The Lower Cow Path

[Stellaontap]

Hello everyone, I have been lurking on garage journal for a while now and thought I would start a house and shop build thread. My wife and I bought this place a year ago. It’s 3.2 acres and was only about 5 minutes away from where we were currently living so we jumped on it right away. Here are a couple of pictures.

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[oldironfarmer]

Wow! Beautiful place!!

That's quite a barn, beautiful old house. Garage looks kind of small, though.

You said house and shop build thread. Hopefully you mean house remodel

Do you have plans for the greenhouses?

Welcome!!

 

[James-W]

Welcome to the forum. When you start the projects, be sure to post pictures.

Also, when you have a minute, it helps if you put your location under your login name. Sometimes the answer to a question can be influenced by where you are located.

 

[Stellaontap]

Thanks old iron farmer. Since we bought the place we sold our house and moved into the old farmhouse while we built a new house on the property. The house is done and we just had our first Christmas here. We also put new steel on the shop and new roll up door. That garage in the picture is only a shed. The greenhouses will be modified in some way.


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[Stellaontap]

Here are a couple of pics on how the place looks today.....with the new steel on the shop and the completed house.



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[Stellaontap]

Well, it seems fitting that with the outside of the shop completed and the house built in 2017 that I should make a few goals for 2018.

Late in the fall we planted grass seed but almost immediately the weather changed and warm, sunny days disappeared....I did see a few tiny blades of grass before the snow though. I hope it still comes up in the spring.

Landscaping is going to be a priority in 2018... the place is a little bare.

I also want to work on the inside of the shop and have it done before Christmas 2018. Here are a couple of pics of the shop when we took possession of the place in November 2016.

Well, Happy New Year everyone
Eric

 

[Stellaontap]

A ****.....guess the pictures didn’t work. Sorry, back to the drawing board

Eric

 

[turbowoodworker]

Cool place. Welcome to GJ and thanks for posting.

 

[Stellaontap]

Thanks Turbowoodworker, wish I could get my pictures to load.

 

[Stellaontap]

Shop pics



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[drivesitfar]

Stella: i love your farm or country home and very curious what you are going to do with the greenhouses.

also i'm buying STELLA beer usually when I buy some so looks like we might agree on a few other things.

great looking place and i use the paperclip method of downloading pictures directly to GJ that show up as thumbnails so if the member wants to see them full size all they have to do is click twice like the picture i'm posting.

looking forward to lots more pictures and information when you have time to post them and WELCOME TO GJ!!

 

[Stellaontap]

Thanks drivesitfar.

This used to be a tobacco farm, thus the 2 greenhouses. The poly carbonate on both is getting quite deteriorated and I am forever picking pieces out of the field. I have taken the poly carbonate off the round greenhouse and we grew a garden in it last summer. The other greenhouse I want to clad with new steel and rent it out for storage but do not know when that will happen.


My shop is where the tobacco was stripped from the sticks after it was removed from the kiln. It was graded and baled there, that is why there is a weigh scale in the building. That room was called the “strip room”
In order to handle the cured tobacco without crushing it they would raise the humidity of the room so the tobacco would absorb moisture overnight before grading. Because of this I will be replacing the wall cladding and the ceiling because of water damage.
I really like Stella Artois too.....I usually get it when we go out for dinner.

Eric


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[jblnut]

Wow Wow Wow what a place. Too bad the greenhouses are in tough shape. I would grow veggies year round if I could !! It looks like a decent sized place, did you get any acreage with the place or is it just the building site ??

 

[MacTexas]

Tobacco farm reminded me of this family photo. The farm is in Kentucky. I'll bet they didn't use horses on your farm.

Nice looking house and garage by the way.

1943-1947 Just Family f030 by mactexas, on Flickr

 

[drivesitfar]

Stella: there are maybe thousands of threads here on GJ where members have made huge garages and storage for their cool cars and stuff, but i rarely see GREENHOUSES.

i'm like JBL and would love to see you grow your own food in them if you are able to keep them as greenhouses.

also i love the PATINA and look of your old garage, but if it's structural issues that you need to fix i understand. with all the cold weather you get in winter i bet insulation and new walls and heat might be your priority.

great looking place for 3.5 acres and it looks like there are 100's of acres around you so guessing the rest of the old tobacco farm's land was kept or sold off to others.

great looking place and please post pictures as you have more time to.

BTW what are the dimensions of your GREENHOUSES??

thanks for sharing!!

