Farmhouse In-Progress Tour! (SHL Ep.13)

In this special episode of Simple Homemade Life, we're bringing you a full farmhouse tour - the first we've done since the before tour! See what we've done, where we're at in the remodel, and even some spaces we haven't shown before. We're finally in the stages of finishing rooms instead of foundation, electrical, insulation, and such - in other words, the fun stuff!

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SHL Audio (Podcast)

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In The Farmhouse

I'm sharing a number of photos to give you an idea of the tour, but to get the full feel, it's really best to watch the video (for instance, we go to the upstairs that we haven't shown since day one and talk about plans).

We start the tour at the new front door. This is the door we purchased at Home Depot (online - we learned it was more expensive to buy at the store!). I see it's out of stock now, though there are other similar options. If I were to choose again, I'd go with a lighter wood color - the dark shows everything.

Some of you might remember the farmhouse originally had two front doors that we discovered after removing the vinyl siding (seen in the before photo above left).

It also explained why the front door was off-center while the windows were evenly spaced. Those kind of things really bug me, so that was going to have to change no matter what, ha!

Here's the wall we added in the living-dining area to separate the two rooms and allow for an entry wall area next to the door.

Walking into a long, open room felt really "off" for an old farmhouse so I knew I'd want to add a wall for that feeling and so much more function. But when we saw the outline on the floor of an original wall between the two doors, I knew it was the right decision - it's supposed to have a wall there!

We made the opening wide, though, for nice flow between the rooms. And in fact have widened the doorways into and out of the kitchen, too.

Before we move to the rest of the tour, I wanted to show this amazing custom cabinet my talented stepdad made for us! It's got pocket doors that retract so we can have our coffee station here, but close it up when we're not using it since it will be seen from the front rooms.

It's so great - and that's not all, this cabinet is part of a set of cabinets that are narrower to fit at the bottom of the stairs and we worked together to make them seem like a piece of furniture you'd see in old kitchens. I can't wait to show you the finished product when it's installed!

(If you watch the video, you'll see more of that green painted cabinet to the right! Hint: it's for the bathroom...)

We then walk through the wider opening into the enlarged kitchen. It's come a long way from before when the window above the sink looked into the...enclosed porch. This is the enclosed porch now - it will hold the stove wall and part of an island with the sink.

I have heart-eyes over two things about this space - the beadboard walls and ceiling that match the original ceiling in the main kitchen area, and the arched cabinet wall to the left that we showed unpainted in SHL episode 12.

You can see it how great it looks painted and moved into place so that the old arch and newer bottom cabinet look like one built-in piece. It adds SO much to the space!

To the other side of the kitchen is our stairwell, which is finally getting an overhaul next week.

This photo above is such a picture of how this old farmhouse was put together willy-nilly. They built new, wider steps right on top of the original steep stairs - and held them up with pieces of beadboard and 2x4s. Sheesh, no wonder they are rickety!

Moving on from the kitchen, we come to the hallway with its original wood ceiling and beadboard walls from kitchen leftovers. (We didn't have the wall completed in the video, so this is even more current!)

Though the hall doorway is the expanded master bedroom with it's high ceilings and tall windows.

We've clad the walls in a thin plywood in a width to mimic the original wood walls of the house. This turned out to be easy and super cost-effective, much less than regular plywood (these sheets only cost $11 each!).

Brian is finishing the window molding (he's doing them just like this tutorial we made when redoing the living room windows) and then we'll spray everything white.

The windows are pretty dramatic in this room. We plan to have some wood beams on the ceiling to help bring it down to human levels, ha.

We show the laundry room and talk about what's coming, but it doesn't look much different from the last time you saw it, so let's go to the bathroom.

I primed the window molding and original ceiling and now it's looking so bright and clean. Everything but the tile is original in this room, so it's one of my favorites. All that's left is to paint in Benjamin Moore's Simply White and install the fixtures!

You can see the decorating plan for this room here.

We do head to the upstairs in the video, but it's not pretty, so I'll leave that for the video.

Let us know what you think - we love hearing from you, especially as we're getting to the stuff that really makes a difference in the rooms!

What's Next

Join us for the next episode where we're talking about simplified holiday tips, including DIY gifts.

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