Never an Old Barn a Little Paint couldn’t Hurt...

From the exterior views, Farmdale Cottage is shaping up. It is looking like a real house. “Never an old barn a little paint couldn’t hurt!” That’s my mantra these days.

Painting has started. Gallons upon gallons of Valspar and Ben Moore are soaking into my pine board and batten, and I am loving it! Shutters have been made and are awaiting their installation. I even spread some pine straw around the foundation to keep the mud from splattering on my custom brick blend. This folks, I’m afraid, will be the extent of my landscaping. It’ll be all I can afford! Inside Farmdale is another story.

So much work is being done where we can’t see, but I must appreciate it nonetheless. Wiring and plumbing and HVAC are running a subfloor marathon. Miles of wires and yards of pipe shall ensure that I can turn on my lights and have running water – a fete accomplis for my neck of the woods – ha! My floors are here but not installed – waiting on walls. Some the shiplap boards are awaiting to be installed for walls too, but we must pass inspection. First inspection failed as it always does in my county. The old “the hip bone is connected to the leg bone…”song is so apropos for building a home – it runs through my mind all the time. Can’t put the insulation in until the wiring and plumbing passes inspection. “It’ll fail the first time, trust me…” I was constantly reassured by my contractors. “What a joy…” was all I could muster. After the passing inspection, insulation, walls and ceiling finishing can take place. “The leg bone is connected to the knee bone…” la la la…

Seeing paint and progress outside makes the interior look too far ill advanced than the exterior. The railings are starting to take shape and the bones of the house are really visible. I love my chimney and the old brick on my back hallway wall and soon to be floors. I decided to paint the brick on the rear façade of the house for added texture and that “added on over time” look and feel. My floors are antique heart pine planed from nearly two hundred year old beams. The beams once spanned a cotton mill and now will be underfoot for me and my friends and family. A few beams left untouched and boasting their patina of flaking paint, will span my kitchen. Oh the stories they could tell! My house smells divine – fresh cut lumber, fat lighter (heart pine) and some paint… if I could bottle it I would!

I’m still a long ways from being able to move in, but there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. A glimmering match lit in the cave maybe?

So here’s the painting schedule thus far:

Board and batten body of the house: a custom blend but for a quick match Valspar “Dark Chocolate” will give you a great color.

Shutters: another custom blend by Benjamin Moore. “Zeus” by Sherwin Williams will get you close to it.

Trim, columns and railings: “Linen White” by Benjamin Moore. This is my “go to” white and I love it with the dark brown with a hint of green.

Painted Brick: Valspar “Gentle Lamb” – the name alone made me want it but it is the perfect neutral cream – not yellow but not gray either. The primer is still on the brick but Gentle Lamb cannot frolic onto my brick fast enough!

I’ll post some finished shots of the paint job, but what’s going up now is so fun! Paint goes on quick and is instant gratification. Deciding on the scheme is what will send you to the looney bin. Speaking of heading to the nut house, I just about checked in there recently. Enter my banker, my builder and my accountant – the three horsemen of the apocalypse – ha! No these gents just have to reign me in and keep me on the straight and narrow. I wouldn’t won’t their jobs working with me! Ha!

So after meeting with my banker and my accountant, my builder was next in the firing squad.  This is a dark, Southern gothic even macabre comedy or sorts. My builder gave me the final projections for completion costs. I looked at that gigantic, huge, mind-numbing figure five times my calculated tally and I just smiled. I said “thank you” and walked away. My builder, who I work with on nearly every design job and know quite well, grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. “You ok, James?” I just kept smiling. Smiling that dumb smile of bewilderment a person can express only in total shock.

In my mind, I was talking but nothing was coming out of my mouth… just an odd smile. My builder asked me again, “James, are you ok?” I somehow managed a nod in the affirmative but my builder was not convinced. “James, say something. You ok?” my builder kept asking. Finally, after what I thought was an eternity, I spoke. What I said I’m sure did not make any audible sense. My builder just looked and said, “James, you were silent – for so long. You didn’t say anything at all. I told you about…” and he went on and on about lumber and paint and brick delivery etc. etc. etc., while I simply stood there and smiled in silence. “James, don’t ever do that to me again. I was really worried!”

“What did I do that worried you so?” I replied. My builder said, “James, you were silent. You were quiet. You didn’t say a word. I knew something was wrong!!!” Silence is not a natural reaction for me, y’all. After meeting with the Big Three, dumb silence with a wry smile was all I could afford.

So, somehow I must now finish Farmdale but not in the quintupled budget as of late. Sweat equity is going to be key, but I love being a part of the process. At least the outside looks kinda/sorta/almost done. Keeping up appearances is what I’m doing now, y’all! Let’s just hope the inside will come together before I enter another silence.

From Farmdale to your homes, happy fall y’all!

Farmdale Cottage – an Introduction Y’all!

A while back, I sold my house in Kathleen. My plan was to move into my family’s home in Perry and promptly begin building. Promptly/Two-Years-Later I have begun building. I did manage to publish A Time to Cook and Dinner on the Grounds in the meantime… and open my store and office in Downtown Perry. Thus, the last couple of years haven’t been that unproductive! The last year in particular has been tough too with some major familial changes too – we lost both my Mimi (maternal grandmother) and my Mama (my mama) within a year. But, the Good Lord giveth when He taketh and Baby Napp came to us all just before Mimi and Mama’s passing – and not a moment too soon!

