Adventures on the Bar W

skidsareforkids · Mar 9, 2016

So about two years ago my wife and I bought a neglected house and ten VERY neglected acres with the goal of turning it into a hobby farm/homestead/the place we're going to die. Right now we're mostly working on the farm/homestead aspect as we're still in our 30's (barely) and aren't ready to start dying yet. Figured I'd use this post to throw a few pictures up and if there was interest I'd update every now and again. If you see a boneheaded moment in these feel free to make suggestions on how to do it better.

Couple of pasture pictures when we moved in:

In progress:

Complete (about 3.5 acres):

How it all got done:

Now this project is on to fencing. As soon as I figure out how I'll get through this rock we live on or come up with the money to pay for fencing I'll let you know.

buckeyefarmer · Mar 9, 2016

Nice view. Going to look forward to the adventure.

skidsareforkids · Mar 10, 2016

Figured I'd show some Before, During, and Afters of the house. When we bought the house we did not consider it livable due to the dust and nastiness of the carpet. We also figured it was a good time to paint. All of this work was done by us on a limited budget. Floors and windows are probably our next big ticket item but that's a few years down the road.

Living room:

Upstairs Landing:

Girls Room:

2 out of 3 of the small helpers:

The house is livable and we are slowly turning it into a home, but it will take a considerable amount more work and money before we're happy with it. We are currently thinking about yellow pine floors (I want to face nail them) upstairs, and mexican tile down stairs. I'm not sure if those two are going to work together or if it will make the house too divided.

weldingisfun · Mar 10, 2016

Good for you. Keep posting pics of your progress. Doesn't look like you need any more help with those two bundles of energy doing the painting. They will be learning valuable life skills.

EddieWalker · Mar 10, 2016

Congratulations on your place. Looks like you have a pretty nice view there!!!!

In my experience, you can pretty much do anything you want on different levels. Tile downstairs and wood upstairs is very common. I always suggest to my clients to stick with the theme of the house, but what's most important is what will make you happy and want to be there.

skidsareforkids · Mar 11, 2016

It's not much of a homestead if we don't have critters so without further ado, the coop:

EddieWalker · Mar 11, 2016

My wife started out with half a dozen chickens when I built her our coop. That doubled quickly. Then it doubled again!!!! Now I have two coops and plans to add on to the bigger one to double it in size. We're getting over 20 eggs a day, which seems to be about right for our needs. We feed our dogs eggs every day.

How long until all that grass is gone?

skidsareforkids · Mar 11, 2016

That coop was built right after we moved in so there hasn't been grass in there in two years:laughing:. We started with 10 chickens and 2 guineas, we've been down as low as 4 chickens (we free range them during the day) and are currently at 20-something. We try to remember to lock them up at night but it's hit or miss.

skidsareforkids · Mar 13, 2016

This weekends projects.

Our High School was on Spring Break this week which meant I had to replace this. I suppose it could have been a mirror but I doubt it. Sorry, couldn't get it to rotate.

I worked on clearing the .5-.75 acres we're planning to use for hogs. Unfortunately I did it after 4 days of rain so now I need to wait for it to dry out a bit and knock the ruts down and overseed it. It was nice of the chickens to come help me though.

SirReal63 · Mar 13, 2016

Excellent work and a beautiful place, just up the road from is. The first pic of this bread is almost identical to the first pic of mine. We opted to have our junipers mulched, which is both a blessing and a curse.