The Frahms

Something VERY new for the New Year

2011-12-31T12:44:00.001-08:00

Mowgli....the cat.Anyone who knows me knows I am not a cat person, but thanks to my cousin, Andy and I are starting the new year with a new orchard cat. Mowgli was a Seattle cat who was having trouble playing nice in the city life. He now resides in our greenhouse and is taking to country life quite well. I have been the one feeding him, so he likes me way more than Andy, so we call him "my cat". Somehow having a "barn cat" makes our place seem even more country now. Happy New Year to you all, I hope you each have something new to enjoy this year.

Country Living is Good

2011-07-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

A quick 5 minute walk around the property can produce vases of flowers like this every day, so nice!

A summer staple: Pulled pork. Andy is smoking 30 pounds of pork for the 4th of July celebration.

Smoked Alaska! We are trying desert on the grill for the 4th of July. Pound cake, a layer of cherry preserves, ice cream, fudge, all wraped in a layer of meringe and frozen. The whole thing is put on a wood plank and placed in the grill to toast the meringe...should be exciting!

We net our cherry trees to keep the birds from eating all the cherries. Sometimes birds get caught in the net and we have to go out and "take care of them". While checking the nets the other day Andy realized he had caught something much larger than a Robin. This is a Hoary Marmot who was trying to get a free treat from the cherry tree and had gotten stuck. Andy freed him from the net and we have seen him every day since. He is currently residing underneath one of our out-buildings we used to refer to as the "Skunk House" because skunks used to live under it. Looks like we will now have to call the building the "Hoar House"...not sure about that.

We discovered that we have three fledgling Barn Owls living in our silo. When you peek in on them they hiss at you and snap their beaks to sound intimidating.

Life is good. We work outside every day, but love it. Our friends and family are over regularly to enjoy good food, help with a work project, or just hang out on a nice summer evening. I can't imagine life any other way.

Owl Banding

2011-05-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

Andy and I got a chance to go out on a trip with the BLM and band fledgling Western Screech Owls for a day. We covered nearly 250 miles that day, most of them on dirt roads. It was a fun day, except for the baby owls poop all over your hands when you pull them out of the nest box!

A Photographic Update

2010-10-06T17:50:00.001-07:00

Andy's newest love...an All Clad Skillet full of Apple Crisp!

It wouldn't be the Frahm house without a project...we rebuilt the front deck over Labor Day. (We take the name "Labor Day" literally at our house)

Another two of Andy's new loves. He has gone full charcoal and there is no looking back. (We may have had a major catastrophy with the previous gas grill.) Andy is now capable of BBQing for a small army with his new grill and smoker.

Andy ran a 1/2 marathon last year. This picture was taken at the last mile and he is still smiling even though it rained the whole time and was about 40 degrees.

Peace

2009-12-21T13:48:00.000-08:00

This is what peace looks like at our house. May you also find peace during this season of celebration.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-21T13:38:00.001-08:00

(Yes, I am going to just pretend that I have been adding updates all along and not appologize for the 7 month gap in updated posts.)
Merry Christmas! Andy and I have been enjoying all the important things of Christmas: peppermint bark (homemade by Andy), Christmas cookies, waffles, peppermint cocoa, and NNU baseball fund-raiser oranges (gotta have something healthy on the list). We have also attended some great Christmas performances of our nephew Noah.

Yes, our Christmas tree is HUGE!!! Originally, we bought a living Christmas tree that we plan to plant on the property with all the other pine trees, but a live tree can only be inside for 5 days max. Andy and I were feeling very un-Christmas-y, with no tree in the house, so we caved and bought a tree. This was literally the smallest tree on the lot! I plan to decorate the living tree out on the deck and enjoy the two trees, since last year we had no tree.

Spring Photos

2009-04-27T20:06:00.001-07:00

Spring is a lovely time in the orchard. Here are some pictures to enjoy what we get to see every day!

