Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

We’ve probably had the simple “graderbox” for the tractor for more than a dozen years – Jeff used to help out one of his friends by leveling his driveway every spring, moving gravel into potholes.  But at the Long Shot Farm, Jeff started to get rather creative in using the grader, smoothing out old construction sites, covering tree stumps, spreading gravel in driveways and leveling tractor ruts after the spring thaw. 

But today, he completely annihilated a steep bank along our pond. The bank that could not be mowed, not even with the weed whip.  Not sure how he did this without rolling the tractor into the water – and I wished we had taken a “before” picture.  All we have is the “after” picture.   A huge improvement not just for looks, or access to the water and fishing, but for “mow-ability”!

The sink is now hooked up and the mirrors are hung and painted to match the vanity.  We were not able to modify the drawers of the old buffet to fit around the plumbing lines, so Jeff built two doors.   At least at this point we have a fully functioning bathroom.  Looks like finishing the rest of the room is on the “back burner” for now, as our new grapes will be arriving this weekend and fruitfarm/vineyard work will take priority for a while.



Lars installs mirrors

finished vanity

Half the bathroom is now painted purple – well, technically, it is painted Smoked Mulberry – which is the same shade we used in the barn.  Once the bathroom paint dried, Jeff re-installed the toilet and also put up the two sconce lights above the double sink.   Tina then painted the “vanity” the same shade of green, “Mossy Aura“, as the guest room accent wall.  It sort of looks like a grape themed bathroom – imagine that!   Today, we purchased the remaining plumbing fixtures to actually hook up the sinks to the water and drain pipes.  Once that is hooked up, we can finish painting the cabinet drawers (which have to be adjusted for length, to allow the drain pipes to fit) and then we’ll have at least a functioning bathroom.

Progress continues, though at a slower pace since the weather is warmer and all priority has shifted toward working on berries and grapes. Nonetheless, we finished grouting the bathroom floor and Jeff installed tile baseboards in half of the room. Tina finished mudding and sanding the drywall – also in half of the room. The last (4th) coat of drywall mud was put on this morning – this is really just a skim coat and will need minimum sanding. Maybe we’ll get primer painted this coming week.

Jeff worked on cutting down an old dining room buffet which we had bought at an estate sale years ago – for $10. The double sink vanity fit perfectly onto the buffet, once the original top was removed. This may just work. Not sure yet if we will paint the “vanity” or refinish the wood and cover it with several coats of polyurethane.

Leif is visiting and enjoying the whirlpool!

Finally seeing major progress.  During the week, Jeff used the air hammer to chisel out the remaining floor tiles.  We realized that there was not way we could find matching tiles to complement those that were originally in the bathroom, so all the old ones had to go.  Jeff and Lars then installed the corner shower base and connected the rest of the plumbing.  They even leveled out the floor, put down cement board and build a frame for the bathtub.  Basically, they got everything done, so that we could put floor tiles down this weekend.  Jens came and helped with that job.  By Sunday evening, the floor was done  – ready for grouting later this week.

Meanwhile, Tina finished painting, cleaning and moving the furniture back in the guestroom.  It’s actually totally finished, except for one outlet cover.  Grammy came and spend the weekend, which helped a lot – not only was there pressure to finish the guestroom for her to sleep in, she and Sammy kept up with all the cleaning, ironing, sweeping and wiping needed – since we created amazing amounts of dust, dirty tools, dirty laundry and muddy tracks.  Overall, a most productive weekend.  As an added bonus, it was Lars’s 15th birthday celebration, and we did enjoy the traditional dinner at Red Robin.