Stumptown: A Little History

Have I mentioned that a tornado demolished an old, historic barn on this property? It was in 2007. 

You can read about the tornado here.

But the history of this property goes back much further.

Abraham Stump and Jonathan Stump were some of the earliest settlers of this area in 1846. They apparently came from Pennsylvania. 

There are said to be eight fresh water springs here that were used in these early days of settlement to generate power. 

A saw mill was built on the property that employed eight people who worked for $1/day in 1880. There was also a store called the Union Valley Groceries, Dry-Goods, Boots and Shoes Store. 

Because of the Stumps who first inhabited this area and the businesses that they started, the area was referred to as Stump Town. The name Stump Town even appeared in some local newspapers in the late 1800's but it was never documented as an official community. 

People who have been around this area for awhile still refer to this property as Stumptown.

It seemed only fitting to keep the history of Stumptown alive when we were searching for a name for our farm and cattle business.

The information I share here comes from the Nappanee Historical Society. I hope to continue to learn more.

Since 2007, the beams from the historical barn have been rotting in the elements. Once we purchased this property three years ago, this has been a hard one to accept. We'd love to be able to use these beams in the construction of our new barn, but the beams have been reduced to crumbly, weathered saw dust.

Fortunately, quite a bit of the barn siding was preserved inside one of the buildings on the property. We're hoping to use as much as we can through-out the new barn.

That's it for now. 

Thanks for following.

French Doors and Porch Inspiration

The French doors are in and it's getting warmer around here. Both are causes for much happiness. 

We're way behind schedule; to the point that there is no schedule anymore, which is the cause of much discord. I don't ask anymore.

Life keeps moving in high speed. We have 16 days of school before summer vacation. Have I ever mentioned that I am a Mild Disabilities Special Education Teacher? I cannot think of a more rewarding job. Kids who are different are amazing. I guess I'm saying this as a reminder that no matter where we're at with this project, I'm very lucky. Enjoy the process.

The following are pictures that I'm using as inspiration for finishing the porch. I always thought we would have white porch posts and a white front door but I'm considering stained now. I think it's a more modern farmhouse look. I also like it with the black door. 

You can find the link under each picture. 

here

here

here

here

here

here

here

That's it for now. Thanks for following.

I'm not a great blogger. I actually really stink at this. And something else I stink at is keeping a good attitude about building a house when only one guy is doing the work. So,with that said, here is what has been going on:

One area of progress is the stone. We finally made the decision and within a month the stone was on. We ordered through our own small town guy Don Rohrer. The manufacturer of the stone is Dutch Quality. The name of the stone is Weather Ledge. The color is called Quail Grey. You can find it here. Don's guy that installed the stone was super nice. I'm afraid that he thinks I'm difficult to work for. I had an image of an old barn foundation with lots of mortar and I probably repeated exactly what I wanted far too many times. In the end, we are so happy with everything about the stone: the color, the size, and the larger gaps with lots of mortar.

Another sign of progress is siding and windows. The exterior of the barn and part of the house side has siding and windows.

 And we have a chimney.

Three of the overhead garage doors have eye-brow roofs. We love details like these, but they take so much time. The middle door will get some type of goose-neck barn lights. 

These doors go from the porch into the barn. The front door is this style but it can be stained .

These are the four-foot french doors (smaller than standard french doors). There are four sets of them. They open out onto the porch, which just so happens to be my dream. Ahhh. They were also almost the death of Rod. They take a special screen but I'm so happy that he finally agreed and I can't wait to live in the country because of these!

Also going on around the farm:

These girls...ahh. They have had a restful winter, but our show season is upon us and I hope they are ready to start giving it their all.

Our first baby of the season. It's a boy! 

Not a great quality picture, but our 2nd baby of the year. Another boy! It was Mabel's first calf and it was our first experience needing to give a cow a little help. The front hooves are supposed to pop out first; however, every time she pushed, all we saw was the calf's face. After Rod called around and consulted others, he reached in and found the front hooves. After that, Caroline and Rod had to help pull the calf.

It was a great experience for these two, but they were exhausted.

And on yet another note, we had a great trip to Chicago to celebrate Toby's birthday. 

That's all for now. Thanks for following. 

Stone Complications and Floor Encouragement

Five months and this is where we're at. The biggest changes since last time are: The building has a roof, the porch now has a roof and the steel siding is starting to go on. The windows and doors are ordered. 

The biggest hold up has been the stone. All along we weren't sure if we even wanted stone, then Rod decided he does.  Which is great. I could have gone either way on this one. The problem is that he knows I need to pick it out in order for optimal marital happiness and I need time to make decisions. This isn't anything new; we are both terrible decision makers. Hence, the three year period between the beginning of this project until now. I think we're getting closer to having that decision made, finally! You can see in the above pictures that there isn't much room at the bottom of the siding for stone. The reason for this is that we want it to stay low to the ground so it sort of looks like a stone foundation. It will go around the barn and house both. We will use the same stone for the fireplace. Below is the inspiration for the stone. It comes from the current season of Fixer Upper. You can see more pictures of this stone on the Magnolia website here.

Also going on at the farm, we are just finishing up our Christmas vacation. On our first day of vacation, I stopped to take some picture. Notice the temperature...

For this poor girl, the struggle was real that morning. Rod always assures me that the cattle love cold temperatures. However, he said that at -10 he even noticed that they were little stressed. But, we live in northern Indiana. It might be in the 40's in a few days.

On another note...the best news that I have stumbled across recently, concerning this project, that is, is that I think I have found the flooring of my dreams. I saw it online before but dismissed it because the nearest location is in Chicago. And even though a girl would go to great lengths to secure the floor of her dreams, I really couldn't tell from their website pictures if it really was the flooring of my dreams. And then, a miracle...I was on Pinterest, shocking, and this woman blogged about her new floor and voila, it was THAT floor. You can see her blog and pictures here and below. The floor comes from here. After a little more research, this company will ship the flooring; however, I might muster up the courage to ask a certain retired couple for a huge favor and a road trip. They have been very persistent in asking how they can help, after all. The thing about this floor, to me, it looks like an old barn floor and it's exactly what I've been searching for and it's more reasonably priced than the other engineered floors we've priced.

That's all for now. Thanks for following.