Behind the Scenes

What an amazing weekend! S + K's family and friends did an incredible job tranforming the venue with their rustic-elegant bohemian vibe. Even the evening rainstorms + rainbows added to the magical feel of the place. And we loved that their family had a connection to the property as they used to spend summers camping along the river. 

After we took a few days to recover and recharge (phew! we're definitely pressure testing OMG Acres ability to host large events!), we shifted focus to another big property project. We have a cost-share conservation grant through NRCS. Over the next year, we will focus on thinning out the forest section between the Hilltop House and the Farmhouse to help create a more attractive habitat for wildlife and birds, and promote the growth of more diverse native trees (less cedars more other stuff!). An NRCS field advisor come out for a visit to help mark which trees to keep and cut down, and also gave us some great insights about a few of the species already growing (cone persimmon! blackhaw! huge woodmushrooms on black locust snags! spice bush!)

Just a few days left to get everything ready to host our first wedding here at OMG Acres! We focused on a few finishing touches to the River Cabin (like adding bedroom curtains; lots more photos on the Renovations page); pretty-ing up the church exterior (staining the entry steps; adding mulch around the church; and patching up / putting a white coat of paint on the church steeple); and adding a soap and paper towel holder to the handwashing station. 

We also spent a lot time of time mowing, cleaning, and general tidying. Can't wait for the guests to arrive and start decorating!

With our final few days of Farm Crawl prep, we finished the handwashing station, tidied up the farmhouse, staged the barn and cabins, and put up yard signs with before pictures of each building.

On Saturday, we had a blast hosting one of the stops for Pendleton County's Farm Crawl. My friend Tara and I provided Tea & Treats in the Barn, while our friends Emma and Dan set up their Fox and the Fern Apothocary in the Historic Cabin. Dan led small group tours around the property while the kiddo helped out here, there, and everywhere. We truly appreciated the sense of community and excitement generated from the event!

We spent a couple of days recovering and then jumped back into our list of wedding hosting preparations. The utility company installed a new poll so we now have power in the barn (woohoo!). We also finished reviving the church floor and painting the ceiling in river cabin's screened in porch. In the evenings, we enjoyed watching the hummingbirds sample a new feeder we installed for them on our deck. 

We think we can, we think we can! The days were long this week but we are feeling good about our Farm Crawl preparations. We assembled all the river cabin furniture + installed the kitchen shelves + hung pictures on the walls + stained/painted the exterior steps. We de-cobwebbed the barn and scrubbed all the pigeon poo off the floors. We swept and vacuumed the historic cabin. We removed all the cabin painting/staining/woodworking supplies from the church and did a deep clean on the floors. We even tested out Minwax's Hardwood Floor Reviver product with great results. We only had time to tackle half the church floor with Reviver but plan to finish it before the wedding we are hosting here in mid-July. And we did a TON of mowing and weed whacking. In the evenings, we worked on making chalkboard signs for the various stops on our tour and the items for sale at our Tea and Treats. (Mommy did the lettering while the Kiddo did the great graphics!)

We enjoyed a quick break from property chores with end-of-the-school-year activities and a trip out West to visit family. But then we were back into full-on sprint mode trying to get the property nice and shiny for the PenCo Farm Crawl on June 28! 

This week, we focused on the finishing touches for the River Cabin (final coat of poly for the ladder/room divider, putting on all the light and electric plug face plates, removing the protective Ram board on the floors, big clean up of all the dust).  We absolutely love how the cabin turned out! After a quick shimmy-dance-of-joy, we went right into assembling furniture for the cabin. I convinced the kiddo to help out by calling it "legos for adults" 😄

We were also thrilled that the new-to-us church doors got installed by our fabulous contractor. We picked these beauties up for a bargain at Community Forklift in DC. As some point, we plan to refinish them to be more matchy-matchy in stain color.

When we checked on the River Cabin this weekend, we were thrilled to see our contractor had installed the loft ladder / partition between the kitchen and living room. And I was thrilled that after staining that new addition plus all the interior window trims, we are very close to being done with all the cabin staining projects!

Our contractor also finished the new steps to church. Much, much better than the concrete steps that were falling apart! 

We also worked on building a handwashing station for the upcoming PenCo Farm Crawl. We found a kitchen cabinet and sink basin at DC's Community Forklift, and plan to use a plastic storage tube + spigot to provide the water and a blue plastic bucket to place inside the cabinet to collect the used water. I'll add some paint and other finishing touches to make it look purty.

Behind the scenes, folks also came to work on re-pointing the River Cabin's chimney exterior; installing and hooking up the water filtration system; and digging the trench near the barn for the electrical hookup.

Internet installation this week! In preparation, Dan installed conduit for a WiFi antenna so we can get better coverage at the River Cabin and Church. 

