Henny Penny Farmette

Every story needs a setting, a world in which something happens. For my cozy mysteries, I didn’t set out to create a new world for my coterie of characters, I just appropriated details of the life I am living as a farmette dweller.

Spring beekeeping involves rescuing swarms, which can be quite dramatic

Daily chores on our Henny Penny Farmette provide plenty of fodder for my fictional stories. Our daily activities include chicken care, garden and orchard work, beekeeping, cooking and preservation of vegetables and fruits, renovating the antiquated farm house, fixing sheds, and building fences and retaining walls.

Stories need a sense of verisimilitude for readers to suspend disbelief and join the fictional journey. Drawing upon my real-life experiences, I can easily integrate my adventures in my books. And not only my activities, but also experiences of my architect husband who is ever-occupied with making our old house more liveable.

In this 1953 photo, our little house sat in a great, big field with not much around it; the dwelling faced Mount Diablo (still does) and the Delta and great central valley lie to the northeast

The tax assessor told me that our dwelling might have been a mining shack in the late 1940s (we live near Mt. Diablo and Lime Ridge where mining and rock quarrying were once important industries). We’ve also been told that our little house might have later served as a farm home (we live less than two miles from designated agricultural farmland). The structure desperately needed updating when we found it almost five years ago. But as settings go, the house and farmette work great.

Creating a pattern for the kitchen counter back splash

We have since used recycled and reclaimed materials, sale items at big box DIY stores, and gifts (like lumber, stone, and windows/doors) from friends who do demolition on estates. We’ve visited companies that sell granite and asked for permission to take broken stone from their dumpsters. Thus, we’ve created a lovely bathroom floor with found materials that we’ve cut and sanded.

Light from a crystal chandelier dances off the new granite counter, but the floors were not yet installed when this photo was taken

Of course, the exact details of our daily activities may not make their way into my stories, but versions of them sometimes do. At the very least, such activities inform my storytelling. I daresay the chickens and bees serve important roles in my mysteries. And each new day brings new adventures, from foxes showing up to skunks and raccoons raiding our fruit and nut trees.

Lately, a new chicken showed up on our property (a heritage chicken that had the ability to fly over my neighbor’s fence). She’s been staying here ever since. Wild turkeys often take a path through the property and once or twice a gorgeous stallion named Romeo and its owner ride by and say hello. Such events can add textural details to the setting of a story.

Plywood underlay for countertops

Built in 1947, the Henny Penny Farmette cottage didn’t look like a dream home when we first saw it. However, we knew we could make it not only habitable but functional and pretty. There had been a family living there before we purchased the property. They left behind some kitchen cabinets but that was about all.

At one point the house had some pretty hardwood flooring. I know this because I met a neighbor who bought it from the family who lived here. Apparently, most of the interior that wasn’t nailed down was sold or otherwise removed. When we got here, there was no bathroom sink or appliances (unless you count an old refrigerator standing abandoned on the land).

Bathroom and kitchen became construction priorities for us. From a retail marble outlet, we secured permission from the owner to take what we wanted from the store’s dumpster. We found enough discarded marble to create a guest bathroom floor  in one color and a master bathroom floor (in two colors). It meant my husband Carlos would have to painstakingly cut the tile, but he was up to it.

We found marble countertops discounted by a supplier in Oakland. We also discovered that the supplier had some pieces in a discard pile (for a fraction of the cost but he would only sell it on Sundays) requiring us to make another trip. We like the “L” shaped counter, but had to cut the holes for the sink and cooktop. Carlos created a beautiful sunburst as the focal area on the wall behind the cooktop.

Creating a pattern for insertion

We discovered a closeout sale on Italian honed marble but had to drive for two hours to Sacramento to get it. The price was great but the speckled marble was rather plain. I asked Carlos to cut some rectangles in the same color as the sunburst and we played around with different patterns finally settling on a simple one.

Sunburst cut from granite by Carlos

It has taken almost three years for Carlos and I to finally finish the kitchen (although we haven’t been working on it full-time, there are other tasks around the farmette that must be done, too). We are pleased with the result.

A little more finishing work and we’ll be done

Our refrigerator and dishwasher do not match the other appliances that we have in the kitchen, but they were gifts that we will use until we need to replace them. We got the remainder of the appliances (all stainless steel) at a fire sale price for the lot from a friend going through divorce. But the kitchen is quite functional. Best of all, we did it for a fraction of the cost of a kitchen remodel at today’s prices and in the process kept materials out of  landfill.

Carlos building a kitchen garden window frame on the kitchen floor

At only 1,000 square feet, our farmhouse, at times, felt claustrophobic to me after we moved here in 2010. I needed windows and lots of light.  I wanted hardwood floors and granite countertops. But I also wanted to reuse, recycle, and do the work as inexpensively as possible. My husband Carlos is an architect and I’m his number one (dare I say visionary) helper. Together we’ve done remodels on both coasts, so a little farmhouse should be no problem, right? We had no idea how much work was (and still is) ahead of us.

The window frame is evolving

Fans of network television home improvement shows will tell you that if you ever want to make your money back on a renovation, fix the kitchen and the bathrooms. So, of course, those were high on our list of priorities. Rotting wood and mountains of broken ceramic tile had to be carted away before we could even start our interior work. But we did put in a marble kitchen floor. Carlos laid it out in a pretty pattern. It looks lovely, is easy to keep clean, and feels cool under bare feet in the summer.

The finished kitchen garden window with granite base and wood molding

Finally, we began to slowly and methodically open up the space. Inside the kitchen, we installed the back splash of Italian honed marble that we bought at a closeout sale. We reused the garden window. For me, windows are a lovely way to link indoor with outdoor space. Framing the window and adding a flourish of crown molding finished it off nicely. Now I can look out on a maple tree, roses, and lavender planted along the fence line when I do dishes. Anchored in front of that window, I incubate my ideas for my books and dream of what renovation project to tackle next.