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Jim and Rose Munroe renovated the abandoned farmhouse at 39 Colebrook Road.
'Before' image of the Munroes' house. |
EVERY TIME I drove
I hoped someone would save the beautiful old trees and flowers on the property instead of bulldozing the land and building a small neighborhood. All my friends felt the same way.
The house on Colebrook Road in southern Stafford County looked forlorn and lonely, with its very own garbage dump piled behind the back porch.
Then one day I drove by and the "For Sale" sign was gone. A fence had been constructed and the garbage had started to disappear.
The next time I drove by, there were chickens, goats and a miniature horse in the enclosure and the house was starting to look loved. The overgrowth had been removed to reveal beautiful flower beds.
A sign proclaimed that the property was called Cricket Knoll Farm.
I had to know who had done this miraculous transformation. My editor gave me the green light, and I stuck a note in the mailbox asking the owners to call me.
Apparently, I was not the first.
Jim and Rose Munroe said they have had more than 30 strangers knock on their door since they moved in last October. Like me, the visitors have all been enthusiastic about the couple's hard work and improvement of the property.
They've had people leave cookies, fertilizer and other gifts. Some people have even offered to help with the animals.
The Munroes have done all the work on the house, outbuilding and gardens themselves. It's their passion--this is the second rehab they have completed.
The first was a cabin they renovated in North Carolina, where they lived previously.
Rose, 43, a native of the Philippines, has had her own tool belt since she was 9 years old. She learned how to use tools from her father, who is a carpenter.
While Jim, a 39-year-old lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps, was deployed to Iraq, Rose and her father built a horse barn and put gutters on the house in North Carolina.
Rose has even built some of the furniture for the new house herself. She used an old door discovered in the shed to build a TV stand.
The couple said the house was in bad shape when they moved in.
The Morgan family originally built the house in 1926. Mrs. Morgan lived there till she died, but the house had been empty for several years.
The Munroes moved into the house last October and lived there for a while before they got around to replacing the nonfunctional stove in the kitchen.
Rose recalls how excited she was to finally be able to cook a hot meal for Jim. She went to turn on the stove and nothing happened. The fancy new stove wouldn't work, due to a fuse issue they eventually figured out.
Rose marched out to the garbage pile behind the porch and yanked an old grill off the top. Determined to have a hot meal, she made vegetable soup on top of the grill and has the pictures to prove it!
Jim, who grew up in the country, is a self-taught handyman and gardener. He said he and Rose just know what to do to beautify their property.
One of those things is building a fence around the perimeter from wood saved from an old barn in Maryland.
They also used reclaimed bricks to build a patio over the site of the former garbage dump. It took seven truck and trailer loads to cart away all the debris.
Now there is a beautiful area with two different water fountains where the Munroes love to sit in the evenings.
When asked where they came up with the name Cricket Knoll Farm, the Munroes grin and tell of how crickets were all they heard at night when they moved in. Jim said the property doesn't really sit on a hill, so they came up with "knoll."
Four goats, eight chickens, two mini horses, a cat and a dog make up the menagerie on the farm. One of the horses is away being bred.
While the Munroes love animals, the pets are really for the benefit of Munroe's daughter, Thailynn, who is 13. She is an "animal freak" and loves to come visit the farm on weekends.
Jim Munroe has three daughters, and Rose has one grown daughter.
The couple met about three years ago while Rose was working on Jim's tooth.
They were married the week before last in the backyard of the farm, and plan to hold a big celebration next summer for all their friends and family.
I invited myself because
