Pink Roses

July at the farm...

A few glimpses of the month of July, before it is over!  The sweet "peaches and cream" corn was ready to harvest...

The day after I picked corn, the wild hogs came in and destroyed the field and ate everything that was left:(

My neighbor Janie grows heirloom tomatoes, and invited us to her annual tomato tasting party.  There were so many tomatoes, and the most delicious food, and homemade cakes and pies.  I was able to meet so many lovely folks that live here in our little town. It was a fabulous evening!

Janie also grows blueberries...88 huge bushes full!  We picked berries and took them home and ate them for breakfast the next day.

Lots of flowers are blooming...the one on the right is called "Rose of Sharon".  I didn't know the name, so I posted the picture on Instagram, and several friends identified it for me:)

I had the dirt floor in the big barn leveled out with a backhoe, then had a cement floor poured.  This will be a great usable space for events and parties.

We still need to do a bit of fixing up out here, and run water and power, but that is low on the priority list! Here is my daughter and her puppy setting up for a cookout on the 4th...

There's lots happening with the house too...slowly but surely it is all coming together!

this week at the farm...

Yesterday, before we cut the lawn, I cut some weeds (Queen Anne's Lace) and arranged them in a vintage blue Ball jar...some of the other plants were trimmed back as well...

We did not cut the Passionflower vines...the flowers are food for the bumblebees and the fruit, called Maypop, serves as a host for many butterflies.  Besides, it's so beautiful and exotic...

There are hundreds of watermelons growing in the field...

The corn continues to grow...

I have a new riding lawnmower, and now cutting grass is fun!

A new roof is being put on the house...black metal...it looks SO nice!  The farmhouse originally had a metal roof, but it was replaced with a shingle roof years ago.  The shingle roof was in bad shape and had started to leak, so we decided to go back with the original style of the house, and do a metal roof.

It was ONE YEAR ago that I purchased this farm.  So many things have been accomplished and completed, and there is still more to do.  I guess there will always be SOMETHING to do, but the big projects are winding down.  Of course my biggest project, the kitchen, hasn't even begun!  Oh well, maybe next year for that...

phone photos...

It's been a month since I've posted, and summer is in full swing.  We had a family gathering at the farm when my parents were in town for Memorial Day, I took a trip to see my son in Louisiana, and spent a weekend in Kansas with some crafty girlfriends.  I'm having a new roof put on the farmhouse starting tomorrow, and that's about all the excitement around here:)  Here are a few photos from my phone, pardon the quality... my corn is growing...

My neighbors "pick -your-own" strawberry patch was amazing! I got 15 pounds one day! She also had homemade strawberry ice cream, jam, and honey:)

I had a wicked bloody mary in Baton Rouge with my son...with BACON!

My Peonies were gorgeous, and now they are gone...

but they have been replaced with Hydrangeas...

and the pesky briars along my front fence that I almost cut down and sprayed with Roundup, turned out to be wild Pink Roses!

and there have been birds nests everywhere, and lots of baby birds...

and calves...

and wild plums...

and hay...

and I finally painted that old settee in chalk paint, and reupholstered it in PINK!

Thank goodness for a phone with a camera!  How else would I capture the everyday moments of life?

curb appeal...

After months of working on the house, it was time to do a little work on the yard.  This old house needed some serious curb appeal.  Here it is at the end of last June when I bought it:

Cutting the lawn was a huge improvement!...

There were MONTHS of rebuilding the huge wrap around porch.  Everything needed to be jacked up and rebuilt.  All 16 columns were rebuilt with custom millwork to match the original columns.

A landscaping crew came in and removed all of the old plantings...

and I scraped grey paint off of the brick foundation...

Plants were installed, some with a crane, because they were so large.  Everything planted in the front of the house is evergreen, so it will look nice all year long.  Plants that lose their foliage (all my roses and perennials) are in the back.

The porch ceiling was painted blue...

before and after...

Now that Spring has arrived, and things are starting to bloom...

The house is looking better and better.  Now when I drive in the driveway, it feels like "home", not just a project.

 

spring...

This is my first Spring here at the farm, as I purchased it at the end of June last year.  I am still in the discovery stage of all the plants and trees and wildlife here, and am constantly amazed with something new.  I am also a bit overwhelmed with how FAST everything is growing!  It seems as if one day the ground was sleeping, and the next day it is running wild!  The good news is, that everything  I have planted is growing very well.

I've planted roses in several locations, hydrangeas, peonies, azaleas and dozens of perennials. Color and placement were a huge consideration...pinks, purples and white against the grey weathered siding of the barn, giant yellow sunflowers against the rusty metal siding of another barn (the one shown above). My neighbor Frank has plowed 6 or 7 acres in the far pasture and is planting corn, watermelons and cantaloupe.  He has also plowed me an area to grow heirloom pumpkins and gourds. I'm letting him grow on this spot of my land (and I get all the corn and melons I want), and he does mowing and tractor work for me.  Bartering land for services, and we both are happy.

Frank is becoming a good friend, he's a wealth of knowledge about all things farming, and has been a huge help to me.  Although he did kill a 40" snake one morning, and left it for me to find and scare me...

