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!

New Shower Heads

I mentioned in my last post there were a couple things I would change to our house. Changes I wish were done during the construction phase. Some of those things I do not plan to tackle, but some I would or have changed.

On that short list, I mentioned the addition of showerheads in our large master shower. Mr. JCrew wanted it from the beginning and I turned it down. It became a joke every time the shower was used and then we finally looked into what it would take.

We’d make minimal damage to our walls as possible and add a second showerhead on the opposite wall of the current one and add a rainshower to the ceiling. Sounds pretty fancy!!!

I called our plumber to tell him he was right and we wanted to add the extra showerheads. He laughed. He mentioned it would be an easy update by adding a diverter. I then did my usual thing and researched. A diverter is a control for the multiple output in the shower. Our solution was a 3/6 diverter. This Youtube video was a great resource.

Basically, you can turn each showerhead on separately, or turn on a combination of the showerheads, all by the turn of the diverter. I couldn't buy just a diverter to add to my handle because it would not allow me to turn on all three showerheads at once. So the existing handle turns on the middle showerhead only. The new handle with diverter, turns on the two showerheads on the side. 

I went to our local plumbing supply place and picked out the finishes. Our plumber came and worked his magic to connect the fixtures. I ended up doing the demo to save money.

Originally, I thought the tile would need to be torn out and reinstalled, but we went through the back side of the wall, so I only had to replace drywall instead of tile (cheaper). But while the idea was on tearing out tile, I thought about changing some more things while I had the tile guy out here. I liked the trim border I have, but am not in love with it. And if you remember, he was suppose to install the tile in the 1/3 staggered pattern and he messed up and did it in the ½ staggered pattern. I could have him rip it all out and do the 1/3 pattern, too.I found a pebble tile square that I could cut into strips. I really liked it. But since we didn't touch the tile, I didn't get to change my border.

This was a project we thought about doing later down the road, but we wanted to take advantage of the time while our boys are still using our shower. They may get so spoiled they never use their own showers! Ha. Until they are teens.

One of those things we should have done from day one. If I wasn’t so stubborn!