before

Happy Sabbath! We are enjoying a quiet, rainy day here in Tacoma.

Progress on the farm seems to be slow… there are so many questions that are constantly popping up, and they all seem to depend on answers we don’t yet have. The farmhouse is originally a two bed, one bath home – so, tiny! We’ve been working on drawing up plans for several months now (many, many versions of plans) that add several more bedrooms and bathrooms to make it more of a family home. We are fine with the rooms being small – that’s part of what we like about the original home. But the additions we want need approval from an engineer because they would significantly change the layout and weight of the home.

Aaron scheduled a meeting with an engineer in Lakewood for yesterday morning. We asked Aaron’s dad, Dave, and my mom to come up to be at the meeting with us, as both of them have a lot of experience in different areas of home building and design. We couldn’t believe it when Dave called us on Thursday night and said there was a huge landslide on I-5 and he would be delayed by several hours. He waited, and waited, and waited in traffic to get off of the freeway and try to find another way around… and after many hours finally decided to turn back home. We were disappointed that he couldn’t make it up, but understood that it didn’t make sense for him to keep pushing north when there were so many delays. Then we got another phone call about an hour later – Dave was in a car accident that totaled his car! We felt so badly that this happened, especially as he was making such an effort to come help us at the appointment. Thankfully, Dave is ok and doesn’t have any physical injuries from the crash, even though it shattered his windshield and deployed his airbag!

The three of us – Aaron, my mom, and I – met with the engineer yesterday morning to talk about the options for the house. It was a helpful appointment, but like the ones before, left us with more questions than answers! There are all sorts of things we have to consider now – if you change more than 50% of a house in WA, you have to update the whole house to current standards/codes. Of course we want the house to be safe – but that means a lot of things, like changing the staircase to be a bit wider on each step and less steep… something that could cost several thousand dollars with moving walls, etc. to accommodate the new  set-up. As Aaron says, “it’s one of those spiraling things…” Each change leads to more changes we have to make!

So our next steps mean that we need to assess for several things before deciding what changes to make on the house. Even though the original foundation to the house is in solid condition, we would have to supplement it to do the additions we hope for. This means having a crew come in and lift the house, pour additional concrete foundation around the post and pier, and then set the house back down. This is an expensive process, and can run between $10,000 – $20,000! So we need a quote on exactly what that would cost. We also need to have someone come out to assess the septic to see if we need to replace that with the new bedroom additions, and we need someone to check our spring water to see if it’s usable as is or if we’ll need to dig a well.

In the meantime, we are enjoying driving out each weekend to check on things… a few weeks ago, we planted several hundred daffodil bulbs that my dad gave us. It will be fun to see those spring up sometime soon. One of my students who knows we are working on the farm suggested we visit a store in Seattle called “Second Use Building Supplies” – we went last weekend and had so much fun! We will have. definitely be checking back regularly to see what they have. Some of the things that caught our eye were:

• Fir flooring that would match the original fir floors in the farm
• An old Crane sink – similar to the original one at the farm – for a hefty price! Makes us sure we want to clean ours up and use it!
• An old, 42-inch front door salvaged from a 1906 Capitol Hill house in Seattle
• Several multi-faucet trough sinks
• A clawfoot tub
• A gorgeous Viking range – it had already sold when we saw it, and had three “waitlist” tags on it!

The best news is that they just put a Second Use store in Tacoma – just a few miles away! So we’ll be checking in there regularly as well. I’m realizing that I’m kind of a “bargain bragger…” If someone likes something I paid full price for, I usually respond with a quiet “thank you.” But if someone compliments something I got a great deal on, it’s like “THANKS!!! You’ll never guess how much I paid for this?! It was such an amazing deal!!! Let me tell you about it!!!” I’m looking forward to what will be the most fun of this whole process for me – finding great deals on home things that I love! 🙂

