Mr. Red Farmhouse and I have been together 13 years, dated for two and then married for the last 11. Can not believe it has been that long! I married a farmer. He was born and raised on his family's farm in the Midwest. He went to a tech school after high-school then moved back to farm. He was a hired hand, so to speak for a neighbor until the last few years. Since married we've lived in two small rented farmhouses. The first across the road from the farm he worked and then 8 years ago we had the opportunity to move into the boss's old house. While renting is not ideal for the long term, the location has been. We've looked at houses to buy over the years, but wanted something close to Mr. Red Farmhouse's family farm, After much time talking a praying we have felt led to build our own.
We got started looking at blueprints online and making lists of what features are important to us, also what things work or are not working for us where we are at. My vision of the perfect farmhouse is a white, two story house, with a wrap around porch. Mr. Red Farmhouse had a much different vision in mind, a ranch style house. We have agreed on some important features from the beginning, Garage door that opened from the back, a big porch, an open floor plan, but most importantly a well thought out mud room with his own personal bathroom right off of the back door, right across from the laundry room. We took our time, but had a hard time finding the right one. Nothing jumped out at us, that we both loved. Finally we sat down with graph paper and our list of must haves and drew up our plans.
After we knew what we wanted we took our dream farmhouse plans to a couple architects. The first one was nice, but was having a hard time seeing our dream. She looked at our plans and told us how similar our house was to one she had drawn up before. She showed us how our plans would fit into what she had already. We took the first draft home and then promptly threw them away. We were given the name of an architect and lumber yard in a small town about 45 minutes from home. We met with him, showed him our plans and he drew them up. Pencil drawing of our plans, exactly what we wanted. Not being in a hurry we had plenty of revisions, but we got to the point we were both happy and ready to get started!
The final draft looks a little different, but we love the what it has become. Maybe this one will end up framed in a special spot in the Red Farmhouse.
