The farm in town

[ff4500]

I grew up in the city, but my family had a shop in the country with horses. I've never lived anywhere isolated or rural in my entire life. When my wife's aunt passed away a few years back, she said that she would never move back to her hometown unless it was to live in this house. That kinda sealed the deal, as it was offered up to us by her parents, so they could keep it in the family. This is a two-story house with three bedrooms, built in 1827. Did I mention that it has 9 arces, IN town? Yeah, we have a fire station across the street too.

It definitely needed a lot of work, and we've spend the last two years working on the house and briefly outside when we've had time. Living three hours away and working on a house weekends is tough work, especially with us both having full time jobs and two kids. We took the plunge and moved up here officially in August and have been working on stuff ever since.

That's fine and dandy, you say. But this is GJ, where is the damn garage?

Fortunately, there's a four car (cinder block) garage that I've been working on cleaning out, setting up, and refurbing for awhile. Figured that I'd post up some of the recent work, as they just finished putting in new gravel yesterday.

What it looked like before (with giant muddy ruts in the grass from my truck!)

Starting on shaping with a backhoe:

Gravel going down:

Backhoe knocked down the power to the grainery (Wife's uncle is an electrician and went ahead and threw some conduit from his truck into a trench we had the backhoe driver dig up real quick so we're ready to run it underground at a later date)

Gravel down!

And to show the space that we're dealing with here:

More as I have it. Busy trying to get one of my cars back in a drivable state for SCCA spring events.

 

[KULIWOBBY]

Welcome. This is a pretty cool place to have. And it's in town-awesome. The place is starting to take shape and it will take time to do that. The drive getting done is a good start. Thanks for sharing and post pics as you go.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Living three hours away and working on a house weekends is tough work, ...

Are you commuting or is this just a "weekend" house thta you might some day move to ?

 

[ff4500]

Are you commuting or is this just a "weekend" house thta you might some day move to ?

No, we moved up here in August. It's still quite a work in progress.

 

[theoldwizard1]

No, we moved up here in August. It's still quite a work in progress.

and you commute 3 hours each way every day ?

 

[ssentt]

So what you have there is a farm homestead that the city grew around? Was there more acreage at one time? Whats the small building to the left of the corn crib? Any plans for the silo? We have one close by that gets watered down in the winter and turned into a big popsicle and people pay to ice climb it. I think what your doing is great and something to be proud of. Saving some family history and restoring it is a noble and humbling experience at the least. Good luck and keep up the good work. One more question...is the house foundation big chunks of limestone or boulders cemented together? Keep the pictures coming.

 

[temoore55]

Looks like my dream place. Especially flying a Blackhawk's flag. Looking forward to your progress updates. GO HAWKS!

 

[ff4500]

and you commute 3 hours each way every day ?

Hah, no. I work at home, so no commute for me at all. We just had our second kid in October, so the wife is taking some time off.

We still have our house in Indianapolis, but are in the process of selling it now. We should hopefully close in the next few weeks.

 

[ff4500]

So what you have there is a farm homestead that the city grew around? Was there more acreage at one time? Whats the small building to the left of the corn crib? Any plans for the silo? We have one close by that gets watered down in the winter and turned into a big popsicle and people pay to ice climb it. I think what your doing is great and something to be proud of. Saving some family history and restoring it is a noble and humbling experience at the least. Good luck and keep up the good work. One more question...is the house foundation big chunks of limestone or boulders cemented together? Keep the pictures coming.

It started out as a lot bigger. Land was sold off over time for the neighborhoods surrounding. The plot directly behind the house is where my wife's cousin built a house.

We have a greenhouse, chicken coop, old storage building (will be torn down and rebuilt this summer), a grainery, a corn crib, the garage, silo and the barn (with hay loft and the side was setup at one time for milking). No plans for the barn/silo as of yet, as it will take some serious $$$ to get the thing back in working order. Focus is on the garage and one of the buildings this year.

House is giant chunks of limestone, at least for the original part. It's been added onto at least four times over the years. We had it completely rewired last year and upgraded service, so there's less of a headache with power down the line. We'll eventually trench out networking and 220 to the garage with the renovation as well.

And yes, keeping it in the family was definitely a priority. This house has too much history to let it go. My FIL's dad grew up in this house, and so will our kids.

 

[Sunbimmer]

Fantastic place sir, that gravel made quite the difference
Wish I had a place like that

 

[bacpacker]

Great lookin place.

 

[Deezler]

That's awesome. Great job on the driveway re-furbishing. What grade of rock did you put down on top?

So you moved _from_ Indy to "up" there. What town is the new place in?

 

[ishiboo]

How many tons of gravel did you use?

 

[Sureshot]

Very nice. That will be a place to grow some more serious roots.

 

[ff4500]

That's awesome. Great job on the driveway re-furbishing. What grade of rock did you put down on top?

So you moved _from_ Indy to "up" there. What town is the new place in?

Pretty sure that it's Grade 8 (crushed limestone). It should pack down pretty well once we get some rain.

Moved from Indy to NW Indiana. La Porte, to be exact.

 

[HankRutherfordHill]

Very nice place!

 

[ed_v]

What a cool property!

Being a former Chicagoan, Im a little familiar with LaPorte.

Ed

 

[MacTexas]

What year was the garage built?

 

[ff4500]

What year was the garage built?

