Starting the Story - ShinWin Farms & Remodeling our 1880s Farmhouse

I work at a university teaching students to use English for academic purposes. With the current treatment of immigrants, both legal and undocumented, there has been a fall in the number of students interested in coming to the United States. And, I mean, who can blame them - they can just go somewhere else like the UK, Canada, or Australia. As a result, our student population is falling, and I had my contract reduced from a 12-month contract to a 10-month one.

Worried I would have too much time and not enough money, my wife and I started to look at properties in need of rehab and remodeling. I had purchased a house in Mesa, AZ at the start of graduate school and learned a lot as we transformed that place with some basic skills. This included redoing the backyard and transforming it from a desert into an oasis, which served us well during the pandemic.

Here are some images of the AZ house and all we did to the backyard over five years:

When we moved to upstate New York for work, I didn't want to remodel the house; I wanted something that was move-in and live-in ready, so could focus on writing and publishing. Consequently, we purchased a move-in ready house, and I ended up spending a lot of time playing Population One (a great game on VR). With this new contract, I decided it was time to take on a new challenge and build some real-world skills. So, I set out looking for a property to rehab with my months off.

It was only the second house we looked at - it was a farmhouse that was built in 1880. It was on 2.3 acres and hadn't been lived in for years. That's okay, though. We decided we were up for the challenge, and the result was ShinWin Farms. You can see some of the things we've tackled so far: mostly just getting the outdoor spigot turned on and the electricity working for a couple of select plugs throughout the house. Here's what it looks like now:

We've only had time to work on cutting down the weeds and mowing the grass, but we're about to move on to a new phase where we rip out the bathroom and laundry room (add-ons since there was no indoor plumbing in 1880) and rebuild them.

And, that's how the story starts for ShinWin Farms. Please subscribe and comment - we would love to add your voice to the ideas for remodeling the farmhouse!