My wife and I were taking a walk last summer, when we passed a “for sale” sign pointing to a run-down house on 20 acres filled with trash, tires, and debris. It was less than a half a mile away from our home and I got excited when I discovered that the property had been for sale for some time and no one seemed to want it because of all the work needed to repair the house and restore the land.
We made an offer and before I knew it, I was digging up trash, tires, concrete, rubble and other debris that had been buried all over the property and piled in heaps in the fields and woods. My wife joked that I bought the land just so I could clean it up — and we both knew that was the truth!
It’s a beautiful place now with fields and woods and a lovely stream that meanders beside a large meadow. It was a worthy project and satisfying work to be able to repair a small part of the world
We knew a group of young folks who were looking for a place to live and farm and that made the experience even sweeter. They moved in right as we finished the repairs and clean-up.
BLP
May, 2013
Piles of trash were everywhere on this 20 acre property: some was piled and some was buried…
This is what the house looked like when we first saw it…and yes, there is a house down there on the left!
The front entrance-way up close after a little cleaning…
A side view…
Another side view…
Overgrown and covered with ivy…
Sunken sidewalks flooded the basement and more ivy blocked the windows…
Scrap metal was sorted and taken to the scrap yard….
More scrap metal
More scrap metal and trash
Trash is sorted and ready to be hauled away
Piles of trash were everywhere on this 20 acre property: some was piled and some was buried…
…and piles
..and piles
A huge oil tank buried in the back yard was dug up by heavy equipment and thankfully had not leaked since we are in the watershed
One of the buried cars that had to be dug up and hauled out of the ravine.
And then there were piles of building materials everywhere…
Cinderblocks, old paint cans, drywall buckets, and rolls and rolls of wet insulation…
An old rusty motorcycle that was pulled out of the ravine
…And a pile of disintegrating concrete blankets and rotted beams…
And piles of trash everywhere…
A side view of the house after a preliminary clean-up…
Feeling overwhelmed, but only briefly!
A front view looking down from the field after initial repairs; new roof, new windows, gutters and downspouts, pardging and painting.
The back view of the house after repairs…
The large room before new windows, insulation, drywall, and paint
The big room after we had the floors sanded…
The living room before..
And after…
Another view…
Another bedroom before…
And after…
The kitchen before…
and after…
The barn looked like this when we first saw it…
The inside of the barn, basement and house were filled from top to bottom and side to side when we first saw it…
The inside of the barn as we emptied and cleaned it…
