A Little History of Our Farmhouse

I'm super under the weather today so I thought I would write about something that cheers me. A little background of our home. The original house was built in 1831, on land purchased in the 1790's by Barnabus (cool name right?) Highlands. Poor Barnabus was killed by Native Americans while he was on a trip to get supplies. His sons Alexander and Robert built the home for their mother Martha. The farm was originally over 360 acres and is now our lone little  acre of the world.
We are only the 5th family to have lived here and we feel that is such an honor and responsibility. Not many people would take on this type of house but we were up for the challenge and it has been so much fun. It's incredibly frustrating at times but the feeling we get from living in such an old house is unlike any other.
We are blessed to have people just pop by to see the house. We have been named a local landmark and had a beautiful plaque dedication ceremony 5 years ago. We were interviewed by our newspaper which was fun and we have been throwing around the idea of a Christmas historic house tour with our local historic society.
Life is definitely different for us since we moved here. We have uncovered treasures like the original marble fireplace in our bedroom and a newspaper from 1848 that we found in the attic. We have peeled layers and layers of wallpaper . The entire  two story foyer was pink! We removed the grossest "Oscar the Grouch" green shag carpeting. We gutted our kitchen, tore down a wall between two smaller rooms to make one large family room. We have laid a flagstone patio and brick drive (all hubby). But there is still so much to do. The evolution of a house is never complete. But as they say when you stop growing you die. So we plug away bit by bit as best we can with four young boys and hubby running two large practices. Some days you will find me on Realtor.com for hours ready to abandon this endeavor, but it seems we always come back to the place we started 11 years ago. I'm thrilled to be able to share this journey with you but as I face the truth myself, I must admit that this may be slow going.
Rome wasn't built in a day and most good things take time to unfold, I must remind myself constantly. I hope you enjoy sharing in the process with me. I hope I can bring you some inspiration and some laughs. Most of all I hope to convey the message that sometimes it's better to stick with something through really challenging times because the rewards are that much greater.  Although you may catch me surfing the net just in case I decide to give up!!
xo~Melissa

I love this view of our side yard. This was Alex trekking out for Trick or Treat.



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