As you might have concluded from the above picture, the farmhouse is no more. We made the difficult, but responsible, decision to tear it down and start from scratch. It became obvious that the core of the house was just in too poor of shape to justify spending the money to try and save it. The foundation repair bill alone would have covered the cost of a new foundation for both the house and garage, along with much of the framing. So we decided to salvage as many materials as possible and wipe the slate clean.

The new house will look remarkably like the old one, both inside and out. It will also sit on the same site. Construction should go a lot more quickly due to not having to tip-toe around the existing structure.

It was  more difficult to bring down the house than I anticipated. Fortunately the new tractor was a huge help. The pallet forks really made a difference too. I took off the bucket on day one, and only returned it once the house was pretty much completely down. The free pallets I got in Shelbyville have also been great. I loaded them up with shingles, block, and limestone from both the foundation and chimney. I got a 30 yard dumpster and loading it with the tractor has been a breeze. The limestone is really pretty, and we have some nice blocks of it. I’m not sure what we will do with it though. Maybe a cool outdoor fireplace.

The new house will not be very flashy, just another simple farmhouse. That is to help keep the construction costs down and lower the ongoing maintenance expenses. It will still have three bedrooms and 2.5 baths, along with an additional bed and bath in the garage apartment. The main changes from the previous plan are a little more space in the living and dining rooms, an eight by eight foot office for me, and a little different location for the door between the kitchen and garage.

The county has been great on changing the permit, and the bank was very accommodating as well for this change.

Unfortunately now we are dealing with tons of rain. It stopped a couple of days ago, but the ground is still super saturated. Flooding all over Middle Tennessee. It doesn’t feel like it will dry out until August! I have just a little more of the old patio’s concrete slab to remove along with some block. Then I will grade the house site lightly and we should be ready for the foundation crew. Hopefully they can dig this coming week.

It will be a huge relief once we really get going full speed ahead. There have been a lot of delays and changes on this project, but I really feel like each evolution has improved the final result. Next week is the start of daylight savings time, so it will be great to have an extra hour of light in the evenings. It looks like the next couple of weeks will be pretty warm. February was mild, hitting 80 one day with plenty of others in the 70’s. It’s hard to believe that winter might be over, but that could well be the case. I guess that means no snow camping this year. Oh well.

I’ll try to post some pictures soon of all the mess I’ve made around the farm. Of course I’ll also post some of the foundation as soon as it’s in place.