Galleries

First framing.

first floor bedroom 1.
guest bathroom.
first floor bedroom 2.
a lousy picture of all 3 framed rooms.

Needless to say, we’re a little anxious to get started on work.  We couldn’t even begin the application for the construction loan until the farmhouse was sold and out of our names.  So there’s a bit of lag time…… and we’re getting restless.  In the meantime, Billy placed our first lumber order with Tague Lumber (http://www.taguelumber.com/).  They were great: had everything in stock, delivered quickly, and came with a forklift so that they could distribute our order to the locations we need it.  Awesome.

Tom (TGWoodruff, LLC) has also been eager to move forward.  So, on Sunday morning, Billy and I got call call that he, and my father, were on their way to us.  We were going to do some preliminary framing!  So exciting.  Since this process has entailed a lot of waiting, it’s nice to see some progress.

We framed out the two first floor bedrooms and a bathroom; they are in the space over the garage.  One we call my parents’ room, so that they have a place to stay when they’re visiting us in PA.  The other is an additional guest room.  Those two rooms share the full bathroom in the hall.
The remaining space over the garage has been dubbed the “pool room,” since Billy acquired a free pool table (thanks, Andy!).

Here are some photos of the finished products from that day!
(Please ignore the trash piles, (as we didn’t have a dumpster yet), and the lousy photo quality.)
How cool is this?!
We’re on our way!

Demo

big wall BEFORE demo.
big wall AFTER demo.
mud room BEFORE demo.
mud room AFTER demo.
middle room BEFORE demo.
middle room AFTER demo.
work room BEFORE demo.
work room AFTER demo.
work room / middle room AFTER demo.

While we wait for our construction loan to go through, Billy and I have been busy with demolition.  It’s not demo in the traditional sense, as we’re trying to salvage all that we can to reuse it elsewhere in the renovation.

Towards the north side of the barn, there was a giant wall of 11″ wide planks, separating the main room (by the hay mow) from the room that’s over the garage.  We’ve taken out that entire wall.

On the south side of the barn, there were three rooms below the hay loft.  The side entrance led into the mud room, there was a room in the middle, and then a work room towards the front of the barn.  In our drawings, the mud room will remain in roughly the same place, but the other two rooms will come out to form the great room.  So, board by board, we tore those out as well.

Here are some before-and-after photos of demolition.

Interior tour

main room; looking out the barn doors.
main room; view from barn doors
main room; view from front corner.
hay mow; view from hay loft.
hay loft; view from ladder.
room over garage; view from small door.
hay loft upper left, 3 rooms underneath.

These are a few interior shots of the barn before we did much demo.  We had done a little work (as evidenced by the piles of salvaged wood in a few of the photos).  The biggest change was the hay mow; that space had been entirely walled in (about 5 ft. high, with a short ladder to get inside).  We pulled down each of the boards to reuse them elsewhere. (All were tongue and groove and toe-nailed in, and we’re trying to keep them in good condition…… so needless to say, demo has been a relatively slow process.)

Exterior tour

east elevation (front of the house)
south elevation (side entrance)
west elevation (back of the house)
barn door and side entrance
under the overhang

Here’s a quick exterior photo tour of the barn before we did much work.  The only change we’ve made shown in these photos was painting the milk house; (when we bought the property, it was a light blue to match the farmhouse, and we painted it gray).