Small Farm Design

We love the idea of a small farm, but have accepted it is not in our near future. We have fun dreaming about it and I try to still provide life-lessons that are learned on a farm without the farm to my young boys. That’s part of the reason I would want a farm. It’s for the life-lessons. But those life lessons need to be learned right now at the age they are at. The boys tell us how they’d love to raise chickens, goats, cows, and horses. So, we have told them that we will help them get a farm to have when they are older and our grandkids can grow up on one. By the time we save the money to do it, they will be grown.

Mr. JCrew is the best, because when the kids and I start dreaming, he starts planning on how to make it happen. But sometimes I have to tell him it is okay to dream and we don’t have to make it a reality. But he wanted to pursue it and told me to start looking for land. And I actually already knew of a pretty good space. It was a lot I would see every day on my way to taking the boys to school. It was 7 acres and flat. But they wanted too much money for it (in my opinion).

I actually liked the land so much, that I started planning it. I knew the dream of a farm was not going to pan out, but I really like to design, so I was going to put a couple design options out there and write a post about it and tell all of my local friends that if they were interested, it was available and I’d help design it for you! But as soon as I was about to post about it, the land sold! Seriously, that day. I was shocked. They got their asking price. And I was eager to start seeing the progress. But no progress has been made. I assume they are designing right now or getting permits.

I am going to share with you my thoughts on the space that I designed, just as something to help my friends that are thinking of building.

The first things I always am doing is gathering ideas. I use Pinterest and Houzz to save pictures of things I like. Even if I don’t like the entire picture, if there is a small element I like, I save the picture and write down the piece that I like about it. I then have those saved pictures to reflect on and draw from when designing.

Sometimes it may not even be an object in the picture that I like, but the “view” or atmosphere it creates.

That’s how I started with the land. I knew what view I wanted to create as you pulled into the driveway. I actually gathered this view from a childhood friend’s farm entrance. With where this lot of land was, all the other houses could be seen from the road. I didn’t want the house to be seen unless you actually came further onto the property. And that it really didn’t open up until you were right in front of the house. Almost like the forest just opened up into a field.

Now, all my design work is in this fancy program called, “PowerPoint.” HA! I used it when I created the landscape plan for my current house.

I didn’t want the driveway to be straight. I always liked the driveways that wind around. So, I made the driveway go straight, but once the forest opened up, the driveway curved in front of the house and then around to the garage.

Going back to the start of the property and the driveway, I took note to give space for a mail delivery person to be able to pull off the road to deliver mail. This also gives space for a visitor to pull over. I was undecided on a gate at the beginning of the driveway, but if there was a gate, this gave enough space for someone to wait for the gate to open. And I made the mouth of the driveway wider at the road entrance. I take note and notice bad ideas others do and try not to repeat them. There is a house across the street from this lot that has all these concrete/brick pillars right at the road and a narrow driveway entrance. That means someone has to come to an almost complete stop before they turn into the driveway. And good luck to the UPS man or moving truck having to make a wide turn on a busy road to get in the driveway. Didn’t want to create that hazard.

I also wanted the house to be as far from the road as possible. That is always my goal. The space in front of the house could be ornamental or it could be used for the farm. I designed pastures in my plan.

There is a science to farm space planning, and I don’t have it mastered or know it all, but I had fun researching. I didn’t get it perfect nor is it really correct, but it was a start.  Fence planning was interesting. I made sure that the pastures had gates between each other but also to the common area. And I made sure the house was fenced off from the future animals. But I didn’t want a square fence around the house.

And I also made a fenced in backyard so we could have a traditional back yard. Trying to mix urban and country. It could then appeal to all.

The orange blob on the design is a pole barn. Nothing fancy, but shelter for the animals and supplies.

I made a parking pad before the barn for visitors. This is mainly in case whoever owned the land wanted to hire workers, it was for them. Or, it was for those that had horse trailers to park. Giving options.



The green rectangle on the plan was the garden shed. When I was designing all of this, it took me just a couple days, but it was right when an episode of Fixer Upper aired and it was the episode with her garden. It was the dream garden! So when you see this plan, think of her garden and know that was what I was modeling.

Towards the top of the garden is a blue rectangle. This rectangle is the chicken run and the yellow box next to it is the chicken coup.

The fence line around the garden would also have a chicken run around it like Joanna had. But the Blue rectangle gave the chickens more space. 

The garden beds would be raised rectangle in shape.

I used the same shape as our current house, because I was planning on building the same exact thing. But I decided to plant trees to create privacy from the neighbors. Lots of trees at the street line and trees around the driveway and parking pad.

