We Moved Our Entire Farm - Chapter 1

It’s not every day you meet someone that says, “Yea, we moved our house.”

Well, today you do. That’s right…we had someone literally pick up our house (and our barn) and physically move it to a new location. During the spring/summer of 2022 we had reached a point where we weren’t crazy about where we lived. I mean, we loved our house. It was a 140-year-old farmhouse that we bought about 13 years prior, spent almost a full year (and lots of blood, sweat, and tears) completely renovating. And by completely renovating, I mean taking it all the way down to the studs. It was so neat to see the old beams that were held together with oak pegs and mortise and tenon joints. We even found some antique treasures and old newspapers that were dated in the early 1900s! 

So anyway, we weren’t loving where our house was. It was close to the highway and railroad tracks, and we were very limited on land we could use for pasture because all around us was good farm ground. In addition to that, the basement was in pretty rough shape. We’re talking block and dirt walls. It leaked; we couldn’t store anything down there, and the only entrance to the basement was through a tiny stairwell in the kitchen. Our appliances that lived down there, like the water heater and AC/furnace had constant problems because of the humidity and frequent leaks. And the foundation was not exactly level anymore.

There was a piece of land not too far away from us that we really loved. It was on my parents' property, and there had never been a house there before. Just some old barns and a 90-foot-tall concrete silo. Every once in a while, we would talk about how it would be the perfect spot to build a house. I’m not sure who said it first, or when it was said, but the question was asked, “What if we just move our house?” Just move our house, like it was as simple as rearranging furniture. But we knew of a family who moved a house several years earlier and thought maybe that was an option. Over the course of this process, we found out that there are quite a few people we personally know that had moved houses over the years.

After the ridiculousness of that idea wore off, and we did a little research, we found out that we could, in fact, move our house and remodel for less than what it would cost to build a brand-new house. And we would also get to keep the memories and character and personal ties we had to our 1880s farmhouse.

Actual footage of our house being moved across the field to it's new location on December 21, 2022. The truck moving the house got stuck, so that is my dad in the tractor pulling the moving truck and our house.

At the time of writing this, it's August 2024, so I’m starting from the beginning and working forward towards present day. I’m excited to take a trip back down memory lane and revisit the whole process of moving our house and barn. As I’ve been looking through photos to develop a timeline and try to remember what was done and when different things happened, I’m forced to realize how far we have come with this adventure. And it has been an adventure in every sense of the word! But every time I come across pictures of this project it makes me smile.

Over the next couple months, you will hear the story (and see lots of pictures) of how we took this idea, that everyone thought was crazy - literally moving our entire home and farm - to what now has become the best decision we ever made.

Read the next chapter here.

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