 

[drivesitfar]

STELLA: i know it would be a lot of work setting up those GREENHOUSES to produce good food and wondering if you might have friends or neighbors that might want to maybe take over that job and give you a percentage of the food they grow?

anyway I'm a big fan of STORAGE if you might have seen some of the ORGANIZING THREADS and METAL AND WOOD CABINET THREADS i have started in Vintage tools section, but i'm also a fan of GOOD FOOD and if i had a choice i know HEALTHY FOOD would be on top (maybe not by much though).

cheers

 

[theoldwizard1]

Stella - Much of the vegetables that we get in winter are grown in hot houses not far from where you live. I never understood how the could afford to heat those places in winter.

Any ideas how they could do that economically ?

 

[Farmall450]

Nice looking place OP. I look forward to seeing your shop progress.

 

[hemifalcon]

I’m curious about whether those greenhouses have dirt or concrete floors?? I have always thought how cool it’d be to have a giant greenhouse as a work space due to all of the light available. Also—is the framework able to support a heavy steel roof? Either way—don’t short yourself on the storage ability those buildings provide or practical use as greenhouses. You’ve got a very nice piece of heaven there!


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[sean Buick 76]

Awesome place!!! Please post more pics of the house, it looks super cool! Pics of inside the house too??

 

[lakeroadster]

Neat place. Did you tear down the previous home?

 

[Stellaontap]

Thanks for your interest guys and Happy New Year to all.

jlbnut, the property is 3.2 acres and is surrounded by farm fields and some wooded area.

MacTexas, thanks for the kind words. The shop is the reason we bought the property. This farm did use horses also because in one of the barns that we had demolished I found 2 yokes for horses. That is a great picture of the old tobacco farm in Kentucky, thanks for posting it.

Drivesitfar. My wife and I love gardening and when we moved here in May we planted a pilot program vegetable garden in the round greenhouse. We only used about 30 feet of it and it produced an abundance of beans, carrots, radishes, beets, tomatoes, onions, kale, cabbage, jalapeños and hot chillies. My wife pickled, froze and made hot sauce out of the crop.

Theoldwizard. I do not know how they heat the greenhouse....I assume gas. They grow a lot of vegetables in a greenhouse so that probably makes it viable.

Farmall450. Thanks....and I will post pics as I go but it will probably be a slow process.

Hemifalcon. The greenhouses have dirt in them. The polycarbonate is in bad shape so it will have to be removed. That is why I am considering to redo it with steel. I will post a pic of the framework of the greenhouse, I think it will be strong enough. The guy that put the new steel on the shop is pricing the greenhouse for me....he is also an engineer so he will let me know for sure.

Sean Buick. I will put some more pics of the house on...I am assuming you mean the new one.

Lakeroadster. After we had our new house built and the occupancy permit in hand the municipality where we live required the demolition of the old house within 60 days. We had to sign an agreement with the municipality and put up a bond before we got our building permit.

Thank you all for the great threads that you have created, they are always an inspiration and a wealth of information.

Eric

 

[Stellaontap]

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks since I have posted any progress but I have been busy. I started the demo of the inside of the shop and I am glad that I am taking everything down to the framing. The ceiling insulation is in horrible shape, lot of damage from rodents, so I am glad to be rid of it and starting new. I am about 2/3 done this job, then a good cleanup and inspection for any repairs before I start rebuilding the shop. Please excuse the mess.

Here is a shot of the house and shop from the back corner of our property...lots of landscaping needs to be done but we will be starting that in the spring.

And a shot of just the shop from just outside the master bedroom.

Oh and sorry, going back through I forgot to post the dimensions of the greenhouses. The gable roof greenhouse is 42’ x 150’ and the hoop greenhouse is 27’ x 150 ft.
My wife and I were just talking and I said that I don’t think I will ever say to her that I am bored and there is nothing to do!

Thanks for looking and I will post more progress pics as I go.

Eric


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[drivesitfar]

STELLA: your home and shop look AMAZING from the outside. it's hard to believe the shop/garage looks that old on the inside, but guess all the moisture did take it's toll. nice attitude to get it down to the studs and remove all the lower quality and damaged material and guessing if the critters died in it then the smell might not have been great and should get better too inside your garage.

good luck

 

[Stellaontap]

Thanks Drives.

Luckily there is no odour of dead mice and such in the building, it still has a faint tobacco smell. Luckily I have not encountered many dead or living mice during the demo so far. By the looks of it there was not much insulating value left in the ceiling. My goal is to have a shop that won’t break the bank to heat.