We're not completely sure. We would have to rummage through the paperwork to see (there's paperwork for EVERYTHING). I'd imagine that it was early 30s or somewhere around there, judging by the construction.

I'll have more pictures of the garage at some point.

 

[ff4500]

Dug up some older pics of the garage:

The next job is to clean out all of the old junk to get ready for garage doors. They're an odd sized opening, so we'll be ripping out the blocks in the middle of the three openings on the right to open them up a little bit to fit a standard sized door.

Once that's done, it's open season on the inside.

 

[Zeke]

If that turns out to be a big task, custom doors are not that much more expensive. I think I paid less than 300 more each. You could weigh the cost of one over the other.

 

[ff4500]

If that turns out to be a big task, custom doors are not that much more expensive. I think I paid less than 300 more each. You could weigh the cost of one over the other.

We want the openings to be wider either way. I have to fold the mirrors in on my truck to get in there now. Plus, the wife's uncle owns a garage door company. I don't think we'll have any issues there.

 

[ff4500]

Anybody familiar with cement board like this?

I have this in the small shop in the corner and will be tearing it out and reframing a bigger area. Didn't know what it was, since it's seemingly quite old. It's broken up in a few places, and trying to salvage it isn't gonna work.

 

[ff4500]

Bye bye concrete block pilars.

 

[quarterstang86]

That's great. Reminds me of the Farm that I grew up on back home. It met the same fate when my great grandparents passed, land depleted into suburban homes, most of it between the barn / buildings is still there and used to some degree but nothing as long ago.

Keep up the work, that's good history you have there to maintain!

 

[ff4500]

Started knocking out the concrete:

Had to dig down for the new support posts:

Waiting on the dumpster to come so we can fill it up at this point, but making solid progress. Should be ready for doors by the end of the week.

 

[ff4500]

Been awhile since I updated, so here's the latest.

Framing for the doors took a few days and we filled another giant dumpster with ****. I even managed to not completely tear up the new gravel with the skidsteer. Almost. The grass is another issue...

Here's the framed up area for the new doors, in progress:

We initially had the last header on the door a little lower, since the concrete tapers down. After looking at it up there, it was annoying both myself and my wife and we decided to make it even with the other ones. I'm really glad that we did. Concrete guys came by and made it right. They had it poured and smoothed out in an afternoon...

And a view from the inside:

Also put two Liftmaster Elite 8550 (Belt driven) openers on the two far doors, since that's where we'll be parking my truck and the wife's car. Those things are quiet! Quietest garage door openers that I've ever seen... They may be a little too fancy for our old beat up garage. We'll see.

Also started painting the inside of the garage walls white. That'll be a slow process, as it's never been painted and I need to patch here and there. More as I make a decent amount of progress.

 

[captain14]

Can you show picture of the fire strafing across the street? Remember it is a garage too with tools. Meets the criteria of the forum.

 

[billscamaros]

That's a great story with the house and property. I don't get jealous of much that I see, but back home into a house with character surrounded by family ..... that's awesome. Plus a four car garage! Best wishes for this time of your life.

 

[ff4500]

When I said that we lived across the street from the fire station, this is how close we're talking...

 

[JustinS]

That is a very nice looking piece of property you have there. What are your plans for the other buildings? (

 

[ff4500]

That is a very nice looking piece of property you have there. What are your plans for the other buildings? (

The garage is this summer's project. We'll eventually be re-roofing it, once I get some of the inside work completed.

We re-roofed the grainery and corncrib last year, so they'll be fine for awhile. We use the corncrib for tractor storage right now. It has a new concrete floor, poured in December that should last for awhile. Grainery will probably remain as storage for chicken food and random other stuff for awhile. We don't have the need to start tearing into that building quite yet. As long as nothing is living in it, we'll be ok waiting.

I do need to do some work on the greenhouse, work on landscaping the backyard, build a small deck/walkway from the house to the garage and do some gutter work on the house.

There's a million things to do that aren't in the garage, so it'll be one thing at a time.

 

[JustinS]

There's a million things to do that aren't in the garage, so it'll be one thing at a time.

I definitely know that feeling. I moved into my house a year ago and it has been non-stop projects in the house. Once I wrap up my front yard landscaping I can finally start on the garage and actually get some stuff organized in there for once!

 

[Dr Dave]

Nice job on the garage doors, will you be replacing the slider also? What size is the garage?

Dave

 

[uniballer]

Being that close to the fire dept. will keep your homeowners insurance down.
And nice place! 9 acres is great to have in the city.

 

[Woogeroo]

Wow, what a place...

-W

 

[Tim338]

Your place is awesome.

 

[ff4500]

It's been really slow going, due to being so busy this summer + work, but here's a tiny garage update:

Painted the front of the building, rebuilt the sliding door, replaced the door/frame on the end for the shop. Still working to clear vegetation from the other sides so I can paint that as well. Need to do some touchup and paint the slider grey, scrape and paint the soffit and re-roof.

 

[Burgin]

Anybody familiar with cement board like this?

I have this in the small shop in the corner and will be tearing it out and reframing a bigger area. Didn't know what it was, since it's seemingly quite old. It's broken up in a few places, and trying to salvage it isn't gonna work.

Assuming that it is old, it could possibly be Asbestos board. Great place by the way!

 

[ihredo4]

Awesome place. Reminds me of some of the farms around here. Subscribed.