Reason #1 we bought the house...

Sorry, not going inside just yet. I promise this will be worth it though.

Okay, so reason #1 we bought the house:
(I'm not rating these in any order, just that this is one of the BIG reasons we chose this house)

Oooh, what's that?!?! It is our fabulous little cabin and creek.

It is located about 150 feet down in the valley behind our house. I'd show you some inside pictures of it, but I don't think we are there just yet. I mean my blog and I only met and I don't want to scare it off...

This is a view from the bridge you have to cross in order to get there. It's like our own little fairytale. I don't have too many recent pictures as really all we've done down there is mow, cut back a few things, take the dogs swimming and gone hiking up the creek.

Funny story: When I first saw the house online, I didn't even look at the house pictures, I just said OOOOHHH Fabulous Husband, look it has a cabin and a stream. "What about the house?" he asked. "What about the house, it has a cabin and a STREAM!!!" I shouted. Once I told him the house was 150+years old he laughed at me and said yeah right. But guess who is laughing now... ME! Cause the cabin and stream are ours!

We first looked at the house in December. Then again in January. Hence a lot of bleak, dreary before pictures of our side and back yard. When we first looked at the house, I loved that it had a screened in porch. It's not in perfect screened in porch condition, but it's not too bad either. We have already used it a lot to eat out and hang out. We also have a side porch, which has been getting a lot of use as well.

Here is what we saw when we first looked at the house:

And here ladies & gentlemen is what we were greeted with when we went back for our walk through:

It's sort of hard to tell the different with these two pictures. But in picture A you would have had to squeeze by to walk along the back of the house. In picture B however, you could park a car behind the house. Don't believe me...

You could definitely fit a car in there. Before it was all overgrown shrubs.

What happened you ask?

The septic failed inspection and we are the proud homebuyers who were given a whole new septic system prior to closing.

Our side yard went from this:

To this:

While this was not a renovation we did, the clearing of the trees and shrubs was something we were planning to do and this not only saved us a lot of time, but money as well. Really, we had no idea the potential that existed, but it is a HUGE difference.

Eventually, this particular area will be what gets fenced in.

Don't worry... we are getting very close to venturing to the inside of the house, I promise.

My first new friend...

Here is a picture of the first new friend I made the day after we moved in.

Ccchhhaaanngeesss...

When describing our house to people, I usually say, well it's a big old (and I mean OLD) colonial farmhouse on 8 acres of property in Bear Country, NJ and we also have a cabin and a stream. This makes it sound like something right out of the pages of a story book, right?

The truth is, it's a 1840ish (we've heard probably earlier) colonial farm house, with a "dilapadated" cabin (according to our tax records) and a really pretty creek, that pretty much dries up in the summer. And I love it.

We have deer and snakes and bears and wild turkeys. We've got lots of woods to explore, only a few (and far between) neighbors and there's no traffic.

I won't lie, it's not pretty. There was A LOT of brush up against the house, so one of the first things we did was to take down a tree, and remove all the shrubs and crap that were growing up against or near the house. We haven't 100% finished this job as it has been 90+ degrees almost every day since we moved in, but eventually.

Hopefully our neighbors are just so excited that we are doing soemthing, they don't care that we've not finished the job.

Looking better already, right?

Both front doors will be painted Behr's Jazz Blue. The grill has been moved, and the ground cover is getting ripped out and that will be all rocks.

What did we discover through this project?
-We had a front walk way that had been covered for YEARS.
-A cute little garden snake.
-That we should probably get tetnus shots because there are a lot of random metal things hidden in there.

Let's get the party started...

You made it! I wasn't sure I was going to. This is where all the magic will happen, well at least as it relates to our house and what we are doing with it. I promise to post fantastic pictures of mint green circa 1950's bathrooms and wildlife and our cabin and our stream and a lot of "were they for real" or "who does this" type of things.

Sit back, maybe grab a cocktail because once you see some of the pictures, you will for sure need a drink. If you don't then send it my way, because I do.