Farmhouse Build Inspiration

Hello and welcome to Home Sweet Farm Home! I’ve started this blog as a way to document our new (old) farmhouse build and keep ideas for our soon-to-be home in one place (see some inspiration photos below).

While many people would love a chance to build their own home, I’ve always preferred the magic and soul of an old house. My husband (the Farmer) and I appreciate history and I always pictured us restoring an old farmhouse one day. I grew up in an old house and timeworn was really all I knew until I went college and started living on my own. I was raised on hand-me-downs, thrift store gifts and repurposing items because money was always tight (and sometimes nonexistent). I guess you could say, my family was hip to old things before restoring, repurposing and vintage was cool.

I also have an interest in and appreciation for family history and everything that comes with it – because that helps shape who I am and how I was raised. So, my ultimate dream was to restore an old farmhouse that had been lived in by generations of one of our families…but that dream didn’t gain much traction since there was no beautiful old family home to take on and restore.

That leaves us to where we are today. Farmer and I will be building our new (old) Farmhouse on our farm and I hope to show you our ideas and progress along the way. We are blessed to have the opportunity to build our (within budget) dream house. And a few years ago, I would have told you that we would have already been in our new house build, but as what always happens, life happened.

Long story, semi-short – the week we were planning on submitting our plans for our new (old) Farmhouse build to the structural engineer, a local farm popped up for sale with a once-in-a-lifetime list price. In less than 24 hours of the property being listed, we had visited with the sellers, called the bank, placed an offer and had our offer accepted. Less than 24 hours! I didn’t even have time to think about what this purchase would do to our dream build. You see, we farm for a living. It’s our bread and butter (in most years), our family heritage and something that we hope to pass down to our daughter and her future sibling.

Our farm is a business and a way of life. So, the investment in this new farm was something that was smart for a future. Building a house is something that offers no financial return and that’s how I justified that 24-hour whirlwind decision.

It wasn’t until we got pregnant three months later that I started to mourn this new (old) Farmhouse that I had built up in my head for years. Even before we were married, and a few years before Pinterest, my husband and I would save pages from magazines and dream about what our home would like on his 5th generation family farm. I had created a life in my head of family gatherings, holidays with our future children and what every day would like on that wrap-around porch.

Let me be the first to tell you that we are so blessed with even having the means to think about purchasing a farm and building a house. This is not a post to complain that I don’t have my dream new (old) Farmhouse. I am merely telling the story of why we aren’t building…just yet.

So that leaves us where we are today – with a large property payment for a farm, a cleaned-up spot on the 5th generation family farm where construction was supposed to happen and a toddler. The Farmer and I have decided that we still want to live on the same land that his family has for so many generations, it will just take a little longer to get there.

We’ve decided to move forward with our house plans and each year we will fund a different part of the build, so hopefully, in a handful of years, we will be living our long-standing dream. Although patience has never been a strong suit for me, this is a goal I can wait to achieve. So sit back, grab some iced tea and get ready to savor the sloooow Farmhouse build.