When we bought the farmhouse one of our favorite things about the place was that there was so much original wood. Often the older a home is, the more “quick fix” disasters there seem to be. If the current home owner is not willing or has no understanding of the homes historical value, serious damage to irreplaceable  details will sadly be committed.

Bath Before                                            Bath During

Because the only damaged spaces in the farmhouse were the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom the game plan is relatively simple:

1.  Restore, Clean, and gently modernize most areas of the farmhouse.

2.  Completely gut the kitchen and downstairs bath, then reimage them to a modernized version of their original beauty.

One of the fist ways we did this was switching floors around, this felt a lot like the game musical chairs.

There was an 8×10 bedroom next to the master that we thought would make a great upstairs bathroom. However, with a splashy toddler I was afraid that the 1893 heart pine floors would get ruined. So Michael painstakingly removed them to reuse in the kitchen. Here are the tools he used.

First, he carefully removed the decadent baseboards and floor moldings.

Next, Michael had to cut one plank with his saw to get at the underside of the floor.

The final step was very tedious and took him three days to complete. To keep the planks from being damaged Michael used a dremel to cut the nail heads off from underneath the floor.

Though I think Michael was ready to give up at times, he stuck to it and saved priceless flooring that will look fabulous in our kitchen someday. Even better is the fact that now there will be something original again in a kitchen that was almost entirely “updated” to death. I am so proud of you Baby!