Friday, December 2, 2016

Part 4: Before and After Pictures


The Farmhouse renovation has been quite a process!  It has transformed the house into the kind of a comfortable place where you can settle right down-  whether to find a nook for reading, to take in the view from the back deck, to watch a movie in the rec room, to chat with friends on the front porch, or to catch a few winks in one of the comfortable beds. 


Here are some pictures of parts of the house before and after the renovation project-

Before
After





















Here are views of the living room with restored fireplace and original walls and floor.  The floor is finished in black walnut juice (made by soaking black walnut hulls in water) and tung oil- apparently this used to be  a common floor finish in our area of Virginia.  It works great- we refinished the floors this way when we bought the house in 2009 and haven’t felt the need to refresh the finish until now. No sanding was required-  just another coat of walnut juice and tung oil.



The downstairs bedroom had been the master bedroom.  The ceiling was so low and saggy that anyone taller than 6 feet would have to stoop in the middle of the room.  We raised the ceiling considerably and re-used some of the wood reclaimed from the house for the floor, wainscot and for ceiling beams. 














We reorganized the bathroom and laundry room downstairs for more space in the bathroom and better workflow in the laundry room.  We also added a deep sink- very useful!





The kitchen layout was improved for better workflow and to accommodate a dishwasher. The cabinets were painted white, and a closed pantry was removed and replaced with open shelving.  We kept the marmoleum floor which had been installed in 2009-  it was incredibly tough, standing up to months of construction traffic- and it still looks great.






The upstairs floor plan was changed significantly, enlarging the original front bedroom, eliminating a short hallway, creating a landing at the top of the stairs along with a new bedroom and bathroom.

Here is the before and after view of the bedroom in the old section of the house. 






A back bedroom became our rec room




And we added a new bedroom and bath




Another new addition was the upper back deck-  it has become one of our favorite spaces in the house. There is a great view of the vegetable garden from there as well as a long view of neighboring fields and the Southwest Mountains in the distance.




And let’s not forget the front porch- now big enough for a comfortable conversation.  It’s on the shady side of the house, so it is a great place to sit on a summer afternoon. 




The Farmhouse is  available year-round for farmstay vacations…. 
Why not give it a try? You’ll find details on our website.