This is a shot of the backyard behind the house. To the right is the back porch that had no real foundation so it had sunk. We removed that and put on an addition. We also added a deck off of that.
To the left is an old screened in porch (attached to the garage) that was no longer screened in. It was used as a place to store firewood by the previous owner. The squirrels used it as a storehouse for their food. We tore this down. It is now just a cement pad that we plan on tiling with slate. The hot tub currently resides here.


This is the view up the back from the house. There used to be a barn on the right and the red building up there used to house the farm equipment. Now it is just falling down. It will be burnt down sometime in the future.
The area is not as grown over now. I have trimmed it back, but there is still plenty more to do. Behind the building, to the right is another pasture.
Over the hill to the right of the building is a mine of some sort, closed off by a previous owner, and a spring that runs most of the year.


This is the view from the top of the hill to the left of the house. Quite a hike. We plan on building a new log home here in the future....the far off future! We currently own 22 acres. There is another piece for sale at the back of our property that we would like to buy. It would add another 20 acres.


This is the view in the opposite direction on top of the hill.


Ok, one more. This is the view from where the barn used to be. This is the creek and the pasture on the other side. It is not as over-grown now, but I need a bigger tractor to keep all this cut!
The pasture is to be the future place of a dirt bike track. I'm sure the neighbors will love that.



Stay tuned for new photos in the next week. I will take you on a tour of the house before we started work.