In the driveway near the house, I kept it wide like we currently have. I love the space and would want to keep it. However, I added a painted basketball court. I think the boys would really love it. I was torn on putting the court right outside the driveway or on the parking pad by the barn, but I thought it would get more use right outside the garage.

The two pastures in the front of the house is not the only place the animals would be restricted to. If you look, you can see that the garden is fenced off, the house is fenced off and the driveway is fenced off, so the animals would actually have free reign of the entire space. But I do know that just like vegetable gardening, you want to rotate the animals periodically. Those pastures could be untouched and when the animals eat everything outside the pasture, they could be brought into the pasture where there was fresh vegetation and it would give time to the other pastures to recover and grow new vegetation.

During this design I also looked up chicken coup designs and goat barns. There are some really cool designs out there.

I honestly really like creating spaces and giving thought to it. This was something fun to do. Thanks for letting me share it with you!

Paint Colors Used in House #2

I love a good paint job to tackle because it really does change everything! But I’m sad and happy that I haven’t had to paint a thing in this house. I picked colors that I have been happy with, but it’s mainly because we already did the trial and error at the last house.

Now, just because it worked in the last house does not mean it would work in the new house. I learned that lesson when I used the master bedroom paint from my condo to paint the master bedroom. I loved it in the condo, but not in the new house. I’m pretty sure it was because the trim color was not the same.

Condo Master Bedroom

But I used the paint color in our old living room as the color for the entire new house (living, halls, playroom.) Valspar – Fairmont Penthouse Stone. It is a great color that I have really loved. I've lived with it a while and not have not grown tired of it.

Old House Living Room

Current Living Room

All of the bathrooms were the same color, and the color was also used in our Master Bedroom. Benjamin Moore – Revere Pewter. This color is popular for a reason! It is a chameleon and changes with its surrounding. Very versatile color.

The boys’ bedrooms were the color I used at the old house for the spare bath. I used the color again when I changed Little JCrew’s room. It’s a fun grey that is warm. Bonsai

The Office was my bold color choice. I picked the darker shade of blue from our old bonus room. I really like blues and this one was my favorite. “Antique Tin” by Behr. I love seeing the deep blue color from a distance. It is such a moody color that I love so much that I want to put it everywhere, but then that would take away from it's magic.

The kitchen was the only color choice I wasn’t sure of. I knew the color of the cabinets and that decision was set and I did not want to change, but I didn’t think my ‘Fairmont Penthouse Stone’ color I chose for the whole house, would go with it being right next to the cabinets. I pulled the swatch that had the color of my cabinets on it. Since the swatches have the “family” of colors on it, I knew if I picked one from the swatch, it would go with the cabinets. However, I still have to go with the “whole house color” as some walls would be touching. I ended up with 'Barren Plain' on the kitchen walls. It’s a barely noticeable transition to the ‘Fairmont Penthouse Stone’ color.

That’s it for all the wall colors. I tried to keep the amount of colors down but did not want to be limited. When you buy a spec home, the builder usually only allows you to pick two colors. If you build a spec home, the builder has a budget for two colors and you are charged for each color change. I get it! It’s a much simpler task to just have one color to paint everywhere.

Now I can’t stress how important the trim color is. It can make or break a color for you. I learned this the hard way. I ended up choosing 'Simply White' by Benjamin Moore after seeing it used by Young House Love. It wasn’t stark white, but looked like it. Our old house had an off-white trim color, but it really was off from being close to white. (Sherwin Williams 'Pacer White.') It was like a dirty white. Nothing wrong with it, but it limited my choices in picking coordinating colors.

We used Simply White on the ceilings, trim, plantation shutters, closet walls and the laundry room walls. The laundry cabinets are also Simply White.

The fun color on the ceiling is Cooled Blue. I almost used it as the interior of the closet that is now Pfitzer’s, but decided against it. I’ve really enjoyed it being somewhere I see every day. 

As for paint colors on the outside, this decision scared me the most. I could repaint an interior room with no problem, but if I messed up on an exterior paint color, it would be an embarrassment all would see until I hired a painter to fix it. And who knows if my fix would be the final fix?

I had seen the color “Dragon’s Breath” painted on an interior door in a picture on Pinterest. I loved the color. It looked black, but had brown undertones in it. I loved it so much that I hung on to that picture and knew I would use it in the new house some how.

Inspiration

I went to the store to get the swatch and see the family of colors that coordinate with ‘Dragon’s Breath.' I then came back with my brick sample to make sure it went with the brick.

I picked Gargoyle for my exterior trim color (columns, facia, door trim).

Plymouth Rock was used on porch ceilings and siding.

Dragon’s Breath was used on the exterior doors, shutters, and lapboard siding.

I am so lucky that it worked on the first try. It could have been a disaster.

There you have it! Our paint colors at house number two.