Farmdale's First Party!

Have y’all ever hosted a shower for one of your closest, dearest friends at your house? I’m sure most of y’all have. But, have you ever had to install indoor plumbing and a driveway before the party? Well, it is doable, it will age you, it will question your sanity over and over and it will be the most fun you’ve had in a long time!!!

Farmdale is not finished. Farmdale will not be finished for a while longer. Farmdale though is where I would be hosting a shower for these friends – a proclamation I told my friends Katie and Douglas upon their engagement this summer. I thought I’d be in a Christmas at the latest… ha!!! I wanted to stick to my word and thankfully my fellow hosts pitched in! We had a party – a Perry Party for our sweet friend who’s moving from Houston County to Houston County… that’s pronounced like “House-ton” for us in Georgia and “Hugh-ston” for the Alabama reciprocal.

About a month ago, Katie and our friend Maggie texted me if we would have bathrooms at Farmdale. As a man, I can honestly say the though didn’t cross my mind. As the host to a group of my closest friends – a mixture of my buddies who thought like I did I’m sure, but our group now their pregnant wives, new fiancés, young moms and just lovely ladyfolks in general – I decided that the phrase “y’all just go outside” wouldn’t be very polite. Ha! Somehow though, in the course of that month, my septic system was installed, toilets installed too, a couple sconces hung in the bathrooms and I even hung a mirror over the sink – which had running water mind you!

Lucky for me, our social circle in Perry is a casual, relaxed group. We wore our jeans and boots, built a bonfire, roasted s’mores and dined on Amy’s famous chili – the white chicken and the awesome red one too! I made a big arrangement on top of a table I fashioned from sawhorses and shutters. This centerpiece boasted a couple racks from this year’s deer season, branches from my surrounding woods, pine cones and couple really cool pieces of wood Meredith and Maggie found on their walk. For the entertainment, we resorted to our old high school and college days. Growing up in a small, Southern town, we hung out around bonfires in high school and college. And we are still good at it too! Of course, the fear of being caught with beer has passed since we can buy our own – now we get flattered if we’re carded! S’mores were our dessert and I must admit I had my fair share! Who can resist a charcoal-caramelized marshmallow?

Farmdale Lane was dug out and lain with gravel so folks didn’t have to park in mud – mud that was frozen slush at one point since the well had busted in the cold one night. Miraculously, my front sidewalks got poured even amidst the cold weather which left on the day before and made for the most delightful, comfortable late winter evening in Perrydise. Regardless of moving heaven and earth to get extra lights, more amps for space heaters, sinks installed and the official plumbing to go with them, we were all together. A group of friends who have known one another since childhood, college and now into adulthood. We are tightly knit group who love one another and love to throw parties for one another too! I cherish our times together – times that are even more precious and treasured as our careers blossom, marriages begin, babies are born and even, sadly, move from Houston County to Houston County.

All in all, the party was a hit! I’m just thankful the toilets flushed! Congrats Katie and Douglas!!!

John Deere and Farmdale....Green!

Paint. Paint may send me to the looney bin. Well, not necessarily paint proper but the process of selecting a color. Selecting a color, mind you, when you have known your whole long life that you want a dark stained or painted house with blueish-green shutters and a silver/gray/galvanized roof. The latter is more so the culprit for near insanity.




So the roof is installed and it is WHITE!!!! Styrofoam white. Sandy white - like the Gulf. Cloud white.

Ok, technically my roof is not "white." It IS the color I selected and always dreamed about... yet...when installed, the galvanized silver/gray LOOKS white on my roof's pitch. It even glows as moonlight does through the magnolias and pines. Cue "Georgia on my Mind" and "Stars fell on Alabama" and most any other country song involving moonlight.

Moonlight... there's the name for my roof. Not sliver, not gray, not galvanized - moonlight. After throwing a fit to my poor aunt and sister as if I were an emotionally disturbed child, and swearing I was going to throw it onto our road for all of Perry to pick apart and run over, I decided to keep the roof and tweak my color scheme. Thus, this is really why paint almost sent me to the looney bin - retrofitting a new palette to a moonlight hued roof.

Eighteen paint samples later, I landed on a selection for the board and batten pine siding for Farmdale. You see, y'all, I don't just have the main body board and batten to contend with, I have foundation panels, second story clapboard siding and then the coordinating shutters, mullions, trim, corner boards and painted brick too. I had all that picked out and selected before the roof's lunar eclipse. Square one for the paint selection was were I found myself.

