I bought the farm --- Really

[Gregg Mason]

I've been meaning to post this for a few weeks, but just got around to taking a few pics today.

We bought 3 acres of this old chistmas tree farm a couple of weeks ago.

Hopefully we'll be starting construction of our new home around april/may. This is in southern NJ.

PS. The dog likes it too.

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[Jim Becker]

Congratulations, Gregg!!! That looks like a really nice place to settle, build and enjoy. I hope you'll share the construction, et al, too!

[tod evans]

looks good gregg, did you explain to your wife how the shop must be built before the house? tod

[Jerry Olexa]

Nice looking property. And you can sell some of the trees to pay for your new shop and tools...Very nice..

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Congrats Gregg! Looks like a beautiful place to build a home!

[Andy Hoyt]

Looks great Gregg. Tod is right - the shop comes first.

Your pooch looked as thought it might have been a touch cold out there, so I warmed him up for you.

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[John Bailey]

Andy the "Hoot" strikes again!:)

Gregg,

Looks great, I'm sure you're gonna love it. I'll echo the shop first sentiment. You'll have a place to do all that work on the house.

John

[Vaughn McMillan]

Beautiful looking piece of land, Gregg. I'd love to have an empty canvas like that from which to start building. Being from the left coast, I sometimes forget New Jersey has open space like your new place. (Much like many East-coasters forget Los Angeles is not all freeways, smog and people. ;) )

- Vaughn

[Ed Breen]

Congrats and best wishes Greg.
When we bought our own home we planted three acres of scoth and virginia pine. We wanted a side business. Then our own business took off!
Now we have three acres of wild christmas trees in the backyard. The birds, coyotes and deer love it, and I must admit I do Too.
Ed

[Jim O'Dell]

Greg, that's beautiful...and I imagine the Brit loves it. I know my Setters would. Lot's of places to hunt. Enjoy! Jim.

[Gregg Mason]

Thanks everyone, I'll keep posting progress. This has been in the works for close to a year now, but we just got the sub-division and permits(locals, county, state, pinelands, etc.) finalized.

Yup, there is still quite a bit of open space in south jersey. This is in Atlantic County. But were slowly seeing the farms, horse farms, etc. turn into developments and strips mall.

I am considering putting up some kind of storage/shop before starting the house. But most likely, I'll be going with a basement wood shop and it will be BIG.

And Andy, thanks for the upgrade to the pup. It was a bit cold. This was her first trip to the new place and boy was her sniffer going. BTW: She's an English Springer.

Gregg

[Dennis Peacock]

Congrats Gregg.....Nice looking property there and a wonderful spot to put a house.....but remember.....the shop gets built first.!!!;) :D

[Jim Becker]

Gregg...if there is any, any, any way you can do your shop as a separate building...do it! With that kind of acerage, siteing it should be relatively easy, too. A combo building that has space at one end for equipment (such as the tractor you are going to buy :) ) and so forth would work nicely... ;)

[Gary Shoemake]

For whatever reason i don't see the pics. But anyway I see that you're in Southern Jersey , are you moving further south? I'm in Cape May County, and you can get to much further south unless you can hold your breath. Anyway good luck with the purchase.

OOOPs!! Missed the post that said you were in Atlantic County. What Township is that? Looks to be Weymouth or the area around Buena.

[Gregg Mason]

Gary,

You were right on with the location. Millmay(Buena Vista Twnshp). Nice to know there's another Creeker in the area.
:D

[Bill Kelleher]

:) Hi I live in ocean county and currently buy my wood up in sayerville. Do you know any good sources down by you?
Thanks
Bill K

[Gary Herrmann]

And Andy, thanks for the upgrade to the pup. It was a bit cold. This was her first trip to the new place and boy was her sniffer going. BTW: She's an English Springer.

Gregg

Thought that was a Springer. Little too much bone mass for a Brittany. My neighbor had one growing up. Great dogs. Great lot too.

