What kind of things do you have planned for the New Year?

[Cowboyjg]

First of all...Happy New Year everyone!!

What kinds of things have you decided to try and do this year?
The wife and I decided that this year there will be no holding back!....

The single biggest thing we want to accomplish is making the move to TN. I have a few things to finish in the house so we can put it on the market by the end of Jan. We pine for the beautiful country, pleasent folks, change of seasons and the late 1800's Victorian farm house we purchased this past summer. (I pine for my tractor too....)

The Mrs., who has been in the banking/mortgage lending/title business for the last 25 years, has decided it's time to let the very talented right side of her brain provide her with income as well as enjoyment. She has created a line of casual clothes for women and children and we've talked about turning the Victorian into a B & B and Tea Room at some point.

I want to find antique homes to save and establish a TN branch of my company. I also want to put "The Farm" to use for something other than hay and the retreat we have used it for to date. I"m even putting together plans for a small development that will feature homes in the styles of yester-year.

I don't know how much time I have left on this earth, but I can tell you that my one and only resolution is to make the most of it and finally get around to doing some of the things I want to do!

May YOUR new year be filled with all the joy, love, excitement, accomplishment and sense of self worth you can stand.

I'm looking forward to Mine!...................



BTW...if anyone knows of anyone interested in a restored 1920's Bungalow style Craftsman home with all sorts of goodies, on the beautiful gulf coast of Florida, let me know.

 

[Big Dog]

Well...........

The wifes biggy is my sons wedding in October, it's no holds barred with her!

Me........

Continue on the clean up from the timbering and well drilling. Plant and prep the newly cleared 2.5 acres as a result from the drill. Clean and stain the house (log) and lay down some cement for walk ways. If all goes well, start a new garage.

That's the plan around here........

 

[BoneheadNW]

Well...........

The wifes biggy is my sons wedding in October, it's no holds barred with her!

Me........

Continue on the clean up from the timbering and well drilling. Plant and prep the newly cleared 2.5 acres as a result from the drill. Clean and stain the house (log) and lay down some cement for walk ways. If all goes well, start a new garage.

That's the plan around here........

Is your wife going to be "active" in the planning/execution (I use that word cautiously) of the wedding? Also, I would love to see some pics of your 2.5 acre project before you get started.
Thanks Big Guy (I mean Dog)
Bonehead

 

[Big Dog]

Is your wife going to be "active" in the planning/execution (I use that word cautiously) of the wedding? Also, I would love to see some pics of your 2.5 acre project before you get started.
Thanks Big Guy (I mean Dog)
Bonehead

My wife has been much more active than the brides mom. They get along very well. Frankly everything's been taken care of except for little stuff like invitations and table settings.

Part of the well site agreement was for them to do this clearing work at no expense of mine. Here are some pics.............

http://photobucket.com/albums/a24/gmsssi/?multi=1&addtype=

I have raked it and started to dig out for the garage!

Starters..............

 

[Doc]

Wow Cowboy. Big year. Sounds like you been planning & putting everything in place so that your ready for the big move. Good luck with it all.

We did something similar 8 years ago. We moved from the big city environment to the country. And our little slice in the country is right on the river we love to boat on. It took a lot of planning and work, but boy was it ever worth it.

Last year at this time we (really wife and daughter) were planning a July wedding. I mainly had to be sure we kept the money in order to handle all the wedding festivities. My other plan was to start a forum. I owned the forumsforums.com domain name, but had to get all the rest set up. It didn't happen until after the wedding, but hey we're up and running with a tad over two hundred members. Best of all we have an awesome core group of realtime quality posters.

I plan to do everything I can to further the growth of FF. It will take help from everyone one here but I think we can do it. On the home front I have plans for major dozer work to create one full size road and expand on our trail system. I also plan to rent a trac hoe to remove some trees, rootball and all. I also will work on putting gravel on our hilly trails where needed. A slow and grueling processs.

 

[Doc]

Beautiful Pics Greg!!!

 

[DaveNay]

Big plans for us this year too.....

We are finally in the financial position that we are going to be putting up our indoor arena for the horse business. We are planning a 62' x 170' Cover-All building. Inside will be a 60'x 100' arena, as well as 20 stalls for boarders, a tack locker room and a viewing lounge.

The stucture will be put up by contractor, but I will probably do the site leveling and electrical, and definitely all the stall constuction will be me.

I am also just getting started in converting a four car garage into my insulated/heated/AC workshop.

There's some landscaping to be done around the house, but I hate gardening so I will probably find somebody to put in some low maintenance greenery.

We might expand the outdoor riding arena also. It is currently 60'x80' and we would like it to be 150' x 80'

A couple other things too, but now sure yet about them.