 

What this Farmer needed was a fresh start in an old place. A new house to call my own and start over in a sense – a new house that would be home for not just me, but the homeplace for my sisters, Maggie and Meredith, and their burgeoning families. We Farmer “chillrun” needed our own nest to fly back to. A new nest full of promise and hope and happiness for the “new normal” that has become our lives. It is with that macabre humor yet hopefully positive spin I present to y’all “Farmdale Cottage.”

 

“Farmdale Cottage” is the name of the new nest for yours truly and for my sisters to call home. It sits within a dale in the woods of my family’s land in Perry. My aunt and uncle are literally on the same property. That means for all our family gatherings and holidays, we will all be like Christopher Robin – deep in the hundred acre wood! We will all be together for those times most importantly, but we can all be together in our own beds… who am I kidding, we all end up piled together like we did as children. Some things never change!

 

A little history…

When I was fourteen, Mama and Daddy took us to visit the “Centennial House” in Atlanta. It was the 1996 Summer Olympic Games and Southern Living had built said house under the design of Spitzmiller and Norris. Over the next eighteen years, I would stalk the streets of Buckhead and eagle-eye homes I just new Robert Norris and Rick Spitzmiller had their hands on. Their website became a beacon of design hope and a resource for inspiration and good taste. Never did I imagine that this dream team of architects and their amazing firm would be designing my very own home!

 

As a designer, an editor-at-large with Southern Living and an author, I have the marvelous opportunity to travel The South and visit fantastic homes and charming towns. Of course, I end up meeting awesome people too, thus my Christmas card list grows with each story assignment or book tour! One day though, I was home in Perrydise perusing through a nearly ancient copy of a Southern Living house plans book I had grabbed from the grocery check-out line years ago. I’m a bit of a magazine hoarder (first step is admitting right?) and I stumbled on a plan for a cottage designed by Spitzmiller and Norris. It was a Coastal Living plan but still in the SL fam. Anyways, I looked and looked at that plan and kept thinking that the house seemed so familiar. “Had I been there?” I kept asking myself. “Was this a showhouse I toured and just don’t recall?”

 

The house was simply meant to be my house. It felt familiar and “homey” simply just looking at it from the pages of the magazine. I knew this was the cottage for me! The home for this Farmer to build in his dale! A short time later, I find myself in the Atlanta HQ of “Rick and Bobby’s” architectural firm – becoming fast friends with their team and the two principle architects as well. Anytime a group of Southerners bands together to talk about architecture, homeplaces, family and paint colors, you know it is going to be a fun time! I couldn’t be any more thrilled with the plans, for Robert took some of my crazy ideas and integrated them into the plans. He thus revamped the SL plan for yours truly and made the house plan my new home’s plan. And, don’t be too surprised if this little project ends up in the magazine… I’m just saying… wink, wink, nod, nod.

 

Each day, I annoy and distract my builders (my pals with Wall2Wall construction out of Hawkinsville) with questions and ideas (I tell them that they’re not “change orders” but “ideas for improvement”), and I wake up like I did as a young boy excited for Christmas morning – but now to see the house’s progress and not what Santa brought. But… if  Santa is reading, I’m sure I can be really, really good from now until Christmas and maybe I can get those andirons I’ve been drooling over? Or maybe some more pecky cypress beams? I digress…

 

If any of y’all have ever built a home, you know it is a PROCESS!!! A tedious and slow process but then some things come at you so fast you almost have to close your eyes and point! You have to pick out appliances, wood selections, plumbing fixtures and all sorts of things you never imagined in a jiffy and then wait 3 months! Yes, my day job is designing and making my clients’ homes and gardens lovely places to call home, but when it is MY house I have a tough time! The cobbler’s kids never have shoes and the designer’s house is a mess! Ha! Thankfully, I have a FABULOUS design team at JFI, so they love helping me I’m sure! Ha! I entice them with peach ice cream and cobbler from Lane’s and then “oh yeah, we’re just going to stop real quick by Farmdale…” At least they get some cobbler right?

 

I did enter the project with a few things I knew I wanted and would not settle – unless that pesky ol’ “b” word raised its ugly head…budget! I knew I wanted a metal roof, board and batten siding stained dark, a brick foundation with large semi-louvered panels, old brick floors where I wasn’t using heart pine, heart pine countertops, painted brick somewhere and true, working shutters. Knowing that, I then have to focus on other elements, but KNOWING for certain some of the key components to the home is very settling. Knowing a few major elements is like having a North Star to keep you focused and on target.

 

So, here is a rendering from my fantastic friends at Spitzmiller and Norris of “Farmdale Cottage.” I’ve catalogued pictures along the way, so stay tuned to the “Farmdale Chronicles” for updates on the house. I hope y’all enjoy this series. I’m going to need your support to get through it and get into it!!! Can’t wait to host my first dinner party! Until, then, the construction continues… “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise!”