Readying the House

Our March visit to our Maine house for getting it move in ready was not exactly what we expected. Though we had enjoyed (and laughed at) BDN visual journalist Troy R. Bennett’s song about snow in March, Jason and I didn’t actually think we’d be dealing with snow and frozen ground in the last week of March.

So much for our fencing plans!

Luckily Jason’s time in the Army made him quite adaptable to changing strategies. We shifted our focus from fencing (which just wasn’t gonna happen with the frozen ground) and instead found other things prep work to do inside the house.

In our short visit, we were able to have our electric turned on and got our propane delivered. (Yay for some heat! My toes were freezing!) Since we also had some trees down, Jason went ahead and tidied those up.

We also realized this house has an inordinate amount of electrical outlets everywhere.

Unfortunately one of the other things we did was to discover that our gas stove has a leak in the burners – so we’ll be getting a new stove (or getting it repaired) very soon.

I worked on cleaning the house – most of which was spent trying to get the cat-urine smell out of the carpet and the deodorizers and odor absorbers I bought just weren’t doing it. (Why hasn’t someone invented a cat-urine odor absorber yet?!)

NOTE: I am still battling the cat-urine smell now in May. So any suggestions for removing the smell would be greatly appreciated!

Our Maine house appears to have also been added onto at different stages. Though we are still learning about its history, it appears that the section of the house with the bedrooms was the original structure (dating back to the 1900’s and possibly older than that). This meant that many of the bedrooms in our new Maine home are a lot smaller than we’d gotten used to in our Tennessee house. Time to say adios to the behemoth bed and dresser set from Tennessee! (This means shopping at Ikea for a new bed, right?)

Though we know this house will have a lot more surprises for us, we can also see all the potential this house has! Of course “potential,” also means “hard work,” but it will all pay off in the end! I see many exciting projects in our future!

Jennifer Jelliff-Russell

About Jennifer Jelliff-Russell

Jennifer is an employment specialist and writer with novels in women’s fiction and science fiction. She and her husband, Jason, decided to move from Tennessee to Maine and homestead using the most environmentally sound farming practices possible such as organic farming and permaculture. At the same time, they will also be slowly renovating their 1900s Maine farmhouse in order to make it more self-sufficient with the eventual goal of going off grid. Let the homesteading (mis)adventures begin!