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18th Century Farmhouse Reno
Hi all!
My husband and I live in the family farmhouse on our farm in NJ. We are just now working on renovating the downstairs completely. We can date the house back to around 1750. We began last night in the dining room by removing paneling and chipping away at the horsehair plaster. There are 6 fireplaces in the home and they are all covered in, so we started with the one and we'll see how it goes. Here's a picture so far. (you can see part of it we opened. if you look hard you can see on the right where the opening starts to curve down and towards the top you can see the wood "mantle")
We have a lot of work ahead of us for sure. On our to do list is to continue uncovering this fireplace and re-mortaring the joints. We have all hardwood floors through out the home and they are the narrow cut wood pieces. We kept them upstairs but plan on removing them downstairs to expose the original wide plank floor which we hope to refinish.
There's a lot more on the list after this room including gutting the kitchen and replacing every window in the house.
Tags: 18th, century, farmhouse, fireplace, renovation
Views: 903
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bill Hendrickson on -
Check out my blog here. I just put some pictures of the floors that are in the process of a light stain.
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Permalink Reply by Jim Finley on -
I have about 10 lbs of old square nails - just couldnt bear to throw them away.
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Permalink Reply by Bill Hendrickson on
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Wow, like how the fireplace looks. Boy, I am so happy we did not have to take it down to the studs. Good Luck.
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Permalink Reply by Andrea Csiszlak on -
Hi all! long time no see!!
Time for an update. We now have sheetrock up in the living/dining room and spackling is going on now. The floors are super fun to sand down with the paint sticking to the sandpaper and rendering it useless after only a few feet per sheet. Ugh! Anyway, we sanded the edges and it's beautiful! I know, I know, pics to come. It'll just need a coat of stain and perhaps a light poly coat.
We started ripping into the kitchen this weekend. What a project! We worked on only half of it and uncovered the fireplace which is even bigger than the one here that I put pictures of. The wooden beam in it must be a foot square! It's all bricked in and mortared. We debated on opening it up, but the furnace pipe runs through the back of the fireplace so we're going to just clean it up and give the bricks a sealer coat. We can see on the one side a partial set of stairs so I'm excited to open that up to see the rest too. The floors will be beautiful but let me tell you, the roofing tar paper under 4 layers of other flooring to get to them was just rediculous! We had to scrape the paper off then sand as much of the tar as we could off for now.
Our kitchen cabinets are being built now. I'm elated about that. I do have to tell you though, I ordered a large farmhouse sink and although it's beautiful, there are some spots in the glaze. The company refuses to send me a new one. I thought for the price those things are that it should come in next to flawless but the company disagrees and won't do anything about it. Vintage Tub and Bath will never get another cent out of me as long as I live! Anyhow, that's the update for now. I'll hopefully get some more pictures soon to share. Hope all of you are doing well!
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Permalink Reply by Sarah Felix Burns on -
wow - sounds like so much work, but so much fun at the same time with all the discoveries! Are you living with your kids in the house during the renovations? If so, do you find any negative health issues like asthma or allergies being kicked up due to renovations?
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Permalink Reply by Andrea Csiszlak on
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Yes, we are living here. It's tough but we're managing. The dust is unreal. I try to vacuum it up asap and am constantly wiping everything down. I also try to keep bedroom doors closed. My daughter does have asthma and I have year round allergies. We don't let her around where ever it is we're working and so far she's been Ok. As far as allergies, in the beginning I had some real sinus pain but just upped the meds and used the neti pot and have been fine since.
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