Today marks exactly one year since we moved into our farmhouse. Time has flown by and honestly, it seems like it has only been a couple months. But when I look at before pictures I realize just how far we have come.
First I wanted to start by going back to the beginning. And how this house almost didn’t come to be ours. When we first viewed the house and property we were both a little overwhelmed with the amount of updating it needed. You see at the time we were living in a late ’90s builder grade home that had four bedrooms and 2.5 baths. The farmhouse had 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom and a lot of updates that we just weren’t sure about. But that builder grade home wasn’t our dream home and we both knew that we wanted to move eventually.
It took about a week of quiet thinking and reflecting and then I told Justin that we should go for it. The positives out weighed the negatives. The home was in the area where we both grew up and homes in this area rarely go on the market. And it’s true what they say: location, location, location. We put our anxieties behind us and decided to jump into the crazy real estate market. When we received word that our offer was accepted we were very excited but also scared of the unknown. But as I have learned over the last year sometimes you just have to do things that are scary and uncomfortable in order to grow and find your true happiness.
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New Beginnings
Luckily we were able to start doing some work on the house before we moved in. We immediately began ripping out the tile floors in the living room and dining room. There were original hardwood floors underneath and I was eager to refinish them. We spent every evening after work and weekends trying to accomplish as much as we could before we actually had to move in.
By the time we had moved in the floors were almost done. After about one week the living room and dining room floors had cured and we were able to move our furniture into place. I added a whitewash finish to the fireplace and painted all the trim white which helped update the space.
During the time that Justin was working on the dining room floors, I was also tackling our stairwell. It had been covered with dark wood paneling and we found old wallpaper after we removed the paneling. My sister-in-laws and I worked a lot of hours removing all the wallpaper so that we could showcase the original shiplap walls underneath.
When we first moved in, the kids’ bedrooms were far from complete, in fact, Justin and I were sharing our tiny master bedroom with two twin mattresses on the floor for the kids. We had about 25 square feet of unused floor space and couldn’t get out our main bedroom door. Luckily the master also had a door into the only bathroom so that was used as the entrance to our room. Within a month of moving in were able to complete the kids’ rooms with new drywall and carpet and regain our master bedroom.
We then immediately started on our walk in pantry as most of our food and appliances were still being stored in boxes. It was such a great feeling to finish the flooring and replace the shelving with melamine. It felt good to organize and unpack appliances and our canned food and other pantry items.
At this point, December was here and we had decided to host a housewarming party for our friends and family. I had already purchased the paint and supplies for the kitchen cabinets so we got started painting.
After the beginning of the year, we took a little break from any major updates to the house. Our spring here in Oregon was very wet so we didn’t start any more major projects until summer. That is when we started some outdoor projects by refinishing the deck and building a new table. We have also been working on trimming bushes, spreading compost bark dust and tending to our garden.
The Best is Yet to Come
Our current projects include updating the laundry room, a budget bathroom makeover, and my office/craft space. I look forward to showing you all these updates very soon.
I hope you enjoyed this tour of our updates so far. When we think back to one year ago we are blessed that we were to be able to purchase this house and begin the next chapter of our lives. We love that the former owners and their children have become family friends and that they know they are welcome anytime. Justin and I enjoy hearing the history of the home and listening to their childhood stories and how the house evolved over the 58 years that they lived here.
4 Comments on The Farmhouse One Year Later
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Beautiful upgrades Amy and Justin, I know it can’t be easy working and having 2 littles to run after and love on. 🙂 Thanks for sharing
Stumbled upon your recap of this past year and really enjoyed reading about your journey to date and seeing the before and after pictures. I like that you’re reaching thru to the bones of this old house and bringing forth things like the original hardwood floors and yet adding your own touches to give the house a contemporary feel. It’s obvious many hours of your time has been invested during the past year. Nice work!
Thanks so much Barb! It really has been a labor of love!
Thank you so much Kristi!