Grafted Branch Farm

And I've moved!!!! It's times like these that show me just how much support we have. 30 people. That's how many came to help us. It's amazing. This is going to be a longish post, with lots of photos, so hang tight!

We live on a dirt road. Our driveway is dirt. So we were praying fervently for hard, dry ground, and God gave it to us! It was in the upper 20s on Moving Day (MD) and I was very thankful. I've helped friends move in Tennessee three different times and I will move in the cold over the heat any time.

It took about three hours to load up the stuff from our old house. We did not get everything from the workshop, garage, or my Granddad's workshop, but we got most of the biggest and heaviest stuff. Packing the moving van did not go as planned, but it went well. We have friends who have moved a LOT so they know how to pack a moving van. The husband was in charge of the van and then we also loaded up most of our friends' vehicles with boxes and little things. It was a constant stream in and out of the house.

When we got to the farm, it was time to eat. I'd say unloading went a little bit quicker than loading, but we also had to put beds together, which were already taken apart before MD. One of our friends had told us to have clean sheets ready and she would make sure all the beds were made so we could sleep in them that first night. Apparently, "letting a child sleep in their own bed is crucial to helping them settle into a new place" or something like that. Even though we are all adults :)

The first week we got a lot unpacked. I have been very motivated because I am tired of living in moving chaos. I don't like tons of mess and disorder (though my room sometimes seems to say otherwise), so unpacking boxes and organizing is sort of therapeutic for me.

Time for some backstory & photos!

We spent five weeks renovating the house. It was five weeks of long, exhausting days. We had a handy man helping us with things but also did a ton of the work ourselves, with my dad and grandpa doing the bulk of the work. We are not great at before-and-after photos, but I have some.

The first photo is the living room/dining room. There was some very ugly flooring down that was also damaged by water so it and its subfloor had to come up. It was HARD. All of these photos were taken February 1st and what you can't see in the photo is the thousand or so staples we had to pound into the floor. The other rooms had carpet over the tile so they were slightly easier to remove.

Photo one is my room as close to the beginning as you're going to get :) And you know I've taken photos of the gorgeous light!!! Winter is definitely going to be my favorite season out here I think.

Please excuse the horrible basement lighting. We put this floor in and it was probably the easiest project we did out here. You see the stairs? My brother did all the insanely fancy cutting to fit the flooring around the furnace and stairs. I cannot even believe what he was able to do. I'm still in awe. He did such a good job, that he actually made things too tight and we had to "fix" it. If you ever come over, I may have to show you around the stairs so you can marvel at his skill. We'll get to what else he did later :)

We have two exercise areas since everything won't fit in one space. We currently can't use either since they are full of boxes and moving things, but we'll get getting it cleaned back up soon. All the exercise stuff went much earlier.

This is our basement storage area many weeks ago. We installed the ceiling and lights (it is so much better down there now) and since this photo was taken, we've added a BUNCH more shelves and filled them with boxes. We have managed to fit all our storage by some miracle (and the shelf building talents of the male members of my family).

A friend came to paint the house and she put up streamers on my bedroom door for my birthday :) The second photo is my room freshly painted and then you have the bathroom with a new tub/shower. It's amazing how much better that bathroom looked with the shower area fixed up.

After the painting, the subfloor went down and the flooring started getting installed. It was not the easiest flooring every but also not terribly hard either. My mom and I did a lot of the flooring. Each new thing that got done made the house look so much better!

Finished flooring (second photo is my room). New ceiling fans were put in the kitchen and the bedrooms. We took out a bit of furniture before MD and it helped give a glimpse of what it would look like as an actual home. Here are a few photos of what it looks like today.

Things are still being unpacked. My mom and I went to At Home and got a bunch of things for storage. There are no decorations on the walls as we wait to decide what and where we want things. And before I forget, my two favorite things in my room are my Dutch door and my rug!!! My brother made my door dreams come true by making me the Dutch door. Again, I am in awe of him. I told him I'd make him the blueberry cranberry muffins he's asked me about for years as a thank you :) My rug is thick and fluffy and I love it!

Thank you for coming along. I'm sure I'll be posting more about our updates as things progress.

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