The pictures below are what the indoor arena will look like, only longer. This one is 120' long, ours will be 170' long.

 

[Cowboyjg]

Well, so far it sounds like everyone has thier hands full. BTW...Doc I still need to get with you on the site. That will be an important part of my efforts. Some time in the next week I hope....

BD, if you'll save a few lengths of timber for me off to the side somewhere for fire wood, I'll come up and see you first wk or so of March!!

Dave....as the moniker might suggest, I have a love of horses. I would like to pick your brain someday about a whole host of stuff related to our 4 legged friends.

Here is a shot of the Victorian followed by a shot from the farm. they are about 25 minutes from each other.

 

[Doc]

Looks really nice Cowboy. I bet you can't wait!

I'm ready whenever you are to get started on the web site.

 

[BoneheadNW]

Hey you guys, you are making me feel inadequate! I have several projects, some of which I will probably have to have a pro do for me:

1. Fix driveway (I will need a dozer and your advice)
2. Install curtain drain and rock wall (curtain drain is beyond my abilities as it involves working around underground utilities)
3. remove several large stumps (this I can do on my own)
4. Plant several large trees around the house (backhoe time!)

As I mentioned above, I will need some advice from you all. It needs to stop pouring before I can take pictures outside.
Bonehead

 

[bczoom]

For sure
1. Build a bridge across the creek.
2. Build a driveway to my building (starting from currently grass all the way through paving).
3. New roof/skylights on the house. More insulation installed at same time.
4. Finish my basement into living area.

Possible
5. Possibly add on to the house. If so, that and new siding.
6. Change sliding doors on buildings to overhead doors. This sill be 7 doors if I do them all.
7. Close in (insulation, interior walls...) the rest of my main building then heat it.

 

[ddrane2115]

Cowboy, where in TN, We travel there on the weekends that we can get away.

Plan to put up the arbor around the pond. 2 uses, one a place to enjoy the pond fish, second, keep the leaves OUT of the pond so I dont have to replace the water each year. Arbor to have panels of screen wire around it so that when fall comes we can put them up and NO MORE LEAVES in there anyway.

Need the leaf/grass catcher for the BX, but I would get killed mentioning spending that much just to collect leaves.

Other than this it will be school, and working out and working.........

 

[JimR]

First of all...Happy New Year everyone!!

What kinds of things have you decided to try and do this year?
The wife and I decided that this year there will be no holding back!....

Well Cowboy, I'm sure you would love this old place built in the early part of the 18th century. I was told it was one of the oldest houses in Paxton, Ma. built in 1735. The town records were destroyed in a fire many years ago. Town officials claim it was built in 1750. Someday I'll get to the bottom of this and find out when it was really built. The city records at the court house have all this information. It is just a matter of doing all the research.

My main objective is to finish this house rebuild. This will include finishing the roofs, replacing any rotted beams, wood and such that need replacing in the frame structure, gutting the insides, insulation, wiring, converting the steam heat to forced hot water, replastering the whole place, getting a well put in, updating the septic system if needed and taking a long rest afterwards. I really don't think I can finish the house this year. But I sure as hell am going to give it my best shot. Plus I have two older BMW's that I want to paint this summer. Whew, I'm tired just thinking about it all. You can see in the second picture that the trees and bushes are gone. The open wall in the 3rd picture is all finished except for the window which I am making now. I'm now working on the insides of that room and the roof on the attached building to the left of the main house. That may have to wait till spring as I need to do some beam work on the last roof where it goes under the middle section. I'll need to keep it exposed for about a week to get the beams and all the other things done. plus I need to point up the chimney in that roof also. No fun to do in the winter time.

 

[johnday]

You guys have some very nice looking places. That log house of BD's would really fit in nice upnorth.

Well, I gotta finish my retirement house, [1st phase], up north. Then build a barn. Been thinking 30'x40' gambrel roof, with a full 2nd floor. Get my wife her Yamaha Rhino. Getting ready to retire. Company may have some buy outs coming, they want to get rid of us "old" guys, and that's fine with me! Start another new life, with a job doing what I like. And that's a big one, there's a lot of things I'd like to do.

 

[JimR]

The roof in the second picture is the attached section between the main house and workshop/garage All the roof boards rafters had to be replaced. I also need to replace 4 beams in the next roof to the right that go under this roof.

 

[Cowboyjg]

Danny,

The Victorian is in Elizabethton and the farm is located just outside Butler. One day I'll tell y'all bout "The Town that Wouldn't Drown"

We so love it there.

I could go on about stuff relative to there but it would take a whole thread all by it's self.

