Our New Home

A pile of lumber arrived on Labor Day of 2022. I was surprised Menards delivered on a holiday. Our construction crew began working on our new home the next week, and we moved in on our 42nd anniversary in January 2023.

I tossed in a photo of the project midway. Zook Builders were our contractors. We couldn't have been any more pleased with their work. They are in much demand in our Mennonite community, and we were super happy they agreed to take on our project. 

In the photo above, notice our old farmhouse with new construction only a few feet away. The old farmhouse was already standing when my wife's grandparents got married and moved here in 1916.

We bought this Amish-built bed from Midwest Woodworks, an Amish furniture store west of Kalona. The mattress is from an Amish-owned business in Indiana and is hand-stitched, almost like a quilt. As you can see, our little ornery dog, Wesley, thinks we built the home for him, and we merely stay here as his servants.

We took these pictures the day we moved in. We've had a chance to add a little decor to improve the ambiance since. If you want to see our Amish-built hickory cabinets a little closer, check out the builder's website.

Heritage-Kitchens_Amish-Made_Kalona-IA_

We feel quite at home here already. My wife and I have been talking about adding some cedar shudders to match the cedar posts. Notice the old windmill hovering over the house. My in-laws were still using the windmill to power their well until shortly before they moved to town in 2000. 

Our hickory theme spilled over onto the front porch with this bent-hickory porch swing and glider. You might notice our bar stools in the kitchen are also Amish-made bent-hickory.

Hickory rocking chairs are a long-standing Amish/Mennonite tradition. We have two in our home. One is a family heirloom from my wife's Mennonite family. The other rocker was a wedding gift from my parents. We sat in a set of these rockers for our wedding ceremony. 

Here is a link to a blog I wrote about our Amish-built, 20-foot-long table.

Amish Built Table

Our "finish carpenter" drove a buggy from his home to ours. He tied his horse in our barn. You can see my horses in the background eyeing the buggy. They seemed to enjoy having a horse visitor trot into the lane. 

Coincidentally, our Amish carpenter grew up in the home where my wife's great-grandpa and grandma raised her grandma Katie. The same grandmother who moved to this place in 1916. 

Here's our wedding photo. We headed to the Amana Colonies after our wedding. As you might know, I write Amish fiction, but my latest novel has an Amana Colony setting.

Novels by Thomas Nye