The DIY Farmhouse Remodel...a little blood, lots of sweat, and a little tears
The Remodel
Why did we have to fall in love with a house that needed SO much work?! We must have asked ourselves this a million times during our year-long DIY renovation of our new Farmhouse.
I'll be honest, I am a lucky woman, my Husband, Father, and Brother are those men who can do anything, electricians by trade, but they did everything from heating to plumbing to carpentry work in this house.
(That's the hot mess the kitchen was after we gutted it, they're framing out a wall)
All I can say is thank God for my parents who helped out more than I can even say. What a long, sometimes frustrating project this was. But in the end it was worth it! Every cut, scrape, injury, frustration and even the occasional argument was worth it. We have our dream Homestead, we did it!
The parts we lucked out on:
Great bones!
There were two small structural issues thanks to water damage that were quick, easy fixes, but otherwise the place was built to last. There were wood floors throughout, which we did have to sand and re-finish, but we didn't have to replace them!
The parts that sucked:
Mouse poop. It.was.EVERYWHERE. Ick.
The roof, yup, had to re-shingle that sucker!
The first floor ceilings, they were the old cardboard tiles....we ripped them all out, WHAT a mess! We replaced them with ship lap.
The heat, there was NONE on the whole 2nd floor, in an area that can hit -20F in the Winter!
Before-and-after pics
Let's start with the kitchen, mostly because it's my favorite room!
(the kitchen mid-demo)
I don't have any pictures of right before we started pulling all the cabinets out, mostly because we didn't take possession of the house for 2 months after settlement (long story), and the day we did we were SUPER anxious to get started!
The kitchen used to be divided by the cabinets and a doorway you see above, we ripped all that out and made one large room:
(after we ripped out the cabinets and doorway that divided the room)
The floors in this room were a HUGE project thanks to what used to be the kitchen area being covered with linoleum and under that a tar adhesive that wouldn't sand off, it had to be hand-scraped--husband to the rescue again:
(wetting and scraping the tar from the wood floor, a multi-day, super-messy project for him)
We think it turned out pretty amazing! (if we do say so ourselves!)
The range hood is probably my favorite thing in the room--husband made it from reclaimed pallet wood! (I'll have to ask him to do a DIY post on it at some point)
I found an inspiration pic similar to it on Pinterest and asked him to make one. I swear, Pinterest is a wealth of inspiration and ideas for projects like this! I kept all my ideas for this house on a farmhouse board I created on there: click here to see it.
(excuse the mess, I think I had been making sourdough bread and rolls this day)
Because there's so much we did to the house I had to split this up into a few posts. Click HERE to see the rest of the house remodel.
Thanks for reading,
Jess
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