We continued tackling the church exterior, focusing on the base trim. We originally painted it the green/blue color since several sections were hidden behind mounds of dirt. When we did landscaping work around the River Cabin, we asked our contractor to also better level the areas around the church. With all the base trim now fully exposed, we cleaned, scraped and repaired the boards and painted them white. We really like the white contrast of color! We then planted some buckwheat seed around the river-side of the church to help suppress the weeds and prep the ground for future flower plantings (if the deer will let us!) We placed landscape fabric along the road side to minimize the amount of soggy dirt splashing up on the church.

In the River Cabin, we brought in the kitchen appliances to make sure everything fit in snug. Phew!

And our first swag item arrived in the mail - OMG Acres Camp Mugs! Can't wait to offer them at the Tea & Treats station during the PenCo Farm Crawl.

Time to start tackling the church exterior to get it ready for our first wedding event this summer! The last time we painted the church's exterior in 2020, we bumped up against the cold November temps and didn't get a chance to finish the eaves and steeple. Then other projects kept us busy, and honestly, we can't say that scraping and repairing those sections ever made our top ten list of things we really wanted to work on.

While Dan tackled the super messy eaves scraping and priming, the kiddo and I worked on staining and painting the River Cabin entry area. We did discover one oops with the cabin renovation: the toilet doesn't fit! The plumber put the toilet hole closer to the wall than we expected so we need to go with a more compact option. Although one friend commented that the current toilet positioning allows for dual use in the living room if we need extra seating. 😄 

I then stayed in WV solo a few extra days to help get through some additional interior cabin projects: staining the windows (i'm in love with the sheepskin mitt I used for that job); sanding, staining, and sealing the kitchen countertops 🤩; painting the interior door; starting to assemble furniture; and running to the hardware store for all the things. I think I can finally see the finish line! I also met with the electric company about getting a power line to the barn.

With other life activities keeping our schedule full this weekend, we packed all our chores into Sunday. We applied the poly coats to the River Cabin floors and are loving the dark walnut color, especially on the older oak floor. We also finished assembling the Ikea kitchen cabinets (that may have involved a few curse words and threats of throwing them into the river 😀) and got them into position for our contractor's work this week. And we did lots  of mowing as the heavy rains last week turbo charged all our grass. In the garden, a new pump replacement part finally arrived and I got the last solar drip irrigation pump up and running. Now grow, garden, grow!

During the week, we sent in an application to get electricity hooked up to the barn (I see a chandelier project in our future!), and checked in with the internet folks on the status of our River Cabin request. Dan ended up chatting with someone on their tech team, and lo and behold, he is related to one of the folks hosting a wedding at our place in July. So that request will now be fast-tracked as we need it for their service. 😄 One of the benefits of rural living! 

We were full-on project warriors this weekend as we tackled sanding and staining of all the floors in the River Cabin. Our bodies are still vibrating from the floor sander! We went with a Minwax Dark Walnut stain inside the cabin to match the ceiling and trim, and a semi-transparent slate grey on the deck. We found the Behr deck stain super challenging to put on without leaving streaks so we may have to re-do that area at some point. (Boo.) But we are loving the interior floor color and the contrast with the white-washed stained wall boards. Next weekend: polying the floors! As our contractor keeps saying, two more weeks until we are done!!?!? [And note to self. I may want to plan a more relaxing Mother's Day next year, like to the Warm Springs Pools!]

During the week, I attended the last class of my 18 (!!) session WV Master Gardners Training. Now I have to start putting all this new knowledge to good use! I'm particularly excited to work on establishing several wildflower meadows around our event venue area.

This week we focused on staining the window frames for the River Cabin. Our contactor built the frames first both to make them easier to stain and install. They look gorgeous! I also finished building the kitchen cabinets. It is so nice that IKEA includes a helper elf with its new family plan 😄

Spring Break week for our kiddo! We had a huge list of things we planned to get done this week...until our contractor told us we needed to stain 90 more wall boards for the River Cabin. 😭 But in the wise words of Bluey's dad, Bandit, "Gotta be done!" Even with that huge task, we were able to also knock out painting the River Cabin kitchen cabinets, spreading grass and clover seeds on the newly graded areas around the Church and River Cabin, and prep the garden beds (including cleaning out and re-installing all the drip irrigation lines.) We also had a friend visiting (whom we met through Mark) that helped us tackle some wish list property chores--you know, those chores that you would love to do but always seem to get bumped down by other pressing tasks. He and Dan removed a bunch of old fences along the river bank and installed some really cool steps for a walking path to the church. Dan became completely enamored with a splurge-gawd-we-hope-it-works-for-this-price Fiskars Stand-up Weed Puller tool we bought to remove all our thistles. Once he figured out the proper technique, his eyes started to sparkle in glee. His "just ten more minutes" became several hours later!

We also found some time to enjoy Spring's gorgeousness on the property and take a hike around Brandywine Lake with some local friends. Plus we spotted a rafter of turkeys (yes, I had to look that up) walking in front of our Hilltop House!