"If I must select my colors again, they better be pretty names." The poor gals at James Farmer Inc had to hear my color and roof rants for days. I was a beast. Unconsolable and irrational I was... All because the roof wasn't exactly what I had imagined. From Sherwin Dubs to Ben Moore to Valspar's all stars, I zebra striped Farmdale with eighteen samples of paint. From green to gray, white to cream, tan to toupe, brown to darker brown, I employed my sister Meredith and my Aunt Kathy and we painted all the samples. And then the names -and stars I guess too - started to line up for ol' Farmdale... Linen White, Gentle Lamb, Gina's Eyes and Afternoon Nap, Mountain Hideaway...Colors with delightful names all started rising to the top ranks and file! Even with the roof's lunar loveliness!

Then, as life would have it, my final two siding selections came down to Crater and Dragon's Breath... Come on!! Really? Not the prettiest names but the colors seemed right. So, Farmdale shall end up being a custom color somewhere between the oddly named aforementioned colors. Farmdale Green I shall call it. It's a green/brown/gray/gold/mossy/moodycolor that I'm liking a lot.

I firmly believe that every person is entitled to one legitimate NBD in their life (nervous breakdown for those whose family doesn't have acronyms for everything like mine). Any additional NBDs are just selfish and annoying. I daily must decide if today is the day I shall have mine. Will I have it at Ace Hardware while unable to find the right tint of furniture wax? On a ladder at a client's house while hanging art? Or maybe at Chickfila on one of my multiple daily pilgrimages for tea? "No James... Not here not now." I tell myself.  "Save your NBD for somewhere else and another time... Ok buddy?"

What usually sobers my mind from a quandary such as this is a dose of reality. I live in a southerly world of pretty places and people. Many people do not. The roof will protect me from the rain which is more than many folks have. So, I am thankful for my roof. I am thrilled with my custom color selections and I am most of all, hopefully a little more compassionate towards bewildered people with terribly awkward facial expressions in the paint aisle.

I want to approach them, tell them it'll be alright and that we should all be glad to have a roof and walls to paint.

From Farmdale to your homes, I hope  all is well.

 

 

Farmdale

If any of y’all have ever built a house from the ground up, you KNOW it is a process. You pay lots and lots of money for things you don’t even see – foundations, encapsulation, ductwork, bracing, cinderblocks that you’re just going to cover with brick... but… you’ve got to have these things before you can have your Georgia pine board and batten siding, your antique bricks (and their expensive mortar mind you), your “tin” roof and your shutters. Ahhh, shutters. Those will probably be a post in and of themselves.

 

To build from the ground up or renovate or whatever your house’s project may be, you must have a great team. Thankfully, I have such a team. Every morning, they see me bouncing out of my suburban (clad in plaid and some sort of loafer), and they know that I’ll scale any scaffolding, race across any roof, load up any ladder or meet them wherever their working to investigate the progress. Pester – maybe – but that has such a negative connotation. I prefer “check in” for that allows me to “check out” and let them finish their task at hand. If I didn’t “check out” and head back to JFI, then I’d probably stay all day on the job site and rearrange the kitchen layout a dozen times, move the steps at least once and start painting. I am terrific at starting a paint job – finishing one is NOT my strong suit. I am good with color, so maybe I should stick with selection rather than application.

 

 

I’ve known several of the guys building Farmdale Cottage since we were kids. Most all of them have worked with me on clients’ homes around Middle Georgia, and I find that very comforting. There is a trust factor and comradery almost with these guys, for we’ve moved furniture and walls together, transformed outdated bathrooms and kitchens together and now, we’re building Farmdale together.

 

My sister Maggie captured all these action shots and some construction details. I don’t covet the guys from Wall 2 Wall Construction working in this summer heat, but I do appreciate them doing so. The brick foundation is almost complete, the roof is starting this week, windows and doors arrived and some are even being installed. I’m still a good ways away from planning my first dinner party (which I’m afraid will probably be delivery pizza and paper plates until I get all moved and settled in), but I cannot wait nonetheless. Big Napp had a slogan when our church was moving from the old sanctuary to the new one – “joy of the journey.” It is a journey – amen to that right? But the joy comes in the little things – the little steps – that all slowly but surely come together and create the journey proper. The journey is the story.

 

 

 

So, from the Georgia Red Clay piles of Farmdale to you, thanks y’all for letting me share some of my joy on this journey.