Farmhouse DIY Upstairs Remodel Progress
Our slow but steady 1900 farmhouse upstairs is finally taking shape, and weāre loving how the character is coming through. Here’s the latest update on the upstairs remodel progress with pictures, inspiration, and the vintage details we’re using to bring back the farmhouse charm.
It’s been a hot minute – okay, a year – since I’ve given an update on the remodeling progress of our old farmhouse, specifically the upstairs landing.
To be completely honest, I’ve held out for a reveal because how hard could it be to redo doors and a landing area? I mean, it’s not a kitchen or bathroom, right?
Apparently, pretty hard when you’re doing it yourself. Oh, and that it’s a house built over 100 years ago which means quirks GALORE.
So here is a progress report after slowly working on this space (of course it’s at the bottom of the list of lots of other things…) for the last year. I’ll share photos of the space when we bought the house, what it looks like now, and what we have left to do.
The Landing
The first photo above shows you the full landing as you’re coming up the stairs now. Here’s what this space looked like before:
No, we hadn’t started any demo – this is literally how we found it (you can see the whole house tour when we bought it here).
What we’ve done
- Widened stairs
- Replaced wobbly railing
- Removed wallboard to show original tongue-and-groove wood walls on one wall (the boards are between 10 and 12-inches wide!).
- Filled and patched so.many.holes on wood wall to be able to keep it and added primer.
- Removed half-installed vinyl flooring and refinished original fir floors (did this throughout the upstairs except for the bathroom).
- Added a new light fixture.
- Added new door trim along with new doors – see more on this below.
Still To Do
- Paint the walls – this dirty beige color is really getting on my nerves, ha!
- Paint the door trim.
- Install baseboard.
- Finish stairwell wall trim (lower left).
The Bedrooms
Bedroom doors before. If the doors look a little short to you, they were! Brian had to duck a bit at 6 feet to enter. So it wasn’t just a matter of adding new doors – we had to enlarge the openings (more below).
Bedroom doors after. I love the look of the unfinished vintage doors we salvaged from another old house – we had them stripped at the same time we had the downstairs doors done. The door on the right is a little worse for wear, but it still works – right down to the vintage hardware we salvaged.
The first door is to my office/craft-room which also serves as a second guest room. I wrote about the transformation of this room here.
The second door is to the main guest room (both these rooms are nice sizes, though they have low ceilings).
The biggest thing with these two rooms was making the doors full sized. It was not easy and then trying to figure out the door trim with the cut out was kind of difficult:
We were just happy to have been able to make the door height normal and we’re just viewing the funky door trim as an old-house quirk, lol.
Thankfully we don’t have anything left to do in these two rooms besides the door trim from the hall side. (Well, we do need to figure out closet doors for the guest room, but that’s way down the list!)
The Bath & Office
Bath and office doors before. Hollow core doors, lack of molding, poorly installed plank flooring, 1960s vinyl, no old-house character.
Bath and office after. Salvaged doors and hardware thankfully fit perfectly in these openings. Trim replicates the only original trim left in the house from the windows in these upstairs rooms.
I’m still loving the amazing transformation of this bathroom from an oddly large half-bath to a full bath with old house character.
The fourth room on this floor belongs to Brian’s office. Both this room and the bathroom are in the dormer portions of the upstairs and they are pretty small but with high ceilings (the opposite of the bedrooms).
Of all the rooms up here, this is the one that still needs the most work, mainly trim added, existing original window trim fixed, and all trim painted (you can kind of see behind the door that he removed wallboard to reveal old-growth shiplap – which needs trim too).
The Stairwell
Stairwell before. Have you noticed the huge school-size fire bell in the before photos? We have no idea what it went to…
Stairwell progress. We removed all the wallboard on this large wall in order to match the original kitchen beadboard coming up the stairs once we saw it underneath. Then when I saw the huge old growth wood wall, I had to figure out how to save it. Which meant filling many, many holes. I think once it’s painted a couple of coats you won’t notice all the filling as much.
The Biggest To-Do Left
This is really why it’s taken us so long: we have to figure out a way to reach those high ceilings and corners over the stairs! I’ve painted and caulked all I can reach from the top stair and I don’t feel safe with any type of leaning ladder situation we’ve tried. It’s an odd size that I think needs a custom made painting platform (if you have any ideas, be sure to share them!).
So that’s where we’re at right now – perfectly useable, but not what it could be yet. And now it’s May which means our focus moves to the outside – and since we chose to finish the last thing in the laundry room (a sink for veggies – yay!) this winter, it will probably be awhile before we get this area finished!
Amazing! Love seeing the pictures of the progress you and your husband are making as you renovate your lovely home! Thank you so much for sharing!
Aww, thanks so much Michelle!! It’s been a labor of love, that’s for sure. š
We used this ladder to paint our stairwell and hang pictures. It is awesome because it can be locked into different levels. We bought ours at Harbor Freight. Was the perfect solution. Good luck!! FRANKLIN 17 ft. Reach, Type IA, 300 lb. Multi-Task Ladder
That ladder looks perfect, Kathy – thanks so much!!
What a transformation! So much usable space! Did you by any chance save the fire bell? My son, who is on the autism spectrum, collects fire bells and pull stations. He has a wealth of knowledge on that subject. If you are not planning to keep it, Iād be interested in buying it from you.
Always enjoy reading your blog. Best wishes.
Thank you, Daisy! How fun that your son collects these things – we didn’t keep it, though. We sent it to the thrift store. š
Oh, that’s too bad. Thanks for letting me know.
Love your farmhouse transformation journey!
I would suggest scaffolding like they use to hang drywall! My dad was a drywall hanger and we used his scaffolding to paint cathedral ceilings and walls in our house. Works great.
Thanks for that tip, Sharon – I’ll look into that type of set up!
You may be able to rent scaffolding somewhere. Ask at a paint store, possibly they could give you some info on that. My parents used scaffolding when I was a teenager to wallpaper the stairway walls. Good luck!
That’s a great idea, Lola – I hadn’t even thought of that!