My Pappaw would be proud...our Farm Store remodel

Thirty five years ago my mother's parents moved to Virginia to be close to one certain little red headed girl...me. Both natives of Northeast Tennessee, they had spent the preceding decade in Florida. My sweet Granny wanted to live near each of her grandchildren. When her two sons moved to Florida to start familys, she followed. I was the last of the grandchildren born, so in the end they moved here to southern Virginia. This is where my mother had settled down after accepting a nearby teaching job and marring dear ol' dad. My Granddaddy Taylor sold my Granny and Pappaw ten acres of the Taylor family farm so they would be near by. It was so awesome growing up next door to both sets of grandparents!

Me and Pappaw doing a little farming in the early 1980's.

My Pappaw was a carpenter by trade and farmer from birth. As soon as he completed construction on their new Virginia house, he began work building his tractor shop. A nice size building, 2,000+ total square feet, one half was a tractor repair workshop, the other a store. He built it all himself, with help from my daddy and uncles. Here he sold Belerus tractors and implements and did tractor repair work. His store was filled with hand made wooden bins which neatly organized every size nut, bolt and washer you can imagine.

Before we began the remodel

The workshop has a huge sliding door on the both front and back. On warm spring days, when I got off the school bus, Pappaw would be sitting in that door way. From his chair he enjoyed the westerly breeze as he balanced an ever present cigarette among his stubbed fingers. Years of farm machinery repair, and one childhood wood splitting accident, had left him with only three intact fingers. The rest had been amputated at varying lengths. He came for a generation that did not over use the term "disability", they only knew of challenges that must be over come to get a days work done. I wish I could bottle up the work ethic and morality of his generation. Couldn't we all use a dose of that?

As time passed, so did my Pappaw and sweet Granny. His beloved tractor shop fell into disrepair, the neatly organized bolt bins lost order, the paint faded, the siding rotted and the windows cracked. The entire family used the store half for the storage of "stuff" that all should have gone straight to Goodwill. The workshop became a catch all for tools and yard equipment. It was a nightmare conglomeration and borderline worthy of the next episode of Hoarders! Of all the work we have done thus far to restore this farm, the task of cleaning out the old tractor store was the most daunting.

The old store sign

We began by hauling off to the dump anything that could not be recycled or useful to anyone else. That was about half a dozen truck loads. All the totes of holiday decorations made the trek to our house and up to the third floor attic. There were literally hundreds of pounds of hardware. Figuring someone could use some of the various sized pieces, I called up another local farmer and expert tinkerer. Big Everette, as we call him, came right over and went to work sorting through the metal madness. As he hauled off several five gallon buckets of nuts, bolts and assorted goodies, I don't know who was happier, me or him!


Now thats how to dress up overalls, a pink bandana.


I saved a few of every size of anything that looked remotely useful, this kept my daddy happy. Throughout the entire cleaning out process he was over my shoulder chanting, "ya'll gonna need that one day". I reassured him time and again that if we did need it, and it happened to be a part we had scrapped or given away, I would gladly drive to Home Depot and get a new one. I'm all about being prepared and having items on hand, but I feel certain no emergency will ever arise if we don't have a carburetor for a 1982 model Russian made tractor on hand. A side note, the Belerus tractors my Pappaw sold were Tennessee orange, gotta love that ;-).

Once we got every thing cleared out the fun part began. What I consider fun, is my husbands idea of torture. When we got married he had four requests, 1. He never had to rake leaves 2. He never had to paint 3. He never had to do any form of carpentry and finally the most important request, 4. We never run out of ketchup. So, abiding by our unwritten pre-nump, Allen was out for the remainder of the remodel. Thank the good Lord for good neighbors! Enter stage right...Dwayne, our neighbor and hobby carpenter.



Two sides done!



Dwayne and I spent his every day off, from first light till the afternoon working on residing and painting the exterior. During this process we came to several conclusions. First, I can't cut a straight line to save my life. Second, Dwayne's measurements were always off. Third, our job foreman, my Daddy, would undoubtedly point out a minimum of three things we were doing wrong per minute. Our solutions, Dwayne did all the cutting, I did all the measuring and we both wore ear plugs. It took several weeks of working a day here and there to complete the exterior of the front and one end of the building. We will tackle the other two sides as soon as the garden is planted, hopefully ;-).



Inside the Farm Store



Since I was old enough to get out of my parents sight, I have been roaming this farm. Every summers day was passed with my BFF and I playing in its creeks, building forts from fallen limbs and exploring every barn and out building on the place. My family purchased this land in the 1880's, however there was one building that still stands today which dates to the very early 1800's. We call it the old kitchen. It is a small two story building, built presumably as the unattached kitchen for the first house ever on this land. Its attic held many a treasure to my young, adventuresome heart. We pilfered through its artifacts with the enthusiasm of archaeologist Howard Carter opening King Tut's tomb. We would load our treasures in a wagon and proudly show them off. I would then stash them safely back in the old kitchen, hoping some day I would have a use for them.

The old sickle

Back to the creation of our Farm Store, with the outside looking presentable and the inside cleared out, it was time to decorate! That has to be a top ten favorite word in every woman's vocabulary, even those of us who spend more time in muck boots than heels. For the interior paint, only authentic barn red would do. Primarily because I had lots left over from the exterior painting and Allen had recently began chaperoning my Home Depot visits. I believe he became alarmed when I repeatedly asked how much over budget I could go on the project. With the walls painted, I finally had a place to display some of the treasures I drug out all those years ago. Each piece had a farming purpose and was used by my ancestors right here on this land. Most appear to have been hand forged, made in an attempt to simplify or hasten one of the many daily farm chores. When I begin to whine about weed eating the fence line this hot, humid July, please remind me to take a look at the old sickle now displayed in the Farm Store. I'm sure that will shut me up, at least for a little awhile.



Allen replacing the sign after I painted it



We are all very pleased with how the remodel is turning out. We still have quite a ways to go. The work shop half must be organized and the remaining two exterior sides still need new siding and paint. From our "new" Farm Store we sale the all natural, pastured raised meats we raise right here on this farm. We raise our livestock much the same way my forefathers would have done 150 years ago, except I have traded their sickle for a Stihl weed eater.