2 Year Anniversary at Century Farms

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Milestones. Have you reached some in your life that you’d like to tell me about? This is one of ours.

Wow. It’s been two whole entire years since we started renovating Century Farms. We didn’t move in immediately, because there was a lot of work to be done. Hey– there’s STILL a lot of work to be done!

But looking back…. wow– I wish I were younger when we started this years long project. For several reasons– I wouldn’t be as tired and could get more done in a shorter amount of time. But maybe as nearing-middle-age renovaters we’ve had a little wisdom to make up for those things? I hope so!

Looking back over the past two years, it’s good to see that our goal of providing a more growing type environment for our kids has been successful. That alone has been worth our efforts. But there have been many more good things that have happened since we moved here—

• Lower Cash Flow — that’s a good thing? Yes!!! It’s not good in my opinion, to have too much financial freedom where children don’t appreciate things because they have too much.
• More Appreciation. See above. My kids– even my husband– they appreciate the simple things of life more now– things like Ceilings!! And finished rooms….
• Lyme’s Diagnosis– yes, another good thing. Because of moving here, a new neighbor recommended a doctor that was able to properly diagnose (and begin to treat) the cause of my daughter’s 5 illnesses in a little over a year.
• Nice Neighbors– see above. Guess what– something that happened a little past our 2 year anniversary— we finally cut down and burned the mostly dead tree out on the edge of our field. And a few days later a surveyor showed me that— that was not OUR TREEEE!!!! Oh no!! I hadn’t yet met the owner of the field on that side of our property…. so I hunted them down and took banana bread to apologize– and was forgiven instantly– no problem. Imagine where you live, if you accidentally burned down your neighbor’s tree on purpose– how would they respond to you?! And there’s another tree in the corner that isn’t ours either…. oh my. I do not plan to burn that one….
• Lots of Finished Projects. We certainly haven’t been lounging around the past 2 years. Well, we have taken time to rest and have friends over. But there is a measure of rewarding enjoyment to look around at the things God has allowed you to accomplish and makeover new again.

Well, I could probably go on and on about how I enjoy living and working here, and sharing it all with you. That is part of the fun for sure.

As you will see in the Video Update, I found a list we had made of what needs finished around here. I also watched last year’s video, to see the progress from a year ago. It’s interesting that I had said I hoped we would have the downstairs bathroom finished in the next year– we met that goal– but just barely!

This Past Month

In the near future I want to make a longer video to put together what the rooms looked like when we started 2 years ago, and do a time lapse to what they look like now. For now, let me show you what happened this past month.

I really want to improve my garden soil so that my plants will grow better and I’ll have better harvests. So I found someone giving away used goat straw and spread it around part of the garden. That’s my favorite way to improve my soil! Then through a conversation and a couple of phone calls, I found that a borough nearby (Pennsylvania has boroughs and townships….) was willing to give me a truckload of leaves! And the truck was small enough that I could open a fence section and they could drop the leaves right in my garden. Then I spent some time spreading the leaves out. I’m thinking about adding some wood tree trimmings that have been cut into mulch as well— I might do that to part of the garden and see how I like it.

A neighbor gave me a gorgeous white Ikea entertainment center that I repurposed into cabinets for my mud room. We had a large black cubbie unit in here before. What I want is floor to ceiling cabinets with doors, and this is Phase 1. I spent a lot of time moving that unit into my porch shed and reorganizing the entire mud room contents.

The love seat in the mud room is there so we can sit to change our shoes. It also happens to have a pull out twin bed. Our son can sleep on it when we have guests that need to use his room. My neighbor also gave me the Ikea cabinet at the foot of the bed!

After 5 long weeks of working on our first floor bathroom, we finished it just in time for our 2 year anniversary! I’ll be posting the details about that in a future post.

We are really pleased with how it turned out!

Another thing that happened this month– we escaped having another kitchen fire…. Someone was washing dishes and stacked the dirty ones where they leaned and bumped the stove knob. Thankfully someone else was paying attention when they smelled something…. I’ll leave it up to you to ponder which someone was which!

And…..I accidentally found an Ikea couch on Craigslist that I’ve been wanting for maybe 10 years. You can see in the video why I like it. Here it is pictured with my old rug because….

After that I got a new rug!!! It is a washable rug from WALMART! Did you even know that Walmart sold washable area rugs?! I didn’t. I ordered a 9×12 and put it over my old rug. It vacuums just fine. I think I’ll have to take it to a laundry mat to wash it though. It’s soft and a little bit stretchy. I’ll give more details on it later, but for now you can see it here if you want.

So much happened in just a month!! I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing these updates.

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