Here's another shot from the farm. That's my favorite place! The plan was to turn the house into an Antique shop. We would sell produce in season, soft serve ice cream in the summer and fire wood and pumpkins in the fall.

 

[JimR]

Great view around your farm Cowboy

 

[Cowboyjg]

Jim,

You sure have a project there. The house we live in now was built in the 20's. It was built during the first building boom here in Sarasota. When we bought the house our oldest son asked why we bought that "Ghetto House"..?

The foundation, made of individual piers of red brick on Marl pads had settled over time and needed to be rebuilt. At the time the front door faced the side yard. The house was not large enough for the family and because I had to lift the house to rebuild the foundation, it only made sense to turn it 90 degrees so that the front door faced the street like everyone. I worked on it for 18 months. I dug and poured the footings for the new piers, laid the block which I stucco'd to look like the brick that originally supported the house. I ran new plumbing, re-wired the place as it had knob & tube wiring. Turning the house opened up the back yard where I took down the termite eaten, one horse garage and built a new two car garage with a sewing room that, architecturally, matched the rest of the house. The house has all the original "Wavey" glass 4 over 1 casement windows. I even found a home nearby that was being torn down where I salvaged the windows that I used in the new addition.

Any way....I appreciate and applaud your efforts. If my work could allow me to save old houses for a living I'd be on it in a second. I'm hoping this year will provide me with a chance to connect with like minded people and maybe persue this dream.

Keep up the good work!!!

 

[BoneheadNW]

Get my wife her Yamaha Rhino.

What do you feed that thing?
Bone

 

[johnday]

Get my wife her Yamaha Rhino.

What do you feed that thing?
Bone

Who? My wife?

 

[Av8r3400]

We (me and the Av8trx) will be building a modification of this house design on our recently aquired 76 acre property in northern Wisconsin. Needlaess to say that project will be enough to keep me busy for a while.

Hopefully not divorsed either!

 

[Kubota King]

Big plans for us this year too.....

We are finally in the financial position that we are going to be putting up our indoor arena for the horse business. We are planning a 62' x 170' Cover-All building. Inside will be a 60'x 100' arena, as well as 20 stalls for boarders, a tack locker room and a viewing lounge.

The stucture will be put up by contractor, but I will probably do the site leveling and electrical, and definitely all the stall constuction will be me.

I am also just getting started in converting a four car garage into my insulated/heated/AC workshop.

There's some landscaping to be done around the house, but I hate gardening so I will probably find somebody to put in some low maintenance greenery.

We might expand the outdoor riding arena also. It is currently 60'x80' and we would like it to be 150' x 80'

A couple other things too, but now sure yet about them.

The pictures below are what the indoor arena will look like, only longer. This one is 120' long, ours will be 170' long.

Dave -
Awsome! I have 3 horses & built a 3 stall with a tack / grain area at my home in 99'. There is a family not far from here that has one of those cover all style arena's & they love it.

 

[Chief]

Real pretty place you have their Cowboy! I have lived in TN of about 14 years but we move to our ranch this summer and are working on getting the place cleaned up. I decided to get the back 40 hill side pasture and pond cleaned up for the new year. I hope to be able to get some decent hay off of it this year. I have put in about 10 hours of time with the 4410 and 72" MMM so far and have not even got a 1/3 of it done. It hadn't been cut for about 3 years until this summer and then it got brush hogged once which only cut down about half of the growth. I am going over it now with the finish mower so it is slow going as it is cutting much shorter.

 

[Archdean]

You guys put me to shame, it took me 14 years to do this and I think I'm done now!! So for this year the word is NADA gonna do ZIP!!

 

[DaveNay]

You guys put me to shame, it took me 14 years to do this and I think I'm done now!! So for this year the word is NADA gonna do ZIP!!

Holy Harry Baboon Balls!!!!!

How long did it take you to dig that pond with your little tractor?!?!



I can understand why you are doing nothing!

 

[Archdean]

Just 3 more!!

 

[Archdean]

oops! I apologize for GF's butt in the last pic!!

 

[Archdean]

Holy Harry Baboon Balls!!!!!

How long did it take you to dig that pond with your little tractor?!?!



I can understand why you are doing nothing!

More than 6 days and I have yet to rest!!!

The link below gives a better rendition of Grand Lake (my home) than I can!!
http://www.grandlakevisitor.com/comics.htm

 

[Av8r3400]

oops! I apologize for GF's butt in the last pic!!

Shouldn't that be in the other thread??

 

[Chief]

I think maybe it is time to close this thread and start a part II of this thread as this one is taking forever to load up. Some of us slowpokes on dialup just can't hang.