Things that go bump in the night

2009-04-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

Here is one of our "tenants" who we see on a regular basis. Andy and I have a new evening routine that involves creeping around our property at dusk whispering and searching for owls. This is one of the several Great Horned Owl sightings we have made. We know...we're nerds.

Moving Day!!

2008-11-30T19:54:00.001-08:00

I am currently sitting at the kitchen table writing this post from our new home!!!! It was six months of an incredible amount of work, but it is all worth it to sit in our house and be home. We still have minor projects to do, but we are here to stay. As boxes get unpacked, I will post some new pictures.

Some updated pictures

2008-11-24T19:19:00.000-08:00

The breakfast nook bench is finished. The bottom beadboard is salvaged from the original porch wall to keep some of the original house history intact. The washer and dryer are in and working in the laundry room. And our first snow fall was on Saturday.

On the top of Andy's Christmas wish list

2008-11-24T19:03:00.001-08:00

I caught a glimpse of this a while back at Barnes & Noble. Anyone who knows Andy knows how highly he thinks of Chuck Norris; and in light of the recent poll that came out ranking television's most "manly men" and Chuck Norris' absence from that list I feel that it is only right to remind all of you how great Chuck Norris is. Walk on Walker, Texas Ranger, walk on.

What we do in our spare time

2008-10-16T20:16:00.001-07:00

I know that every post has been about the house and some of you may be thinking, "Do Andy and Kori ever get to do anything else?"
Allow me to introduce SAM (Smoking Anatomy Model). To go along with my tobacco unit at school Andy was kind enough to help me make SAM smoke some cigarettes last night. What a gross, smelly habit!
So yes, our lives have been reduced to work on the house, work in the orchard, and work for school.
Some day Andy and I will sit on our porch and enjoy the evening...someday.

My lovely cabinets

2008-10-16T20:07:00.001-07:00

Is it wrong to be in love with cabinetry? I absolutely love my kitchen cabinets! We managed to squeeze every useable inch of storage space out of our tiny kitchen. If anyone living in the Nampa area ever is in need of amazing custom kitchen cabinets that are actually cheaper than boxed cabinets from Lowe's go to Kinsmen Cabinetry! They may not be the fastest, but their craftsmanship and quality is outstanding. Each slide on either side of every drawer can hold 100 pounds, that's some major silverware storage!

We took the picture at 9 o'clock at night after the 4 of us had just finished staining the hardwood floors (thus the mighty mess on Andy's shirt).

Floor Facts

2008-10-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

We have stained the floor and the finishers came today to put the first coats of finish on. Crawling on hands and knees until 9 o'clock at night isn't the most fun job we have done, but the floor looks great. Toby and Noah were great help staining the floor. (Can you tell that our poor camera has been in a construction zone by all the sawdust stuck to the lens?) A look at the floor before we stained.

Home Sweet Home

2008-09-28T20:33:00.000-07:00

We are getting closer to our move-in date! Flooring is next on the list. We have started to hang the doors, tiling in the bathroom is done I just need to grout the walls in the master bathroom shower. Here is the picture from the real estate flyer. As you can see, the yard is looking much healthier and the house is in much better condition, as for the deck...it will have to wait until next summer.

Uncovering History

2008-09-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

The house continues to look more and more liveable. We have been working the past few days on refinishing the original (1920) hardwood floors. While pulling out some old patches from previous remodels we uncovered a newspaper under the floorboards from 1949. A Hudson Hornet could be purchased for $2,500 and Babe Ruth was the highest paid athlete; making $80,000 in a season! This is what the living room looked like the day we bought it, Pink floral wall paper, pink carpet and feeling like a tunnel.

Here is the most recent picture after Dad and Andy have been sanding away on the floor. The floor is amazing, there is not a knot in a single board throughout the entire house. It is all vertical grain heartwood fir. Tomorrow the kitchen cabinets are getting installed, you can guarantee that pictures will be coming soon!

The Laundry Room Before and After

2008-09-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

Here is the current state of the laundry room. Much nicer and more inviting than previously. Here is what the laundry room used to look like. Both pictures were taken from exactly the same spot. It was a scary, musty, dirty, dark room.

