Demo part 2

Demolition continues at our farmhouse.  Our 30 yard dumpster has arrived and we have been busy, busy, busy!

Our 30 yard dumpster is nearly full already!  Since our last post we have cleaned up the kitchen demo, gutted the half bath near the kitchen, and removed the living room and dining room ceilings (to access the 2nd story so that we can install radiant heat.)

As we expected the beams are awesome!  Original, hand honed beams!  Now we just need to decide what to do with them...

Kitchen Demo Day

"A journey of a thousand miles, begins with a single step."
~ Lao Tzu

After months of thinking and researching, the rubber has finally met the road!  Today was the first day of construction at our farm house as new homeowners.  (Though, technically, we have already done work on the house.  The bank requested that a list of items be completed prior to closing but that is for another post.)

Following my predetermined order of operations, the first phase is demolition.  We will be gutting the: 1) entire kitchen 2) entire first floor half bath 3) entire first floor ceilings (to make way for the second story radiant floor heating)  4) second floor bathroom  5) master suite divider walls (for open concept en suite) 6) entire den  7) entire attic 8) basement and foundation.  We chose demolition as our first step in order to utilize the 30 yard dumpster which it being delivered this week.

 The largest of the six demos is by far the kitchen, so naturally we chose that! Luckily, we have many close friends who are generous with their time and eager to help.  Last week, we sent out a few texts and... three buddies to the rescue!  Armed with sledge hammers, picks, axes, shovels and coke zero, the sheet rock and wood began flying around 10:30am. 

THE BEFORE

DURING

 THE AFTER

Total work time: 4 hours.  Not bad for only four guys.  It pays to have beastly friends.  We all wore dust masks in a feeble attempt to not breath in the dust.  By the end, we were all sneezing and blowing unsightly snot rockets but that is all in a days work.  We sat down around 1pm to eat lunch in the living room and found shards of brick on the couch which is 15 feet from the kitchen.  Go hard or go home I guess.

OUR CREW (minus 1)

Left to right: Rob Daly, Me (Ted Wilson), Tommy Nic (Anthony Petrock - Absent)

There's Gold in them hills!

Well maybe not actual gold but in addition to awesome architectural finds, we found a dime from 1920 and a very unique old necklace!  Also, depending on what you consider treasure, we found a great deal of mouse droppings (evidence of all kinds of critters which once called our kitchen home).

The good news is we uncovered TONS of huge original hand honed wood beams.  Many of the beams are hand notched and wooden dowels driven in as nails.  Some may look at the after pictures above and see an ugly disaster but we see the potential for a gorgeous finished kitchen with exposed original ceiling beams!  Here are a few pictures of our finds:

As you can see, some of those beams are huge!  The ceiling beams in the kitchen are true 4" x 10"s and the posts are true 8" x 10"s!  Some light sanding and maybe some stain and the exposed beams will really add to the wow factor.  

All that is left in the kitchen is removing all electric, plumbing and nails.  Last, we will remove the floor to gain access to the crawl space (I'm sure there will be more surprises). Once the floor is up, we will install a vapor barrier, new plumbing, new electric and insulate before re-installing the floor.

Until then...

And so it begins

Our Old Farm House  

And So It Begins...

Welcome to our farm blog, where those who wish to, can follow our progress as we create our forever home. My name is Ted Wilson and my wife is Abigail. Since I work in Eastern NJ and Abigail works in Eastern PA, we set out looking for our forever home somewhere in between. Abigail is a teacher which allowed her to spend a good portion of her summer browsing the MLS, looking for our dream home.

The criteria: acreage, have a pond or stream, be affordable, be within 1 hour of my work, and lots character. This proved to be quite difficult since my business is in NJ over looking NYC. Homes that fit our wish list weren't exactly abundant in the most densely populated area of the country, but we pressed on with our search. Armed with the internet and Google Earth, Abigail sent possible listings to me all summer but we both agreed that none of them were ideal. Then, she found "the one" on a Thursday night and by Friday morning we had a appointment with the listing agent to view the property.

From the moment we pulled into the driveway we knew this was the one. The property is hidden from the street by a long driveway protected by trees. Within minutes, we had made up our minds, that this was where we were going to spend the rest of our lives! There was one minor problem... the home was in such poor condition that the home inspector actually recommended a complete tear down as one option! The entire reason we were buying the home was for the character so that was not a option. And so began our journey of resorting our old farm home.

The day of closing

This blog will serve both for others to follow our journey and as a time capsule so that we can re-live our journey in years to come. Perhaps we can even serve as a inspiration to others who are considering taking on a similar project. 

Below are a few pictures from our first ever visit to the property on August 14th, 2014.