Thank goodness my carpenters found it before I did...although they also saved it, but only to show me, not scare me.  My son told me it was a corn snake and non-poisonous, but it was still a SNAKE, so no thank you.

This past winter we had a huge ice storm, and several large trees fell into my lake, pulling away part of the dam with their root system.  Frank, and a friend of his, came over with their tractors and cleared and removed all of the trees along the lake side of the dam,  and reinforced the dam.  I called him a lifesaver, he said he was just being a good neighbor. A good neighbor indeed!

In other news, the beadboard ceiling on the porch has all been repaired/replaced...

and is finally being painted blue!

 

Inside, I have removed all of the dining room wallpaper, and the walls are being replastered and prepared for painting.

The to-do list around here never seems to get any shorter...one thing gets crossed off and three more get added, but I'm having fun and enjoying the process! 

back in the day...

This is an undated photo of my farm from many years ago, with it's many barns and outbuildings.  Some of the structures are still there, but many were destroyed in 1989 when Hurricane Hugo passed through town. Some of the remaining features include:

 

Here is a photo dated 1973 showing some of the buildings at the top of the driveway.  These buildings included a blacksmith shop, and a smokehouse.  All of these were destroyed in the Hurricane. 

I am grateful to have this glimpse into the history of the farm through these photos, generously given to me by the previous owner of this property.

same barn, different month...

I am documenting the seasons on the farm by taking photos of the same things every month. This is a series of photos of my big barn, taken on the first day of each month, from the same bedroom window. 

February 1, 2014:

 

March 1, 2014:

April 1, 2014

May 1, 2014

I will post another series in a few months.

patchwork powder room...

Once upon a time, there was a quirky little unused space under the staircase at the farm.

This spot had held nothing but an old piano for decades. (the piano came with the house, so I still have it)

As I spent months stripping off the layers of wallpaper in the entryway, I considered the best use for the space.  I wanted to build a powder room, but there wasn't enough room.

Then one day, while doing repairs in the kitchen, we had the great idea to move the doorway a few feet to the right, and create a space large enough for a tiny powder room.  It was an exciting moment!

(repairing the plaster walls, and painting over the green paint is also pretty exciting!)

 

I had a really clear vision on how I wanted to decorate the powder room.  YEARS ago, Pam Garrison decorated the back of her craft closet with a patchwork of vintage papers, and I was so inspired. I have always wanted to do that, somewhere, somehow.  I have dozens of rolls of vintage papers, collected over the years for art projects, and the farm was a "worthy" place to use my precious hoard.  I started rolling the papers out in the dining room and weighing them down with scraps of wood to flatten them out. I hung the  papers fairly randomly, but did consider the colors and pattern, and tried to come up with a visually pleasing design.

I decided to hang the paper with the seams showing, so that you could read the borders.  I really like it that way. I had the old wood floors refinished in the powder room before I started hanging the paper, and I did all the paper before the plumbers came in.  It was much easier to work without a sink and toilet in the way.

These old papers are very difficult to work with, and are not prepasted.  My favorite paper was so old and fragile, that it ripped in half.  I just hung it up anyway!

This room is tiny, but it took me WEEKS to complete.  I think I obsessed too much.  Also, everyone that saw it, hated it.  That sort of shook my confidence.  I'm glad I kept going!:)

My electrician rewired and hung an old metal tole floral chandelier that I painted white.  My plumber installed a petite pedestal sink, and a round toilet, to save every inch of space we could.

The carpentry work is being completed this week...baseboards, door and trim.  We are re-using an old door that was originally in a back room of the house...it is a bit short, and has 6 panels, so it is perfect for this space. (I painted it PINK!) We built a shelf/ledge behind the toilet, and I will use that to store extra toilet paper and supplies, in some sort of decorative container.

I absolutely LOVE the way this room turned out, and it's going to be so helpful to have a bathroom on the first floor of the house! I will post photos when it is all completed!!

bittersweet...

It is with great sadness, that I am taking down this gorgeous, original, dining room wallpaper.  I absolutely fell in love with this paper the moment I saw it...pink flowers, birds, butterflies..all in the most beautiful colors. This is the first photo I ever took of the dining room...the floral paper was covered in another wallpaper, a gold geometric pattern, but you can see a bit of the floral peeking out from underneath to the left side of the fireplace.

One of my first projects was stripping off the gold wallpaper to expose the lovely floral wallpaper.  I had hoped the floral would have been in better shape.

 

Unfortunately, through the years, the plaster walls have cracked and crumbled, there are many water stains from a leaky roof, and the paper is beyond repair. (You can see the living room across the hall with it's original wallpaper before I removed it)

 

I decided that this would be the LAST paper I removed, and I have enjoyed the faded beauty for the past 9 months. We opened up the fireplace, and my stone masons were able to seal, repair, and stucco over the old brick, making it look a lot cleaner. 

I may put tile around it, or paint it...not sure yet.

There are a few "good" areas of the wallpaper without stains or cracks, and I am removing them ever so carefully.

 

I will frame a section of this paper and hang it in this room, to cherish and remember.

So this is where I will be for the next few weeks...stripping off the faded past, and preparing this room for a shiny future!

good morning neighbor...

 

this never gets old...