The Somerset Farmhouse

  Since childhood, cats were my favorite animal to pet and love on.  I always wanted one - but little did I realize how many would end up under my care: a grand total of 15! Credit goes to my first cat, Koshka , who appeared near the garage on a winter's night in my hometown.  She was cold, thin, and hungry, and meowing a lot for food.  At first, we had her set up in the garage with food and a warm place to sleep.  But, as fate would have it, she became a house cat.  Unfortunately, her life was tragically cut short several years later - Koshka had an autoimmune disease we knew nothing about until she was dying in front of us.  Her death shattered me.   I knew nothing about cats and what kind of illnesses they can get.  Those sweet faces hide everything until they can't anymore.   This past year's experience with the felines on the farm has been one of both joy and sadness.  I'll start with the happy parts first. Buttersc...

As promised, I am back with another One Year Later post! Last time, I gave you all a brief walkthrough of the renovations that the farmhouse had undergone.  Each room presented its own challenges: carpet, wallpaper, flooring repairs, cracked ceilings , etc.  Every wall needed some spackling and a fresh coat of paint.  But what else needed a fresh revival was the acreage outside ! Out back used to be a kitchen garden that had become overtaken by grass.  Upon our arrival, I thought that flat bit of land was interesting and quickly found out it was indeed used for gardening.  Well, perfect setup to do our own thing, right? That's exactly what we did this year! Not only did we start experimenting growing our own produce, but we also fixed up the outside of the house, as you see snippets of in the collage below.  Sunflowers were planted out front, mom fixed up the exterior of the back porch, and we planted rows of zinnias (with the goal in mind of selling c...

  August 26 marks one year at the Somerset Farmhouse ! We've been going non-stop since settling into what was basically a blank slate of a house.  And a family full of ideas in a new home is bound to produce some incredible results, right? Well, here's a quick snapshot of how we've done:    They say a lot can happen in a year, and boy, did a lot happen this past year! We've renovated all but one room, started planting our own food , and have been raising a litter of kittens alongside our regular cats.   Our first week or so involved tearing up carpets, rugs, and old linoleum: Finding beautiful hardwood floors underneath was like digging up gold! Day after day, we sliced up carpet, took out the linoleum in pieces, and also had fun reading old newspapers as far back as the 1930s . Little by little, from dawn til dusk and sometimes 12am, we worked like crazy putting our personal touches on the house: We removed wallpaper , stripped the floors of old underla...

The final touches! I've been itching to update you all on the progress of my bedroom! What was initially supposed to be done within a few months turned into almost a full year.  The wait was largely due to other things conflicting with ability to get just the ceiling done - and the fact that putting beadboard up took 3 people to accomplish.  The product I had ordered is heavier than the beadboard in the bathroom.  Thus, we had to take some precautions and use our smarts to correctly install it.  So, my dad, sister, and I all tag-teamed.   Here's how that went... Some struggles One of the roadblocks we ran into was a general unevenness of the support beams .  With old houses like this, the measurements aren't always exact - so getting the screws to grab onto something proved a bit troublesome.  Eventually, my dad figured it out, but it took a bit of trial and error and a good deal of searching.   In order to smoothen out the process, Pop...

  Make Hay While the Sun Shines The patriotic holidays are upon us and so is whatever version of summer this is.  This past Memorial Day was unusually cool but warmed up enough during the day to get some outside projects done! One of those escapades involved hunting through the fields gathering rocks.  Yes, gathering rocks, which we have a funny obsession with.  Whether it's rock, stone, or just little pebbles, we are picking them up and using them! Not for nothing, I plan to use them for rain-scaping and installing dry creeks - that is, whenever this rain lets up.  Pennsylvania has become Pennsyl-rain-ia! I'm surprised we haven't had to use a canoe to get everywhere! We take advantage of every good, sunny day we have to get things done, especially outdoors. The Loot For about half the afternoon, mom and I ventured out to the fields to get those rocks! There were all shapes and sizes we found, including some that looked incredibly chiseled.  I figured the o...