[Steve Clardy]

Sounds great. Our ranch/ farm is 31 acres. Work here at home in my shop. Really grand to be on the last electric pole on earth, except when we have to travel 22 miles to the grocery store. But we like it!!

[Barry O'Mahony]

PS. The dog likes it too.One piece of unsolicited advice re: the dog. Some urban residents, when first moving to the country, act as if they're moving to the wilderness, rather than than what is really a rural-residential area. They think their dog finally has the "space to run free" and they just let it run at large. Bad idea.

First off, it's illegal in most places to allow a dog to roam at-large. There's the obvious danger to the dog being hit by a car, which happens quite frequently. There's also the damage the dog can do. Even the most domesticated pooch seems to really get excited when they realize that there are these farm animals that run when they are chased. In the extreme they will bite the animals (I had a couple of dogs do a few thousand dollars of damage to a llama we had once; the llama died anyway). Even lacking direct attack, farmer is not going to look kindly at a dog that chases a bunch of pregnant ewes around the pasture to miscarriage-inducing exhaustion, and is likely respond with a shotgun. Then there's always the case of the $40,000 show horse that gets run into a fence.

Bottom line is that it's a real good idea for all involved to keep the dog confined to your property. Farm field fencing for 3 acres isn't very expensive, so this is imminently do-able.

[Frank Pellow]

Congratulations! It looks like a great site to live.

But, I'm with Jim. Why would you even consider a basement shop, when you have so much space for a shop building? I worked in basement/attic/garage shops most my life before I finally finished building a seperate building about a year and a half ago. Our house is now a lot cleaner and quieter and both my wife and I are a lot happier.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Oh good, the guy I buy Xmass Trees from is getting depleted.
I'll see you in the fall.

Wanna wack some of those weeds in a path and away from that nice fat one on the right rear please my wife hates briars.

[Kevin French]

Just sold the Farm a couple years ago. I hated to give up my 40 X 24, 3 story barn, BUT I gained a heated basement, 33 more acres and miles of woods and hills to walk in.

Good luck on the build.

Nothing like building a house or lreaning to dance to test a marriage.

Did the latter and just bearly made it. Won't try building a house at this point.

[Gregg Mason]

:) Hi I live in ocean county and currently buy my wood up in sayerville. Do you know any good sources down by you?
Thanks
Bill K

Bill here's a couple of places you could check out.



http://www.sjlumbermans.com/

http://www.lumber-2.com/

There's another one called Mauls lumber - no website.

[Gregg Mason]

Congratulations! It looks like a great site to live.

But, I'm with Jim. Why would you even consider a basement shop, when you have so much space for a shop building?


As much as I would like to have a dedicated shop building, it all come down to economics. I'd have to buy a lot more tools to justify having a dedicated building. Hey, that's not a bad idea!

To put in a decent sized heated shop would cost at around $30,000 doing most of the construction myself. I built a 28x28 detached garage(no heat or finishing inside) about 5 years ago and cost have gone up quite a bit since then. (a picture is in this thread http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=27821 )

The full basement will be about 45' x 54', and will be partition off into storage/utilities and shop area. Cost - about $8,000 over a standand crawl space.

[Frank Pellow]

As much as I would like to have a dedicated shop building, it all come down to economics. I'd have to buy a lot more tools to justify having a dedicated building. Hey, that's not a bad idea!

To put in a decent sized heated shop would cost at around $30,000 doing most of the construction myself. I built a 28x28 detached garage(no heat or finishing inside) about 5 years ago and cost have gone up quite a bit since then. (a picture is in this thread http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=27821 )

The full basement will be about 45' x 54', and will be partition off into storage/utilities and shop area. Cost - about $8,000 over a standand crawl space.
Gregg, I think that your $30,000 might be a bit high but it's certainly in the ballbark. Two years ago, I built my "decent sized heated shop" (mostly myself) for about $20,000 (US). To me and to my wife, the money to achieve a better working environment and a cleaner quieter house was worth it.