Aaron wanted to title our first post, “new beginnings,” and it really is for us! For the last year or so, we’ve been wanting to take on a project together and fix up a home, and a few weeks ago, we bought a beautiful old farmhouse in a town called Buckley about 35 minutes from my work at PLU. I don’t think either of us knew HOW big a project this would be, until it was too late and we’d already fallen in love with this 1930’s, Dutch colonial farmhouse on six acres. Some of my favorite things about it are the old fruit and nut trees around the property, the many small “outbuildings” including chicken coops, goat sheds, cow stalls, etc., the gambrel roof on the farmhouse, the spring that sources all the water, and the family history there. The last owners lived on the farm for about seventy years, building everything on the land themselves (they lived in a tent in the yard for months while the house was being built!). There’s an old milking shed behind the barn, a room with a concrete tub to put the milk jugs in to cool, four different chicken coops, and plenty of interesting farm tools – one of them is a “hog cane,” which looks a bit like a walking staff, but was used to steer pigs around the farm.

The home is tiny – two bedrooms and one bathroom. We’re hoping to do some additions that will add a bump-out on the second floor for a third bedroom and bath, and some space below for a covered porch. We are so thankful for family and friends who came to help us do a “demo day” last weekend where we were able to get most of the downstairs demo done – old, 1960’s cabinets removed, walls taken out, and many, many bags of old, peach-colored sheetrock removed. We found the happiest surprise of cedar shiplap walls and ceilings under the old sheetrock, and beautiful old original fir floors under teal and pink floral linoleum. We filled about 35 contractors bags! At some point, we’ll need to get a big dumpster in to get rid of those, and all the other things left on the property. Aaron was disappointed that the sellers took an old motorcycle behind the barn before leaving, but left us a broken down station wagon covered with tarps!

We’re excited to document this adventure together, and hope you can come visit us when we’re finished with our farm on Fettig Road!

Owning your own farm, living off the land, getting back to the simple life. For many, these phrases harken back to a bygone era, a time when social media didn’t dominate our lives, a reality star wasn’t running for president, and when your very existence was tied to your hard work and perseverance. For me, growing up on a farm provided so many opportunities and lessons, that it seemed natural to want to get back to that as I moved forward with the next stage of my life. A stage that involves a wonderful woman that shares this dream of having a picturesque farm in the country. This blog is a way to document the journey toward that dream.

As Lindsey (the wonderful aforementioned woman) is in a more settled job as a professor at Pacific Lutheran University, we decided that we wanted to find a piece of property near her work. And I began the process of finding ways to work remotely and plan a move from the Hood River area to the Tacoma area. While Tacoma and the surrounding Puget Sound area are beautiful, there are very few classic farmhouses on large swaths of land. Even buildable lots with a few acres are at a premium. We begin widening our search further and further out from the city center and Lindsey’s work. There were a few houses that intrigued us, such as the classic farmhouse in Orting complete with a flock of wild peacocks. But nowhere really felt like home. There was always something that caused us to keep looking. A railroad track nearby, close neighbors, the distance from Tacoma, the amount of work needed, or the price. We kept looking.

In June, Lindsey sent me a link to a property listed on Zillow. For sale by owner, 2 bedroom 1 bath on 6.5 acres. While it looked intriguing, it was extremely small and was in bad shape. Despite the acreage I wondered if this was any better than the previous houses we had looked at. Lindsey viewed the property first and instantly fell in love. “This is the one,” she exclaimed over the phone. She wanted to put an offer in right away so I made the trip north to check it out for myself. When I turned the corner and went down the driveway for the first time, I immediately fell in love as well. Pear and walnut trees flanked the road as the property opened into a hidden meadow. There sat an old Dutch colonial style farmhouse, matching barn, and half a dozen outbuildings. The land and buildings had seen better days, but it was clear that those days were filled with vibrance and purpose. The bones of the house were solid, hand built with love, care, and lots of hard work. The air was tranquil and it felt like you were miles from anyone else. This WAS the one.

The process of acquiring the house was as challenging as finding it in the first place. Despite putting an offer in the week it was posted on Zillow, we were second in line and had to wait almost a full agonizing month before finding out that the other offer fell through. With keys in hand we set about the process of cleaning, demo, and planning our remodel. Our goal is to add a second story bump out that will give us much needed extra space. This combined with changing a few things on the first floor should give us four bedrooms and three bathrooms. The task before us is hard but we are inspired by the pioneers of old that made their start on this very farm almost eighty years ago. Our farm. Fettig farm.