Let's meet the work crew!

2008-09-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

The project has definitely been a family affair. Without the help of Dad and Mom and yes, even Noah this house would have never come together. Andy and I are so incredibly blessed to have so many people willing to help us out.

Evolution of the Bathroom

2008-09-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

As we approach our move-in day I am continually amazed at the transformations that have taken place. For instance the bathroom; what used to be a small fruited wallpaper room has become a much more user friendly bathroom for two. The before of the fruitiness.
The demolition. (Yes, we did cut the bathtub in half to get it out)
The final color. The sinks will be here where the bathtub used to be. A tiled stall shower is on the right and the toilet is in the corner.

We have lights!!

2008-08-27T10:02:00.001-07:00

As you can see, we now have lights!! The drywallers are all done, and Roger painted the ceiling for us so we could hang some lights! This place is starting to look great! Hopefully this weekend we can get can get some walls painted and then get to work on refinishing the hardwood floor.
Below you can see our new laundry/utility room, much brighter than it used to be! The fact that you can't see the sloped concrete walls anymore is huge plus.

This is the octopus room, named for the plumbing marvel that lives there now. Did I mention we are now officially 2bathroom house? Of course nothing is hooked up yet, but thats just a few small details.

We are making great progress, especially with both of us working again. We will keep the updates coming.

Bush and Tree Removal

2008-07-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

We have a tremendous amount of vegetation on the property, some of it is in poor health, some in a bad spot in the yard, and there are a few we just do not like!

Roger's truck is a great way to take out small trees. This 8' Juniper didn't stand a chance.

And why stop there, when you can drag it down the street and back to the burn pile!

We also had quite a few juniper bushes along the front driveway. We were dreading this little chore as a section much smaller than this had taken all day to remove.
But Roger once again came to the rescue and found a much easier solution. What would have taken us several days to do, took this backhoe 15 minutes...

The house is coming along nicely, as is the yard and orchard too. Kori actually just sold our first fruit crop (apricots) from the orchard last saturday! The plums and peaches should be next up the harvest list.

Changes so far

2008-07-10T07:01:00.000-07:00

We have done a lot of work so far, so I will get everyone caught up on the work that has been done.

First I will start on the south side of the house. There is a big bay window that the ro0f barely covered, and a gas fireplace bumpout just on the left edge of the photo.

We extended the roof down another 8 inches around the entire house to cover the bay window, and now an exterior door resides where the fireplace used to be.

This is a good view of the new roof and what the south side looks like with new siding and the new door.

Now lets move on to the new living room space. This is the room we put the new exterior door in and also stuck a few windows in the west wall. That really light the place up! We will be putting the fireplace we took out back in the room between the 2 new windows. The first picture is how the living room used to look before we showed up!

So far we have replaced 8 windows, inserted 5 new ones, moved the front door, added a new exterior door and put up new siding on the house. Hopefully we will be ready to paint in the next week or so.

The new house

2008-07-03T08:01:00.001-07:00

At the begining of June, Kori and I bought a new house. Well actually, a new "old" house. This 1920's farmhouse is our new project for who knows how long. This is the real estate ad picture that sold us lol.

The house sits on 2.3 acres of land. Which came with 4-5 outbuildings(I don't know if the chicken shed really qualifies as an outbuilding), around 100 fruit trees of all types, 80 rose bushes, 40+ pine trees and a ton of other landscaping. Oh yeah, and one giant silo.

The outside was in pretty bad shape, weeds 2-3 feet high, shrubs, trees and bushes had been neglected for several years, the pine needles have never been raked up.. the list goes on and on. We have our work cut out for us for quite a while.

Now on to the house...

This is our quality living/dining room. This is probably the best room in the house, which is saying a lot! We have big plans for our new place and the remodeling is moving along quickly. We will be putting up some new pictures as we change up the place!

Wooot for our first post on our first blog!