First off, let me say that I love this old house. It's not the house that I grew up in though. My parents didn't buy the farm until 1984, my senior year of high school. However, I remember driving by this house my whole life and always saying, "I want to live in the green house!" (It used to be green as you'll see in the pictures.) I did live in this house for several years because I lived at home throughout college and commuted back and forth daily. I think that if my parents would not have bought this house, I would have moved away for college. But, I just had to live in it for a while, after all, it had been a life-long dream.
When my parents bought the farm, that my husband and I now own and operate, the lots, barns, fences, etc... were in great shape. The house was not. The old two-story farmhouse had been built in the late 1800's and sat right smack on the ground. No foundation whatsoever. And when you stood inside, you could see an obvious slope in the floors. The downstairs had lots of small rooms.....a small back room that was sort of a mudroom, a kitchen, a dining room, a small bedroom, a living room, another bedroom with a bathroom, and a small room that held two small closets. Upstairs there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. The old fireplace in the living room had some issues and was not safe to use. The only downstairs heat came from gas heaters. There was no upstairs heat. Window units provided the air conditioning. The washer and dryer were in the garage, which was not attached to the house. The old original wood-paned windows were still in place. Most rooms were lit with lamps rather than ceiling light fixtures. There was no dishwasher in the kitchen. The old original cabinets, that had many coats of paint and varnish on them, still stood in the kitchen. And, I'm sure there were other issues, but these things are what I remember.
A lot of people would have torn this house down, but my parents tackled the project with love and patience. And seven months later, we moved in. The outside wasn't finished, but the inside was.
The first order of business, was to hire a house-jack company to come in and lift the house off the ground so that a pier and beam foundation could be built. Then the house was lowered onto the new foundation, insulation was added and the brick was delivered for the new exterior.
Meanwhile, the remodeling of the inside was taking place. And I wish I could find pictures of the remodel stages inside the house, but I can't. If I ever do, that'll be a story for another day. But I will tell you that the fireplace was rebuilt so that it could be used. The washer and dryer were moved into the mudroom. New kitchen cabinets were built. A dishwasher was added. Walls were torn down and the small bedroom, dining room and living room all became one large open area. Beams were placed on the ceiling to run electrical wiring through for ceiling light fixtures and ceiling fans. (Window units remained as the only AC and gas heaters and the fireplace as the only heat.) All the windows were replaced with storm windows. Both bathrooms were remodeled. All rooms were repainted. And, to my sorrow, new carpet covered all the original hardwood floors. New linoleum covered the kitchen and mudroom floors. The new fireplace was rocked and my father made the mantle himself. It was made from a bodark limb from a tree on the land that he grew up on.
The original wooden screen door on the front was re-screened, re-stained, and rehung.
The outside was bricked and arches were added to the front porch.
The first Christmas in the house was amazing. I talked my mother into buying a lot of Christmas decorations! All my life, we'd only had a tree and a string of outside lights on the roof. I told her that we finally had a big old farmhouse to decorate and we needed to do it up right! We had decorations in every room! And, for the first time ever, we cut down a real tree, on our own farm, and brought it to the house and strung popcorn and cranberries and decorated it! And, to top it off, we had snow!
The hard part of this story is that eleven years later, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. She lived for 14 months after the diagnosis. She passed away in this house. My dad lived for 14 years without her. He passed away in a hospital, but all he wanted was to get back to his home. We were trying to set up hospice care at home, but he just wasn't strong enough to make the move. The house has been vacant for the last few years. It's not in good shape at all. The roof leaks, the ceiling is cracking and falling in. The well has gone dry and there's no water to the house. The floors are uneven again. The trim around the windows is cracking. Eventually, we will tear it down. But, before we do, we are going to get that mantle that my dad made, we are going to salvage all the hardwood floors that we can, we will take that old screen door, and any shiplap we find and we will incorporate all these things into the new farmhouse that we will build on the property. It'll be a new "old" farmhouse......
in honor of my mom and dad.
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