Smiths on the Ridge

Well, I think we are finally at the “peak” of the uphill climb we have been on since October 2021. Every single bit of plaster was removed, every wall torn out, every ceiling brought down. We have a shell at this point. So, I am definitely not saying we don’t have A LOT of work still ahead of us, but we ARE at least in the rebuilding phase of this Farmhouse Renovation!

If you remember the to-do list from our first post in this series you’ll understand….

• General
  • Flooring- All old flooring is gone, new flooring needs to be put in and hardwood needs refinished
  • Insulation and Drywall
  • New Ceilings- currently there are drop ceilings throughout the downstairs
  • Fireplaces-there are 5 fireplaces in the home that have been made unusable. We would like to open 2 of them up slightly and refinish them for gas fireplaces.
  • Front door- currently there are two front doors. We would like to combine them into a double door
• Kitchen
  • Cabinets and countertops
  • Island
  • Sink
  • Oven
  • Range hood
  • Lighting
  • Flooring- refinish hardwood

• Living Room
  • Flooring- refinish hardwood
  • Lighting
  • Remove the door to the bedroom and built-in bookcase
• Bathrooms
  • Complete demo
  • Rebuild 2 walls
  • Remove the cast bathtub/shower
  • add fittings for washer/dryer
  • build custom shower stall
  • build vintage dresser sink
  • Add bathroom upstairs 
• Master Bedroom
  • Move closet
• Upstairs bedrooms
  • Expose fireplaces We are boxing them in instead
  • Change closets into hallway and add door to second bedroom Leaving closets, adding 2nd bedroom entry door to West facing wall
  • Add closets to each room
  • Remove carpets and refinish hardwood Adding new carpet for noise control and insulation
• Replace stair treads
  • add stair railing

---

Starting at the top… Each 1st-floor room had 5-8 layers of flooring that needed tearing up. Carpet, carpet pad, several layers of linoleum and luon, and finally, hardwood. 3 rooms have hardwood that can certainly be patched and refinished. However, the floor in the bathroom and hall is in rough shape. We are leaning towards doing something like Real Thin Brick, but we haven’t decided yet.

We tore out nearly every interior wall, only leaving the walls that surround the staircase. It seemed like we were at a stand-still for months. Day after day we hammered, chiseled, and shoveled plaster and lath. On repeat. And boy, was it MESSY! It was pretty neat to see some of the things that were buried in the walls. Old whisky and perfume bottles, spice cans, clothing, shoes- I am not really sure what the point was in tossing all of these things in the wall. We even found a tiny pair of leather baby shoes!

Next, we had spray foam insulation put in, which was an investment, but for such an old house it will definitely be worth it! We also insulated the floors by attaching rolls of insulation in between the floor joists (we found a bat living in the crawlspace while doing this). So, having the insulation completed means we are closer to hanging drywall on the walls and 2nd-floor ceilings. However, the plumbing and wiring need to be installed before we can do that. We are leaving the 1st-floor ceilings as exposed casement, so they just need a little cleaning before they are considered “done”.

Fireplace…oooh, the lovely stone fireplace! After hours of chiseling away at the 2 inches of plaster covering the fireplace face and chimney, we finally had it ready for sandblasting. A local mobile sandblast company came out and in two hours had the job done! They were able to sandblast the main stone chimney/fireplace along with the brick chimney in the back of the house and oh boy, did they turn out nice! We still need to tuck-point the entire thing and fill in holes where freestanding stove pipes were run. We will likely wait until we have settled in to do that so we can regulate the temperature for the mortar to set up correctly.

---

We were able to restructure a load-bearing beam that was in the center of the home in order to place one single door in the middle of the porch instead of two doors, one on each end. We brought in two massive hand-hewn beams from the barn to replace the support for the upstairs floor. Along with moving the door location, we had to move two of the windows out to accommodate the new door.

For the kitchen, we got a deal on appliances during Black Friday sales and were able to draw up a full kitchen layout. Once the wiring and plumbing are in, we can drywall and start assembling cabinetry. Most of the kitchen is going to be open shelving, but we will have a few extra tall upper cabinets alongside a false chimney for our range hood. I despise range hoods so the false chimney is a must for me! The floors aren’t terrible but we will have a few holes and gaps to patch up before refinishing the wood, much like the rest of the 1st-floor.

---

The living room and 1st-floor bedroom are at a standstill until the drywall goes in, so that leaves us the bathroom and hall on the 1st-floor. These are by far the worst areas of the house. The bathroom floor is half-rotted, with large holes in the floor where the bathtub stood. The rest of the floor where a hallway will be is severely damaged by nails and staples, pretty well beyond repair. At this time, we plan to cut the floor out where the bathroom will go, tear up the floor in the hall, and use the good pieces to rebuild the hall floor. Not sure what we would do in the bathroom, but it’s still a work in progress.

Now to the 2nd-floor of the Farmhouse. We still need to frame in the bathroom and a doorway to the second bedroom. Then we can start arranging the bathroom in preparation for electric and plumbing. We will also be framing in two closets that run half the length of the house for use in the spare bedrooms. Previously they had very small built-in closets with 3’x15′ of wasted space on each side. Nothing is worse than wasted space!

Exposing the stone chimney in the upstairs bedrooms was on the list, but we decided to box them in for safety reasons….I don’t see having exposed stone in a kid’s room ending well. We did, however, expose and sandblast the brick chimney that will show in the bathroom and office space. The 2nd-floor bathroom, hall, and office will have refinished hardwood flooring however the bedrooms will have carpet. The wood flooring currently in the bedrooms is beautiful, but the carpet would provide more insulation and soundproofing.

---

Outside of the home, we have set up 50% of our fencing and were able to move our sheep, cows, and most of our goats into their new homes. Having our livestock around the barnyard has helped us pinpoint more improvements for the barn and map out where we need additional barns and equipment sheds. We have also set up space for our garden, greenhouse, and chicken run. The chicken coop exterior was redone and moved into place back in September, but we have yet to move the hens into their new space. I still have some aesthetic things I need to work on inside the coop-there may or may not be a chandelier involved.

---

That’s pretty much all I have to share with you guys today! There are a few projects taking place in the farmhouse currently so I will be sharing another update in a couple weeks. We appreciate all the support and community that has come together around this renovation! It’s so exciting to see the progress taking place on this old farm and home. We can’t wait to see the finished product and continue sharing our story with you guys!

-Kristen