Howdy all, Adrienne here.

Three months ago we created this blog thinking it would be a great place for us to share not only our new house with others, but also to share the blood, sweat, and tears that we put into it to make it into our forever home. Since then, we’ve shared a whole lotta nothin’. Let me apologize for our silence. Life has been very busy indeed!

We have been making quiet a few improvements to the property, and we will be making an extra effort to document what we’re doing and posting about it here. Now that the weather is getting more Winter-like, we’ll be spending more time indoors, and hopefully some of that time will be spent typing dutifully away.

We are excited to share what we’ve done and what we still have yet to do. We are looking forward to any ideas you may have on various things (because I still have no earthly idea what to do with the iguana enclosure), and yes, we even want you to tell us when we are doing something wrong. This is our first house, and even though Jeremy and I are geniuses who can hop, chew gum, and install a ceiling fan all at the same time, while counting backwards from 100 in Swahili, we are bound to do something weird and/or just plain wrong.

We are organizing our thoughts, and our pictures, and hopefully there will be a few posts going up in the next few days. If not, feel free to call Jeremy and complain, because if you were to complain to me, I would just blame him anyway. Isn’t that what wives are for?

Have a fantastic Sunday evening everyone!

Hello!

Jackalope Hollow Ranch (Adrienne has a thing for jackalopes) is a 10.5 acre property in the Virginia City Highlands area, which is in the Virginia Range mountains above Reno. This blog will serve to document our process of setting up and improving the house and the property, our mistakes along the way, and our successes (I hope). We bought the property in June of 2013, and it has:

• 4,034 square feet of living area
• three bedrooms
• a play room
• one master bathroom suite with a sauna, jacuzzi, and steam shower
• one shared bathroom for the two downstairs rooms
• one half-bathroom
• a very spacious kitchen
• a three car attached garage

On the property, we also have:

• a large horse barn with 3 horse stalls, two other stalls, a storage room, and a large central work area
• a chicken coop
• a hay shed
• a large rectangular horse corral
• a small circular horse corral
• a large garden area (which is in dire need of work)
• 10.5 acres of mostly sagebrush, piñon pines, and rocks
• a driveway of more than 1,000 feet

Let’s take a look around the property…

From above, the property looks like this:

You can see the house in the bottom left corner, with the barn and outbuildings off to the right, and a long driveway with a bend in it. Near the top there’s a large rectangular horse corral, and there’s a smaller circular one at the bend of the driveway.

Coming up the driveway you’d see the front of the house:

The front of the house is dominated by a large stonework facade, and a bay window looking into the dining room. To the right, there’s a three car garage.

Just inside the front door there is more stonework:

This stone central pillar is a major feature of both floors of the house, and has a double-sided fireplace downstairs, another upstairs, and has several bookcases on either side. Also in the stonework is a rather strange thing which you can see to the right on the first floor: I believe it was supposed to be a living enclosure for some sort of animal. Maybe  a reptile or bird?

There is hardwood flooring throughout most of the house (except the kids bedrooms and playroom, and part of the master suite). It’s in pretty rough shape in the main kitchen area especially, so it will take some work to make it really shine.

To the right from the front door, we’ll find the kitchen:

It has two large islands with granite slabs, tons of counter space and cabinets, and a commercial 48-inch range (which is missing one of its doors). It also has some kind of weird features: the space under the microwave is a dedicated space for a commercial stand mixer, and there is a space inside the door next to it for another double oven (which is now missing, but we don’t need it anyway).

Turning to the right slightly is the washing up area and the dining area:

The dining area has a nice chandelier and there’s a large bay window.

To the left from the front door is the sitting room:

This is just a big open area with a wood burning stove in the corner. It will be awesome for reading a book on a cold winter day.

Heading upstairs to the master suite, which more-or-less consumes the entire 2nd story:

The central stonework from downstairs continues into the upstairs area, which is open to below via a very large area with a railing. The wood floors continue upstairs as well. The portion on this side of stonework is the “lounge” and has a nice cabinet and mini-fridge:

The master suite is on the other side, and has a large wood-floored room with a balcony, a large bathroom, a sauna, a walk-in shower, and a jetted jacuzzi tub (which is currently broken). It also has a separate toilet room with a toilet and a urinal (have you ever seen one in a house?!).

The jacuzzi and shower (behind the glass block):

The vanity and the sauna peeking out (the door you can see there):

The toilet room, with urinal:

Enough with the indoors, though, we didn’t buy this house to spend all our time inside…

Outside, we have a large horse barn and chicken coop:

Here’s a closer shot of the chicken coop:

And the inside of the barn from the front:

And looking over into the stalls:

Even though we don’t have horses of our own, and probably won’t for a long time…

Wild horses roam the entire Virginia Range and come onto our property all the time. These three were munching on our property when we got back from Reno one day.

We look forward to many future posts about our various projects, the house, the land, and everything we learn along the way. This is a learning adventure, and a long one, and we know we’ll make some mistakes along the way. We’d love to hear from you if you have any ideas or questions, and feel free to come by and give us a hand!

Jeremy and Adrienne