I have been working on a shop layout....I will post a pic of that when I have it completed.

Eric

 

[drivesitfar]

Stella: I'm guessing it might be too cold to work out in your shop or is it? any updates or thoughts to share?

 

[lakeroadster]

I'm loving your place Stellaontap The shop reminds me of my Grandfathers bank barn. Lots of history and character.

Drivesitfar's use of Stella...

Sorry, I can't help myself

 

[Stellaontap]

Sorry all.....haven’t posted in a while. I was having some problems logging in and then we went on holidays and had a horrible internet connection. In the meantime I have a drawing of what my plans are for the shop. I have pretty much finished the framing and am starting on insulation. I will post some pics of my progress soon.

Lakeroadster...thanks. I love the barn too. It is actually one of the main reasons we bought the place.

Eric

 

[drivesitfar]

Stella: are you able to make any progress on your shop while it's so cold outside or are you waiting for summer weather to get it insulated and wired and ready for your stuff?

 

[Stellaontap]

Hi everyone,

Its been too long since my last post but have been very busy the last 6 weeks.....with my day job doing a expansion with new equipment at our plant. Work on the shop has been....well pretty much non existant but with the change in the weather its time to start doing stuff outside. We started on some of the landscaping and had a spade come in and plant some trees. A sugar maple, a embers maple and a scarlet oak....should make for a good show this fall.

Eric

 

[drivesitfar]

Stella: good to have you back!!

that's the way to plant a decent size tree and a lot easier on the back than digging a hole and handling that tree by hand.

keep up the great work and hope to see more posts from you know that the winter freeze maybe is gone til November again.

cheers

 

[sublime68charger]

Very nice place!

Did you demo the old farm house?

 

[Stellaontap]

Sorry about the late replies.
The old house was demo’ .....the municipality wouldnt allow 2 houses on the property. Also, the hoise was in rough shape. Not much progress in the shop but have some more trees transplanted....this time from the front of the house to the back. That will be it for this season because of the water demand of the trees. They were at the maximum height that the contractor could move.

Eric

 

[Stellaontap]

Here are a couple more shots.....taken today.

The front of the house is in desperate need of landscaping....which will be the next big thing. We love landscaping but for this task we will be hiring a landscape designer to give us ideas.

Eric

 

[drivesitfar]

Stella: I can't even imagine what it would cost to have a contractor plant those size trees in our area so well done and looking good.

we've been to nurseries and working on our front yard coming on our 6th year now and it's almost done, but i've only got about 1,000 square feet of front yard.

the back yard is in the process, but looks like more of a storage yard at the moment.

best of luck with your progress and feel free to post up pictures or your thinking as often as you like cause there are many guys and gals here with all sorts of skills that you might be able to tap into. or just post on our threads and ask questions.

cheers

 

[Stellaontap]

Hi All. Have a little time to update the progress here. It’s been a busy summer but made a little progress. The trees are doing well and we did manage to get some grass growing among the weeds. Oh well, it’s a work in progress.

The grass is definitely an improvement from the spring.
We have also got some of the planting done around the house....which also makes a huge difference in the appearance of the house.

Now that we are into fall I just have a few more things to do outside and then focus my energy on the shop for the winter.
Cheers
Eric



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[PugetDude]

Just stumbled onto this thread, insanely jealous of that barn....

 

[drivesitfar]

Stella: welcome back!! while your home looked great before good landscaping really does give it a better street appeal. that said I hope you tax man doesn't drive by and send you a bill.

take care and hope you get time this winter to work a little more on your old garage.

cheers

 

[Stellaontap]

Thanks Pugetdude
Drivesitfar- the property is coming along nicely. We want to spade a few more trees in next year and plant some smaller ones as well. The tax man did indeed come by to re-evaluate the property after the house was built and the old one removed. The taxes are about 4 times more than when it was a 100 acre farm.

Eric


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[drivesitfar]

Stella: well the tax man want's his due I guess is all we can say. it's not fair that people that really improve their property should get to pay higher taxes and the ones that let theirs run down and become an eyesore (especially if they have the funds to repair and make them nicer) get a tax break. in my book it should be exactly opposite.

in any case your property looks amazing. without reading back through your thread don't you own about 5 acres or do you own the entire 100 acres that the old farm house used to own?

any new garage or greenhouse pics?