Broken House Farm

Some Earth Moving and Fun

rives.rash@gmail.com — Thu, 12 May 2016 19:39:40 +0000

Drywall! Seeing the inside take shape.

rives.rash@gmail.com — Sun, 08 May 2016 18:48:56 +0000

We decided on a mix of spray foam and bat insulation. We then followed up with completely skinning every wall with first a layer of plywood, then drywalling. The hubs in all his awesomeness plywooded the interior, then we hired a contractor for the drywall.

Design & Plans

rives.rash@gmail.com — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 18:12:35 +0000

We started with an old 4 square farmhouse plan that was very closed and not meant for modern living. We wanted to open the space and let them flow together. We reconfigured the stair placement allowing the kitchen to flow with the living/dining. The stairs then followed the roof line. We opened the above attic to allow the playroom to overlook the kitchen. We extended the space over the back porch to create a master suite with bathroom and walk in closet. I am probably missing something.

Never ending demo and finally design!

rives.rash@gmail.com — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 18:12:09 +0000

Our focus turned to the exterior. Remove the old siding and roofing. What we found was a structure void of shear! So we had to completely sheath the exterior in plywood.

Finally our designs could start to take shape. We wanted a modern farmhouse feel that was open and light. We decided to sheath the exterior with a gray metal siding and galvanized roof with graphic pops of white to highlight the edges. The hubs took my photoshop render and turned it into reality.

My render…

Reality…

Lets remove that 1970’s front porch.

rives.rash@gmail.com — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 17:51:11 +0000

Somethings I am glad I am not part of the decision making. One of those things is definitely the removal of the front porch. We decided that we were definitely not keep the faux plantation front porch. It made the house interior extra dark. The hubs, aka demo god/construction genius/etc., made the executive decision as to how it would be removed. Rives style, hook it to the Jeep and pull. So safe. So brilliant. This is why I married the man. He made sure to make some “strategic” cuts to sever it from the main structure. So he said. Wrapped a chain around the porch structure and fixed it to the hitch of our 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee. He rev’d and well it didn’t come in one pull. His “strategic” cuts had missed a few members. So a few more cuts, another rev of the Jeep and the porch was demo’d. No it wasn’t epic, more of a flop and done.

Lets jack a house up!

rives.rash@gmail.com — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 18:29:07 +0000

With the complete removal of the floors and half of the interior walls it was apparent the house had settled a little too much. The house from the back corner to the front corner had settled over 8″, so my OCD husband decided to JACK the ENTIRE house up. Once the house was level and shored up, we then installed a whole new floor and

started on the interior structure.

And more demo! Plus fixing 100 years of wear and tear.

rives.rash@gmail.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 21:53:20 +0000

As we continued to demo, we uncovered more and more issues. As to be expected, the over 100 yr. old rock/rubble foundation had settled and there was significant termite damage. My husband being the crazy man he is, ripped out all the interior walls and removed the walls and layers of ceiling.

DEMO, DEMO, and MORE DEMO

rives.rash@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 21:10:03 +0000

For a month and half we demo’d. It seemed there was no light at the end of the tunnel. We discovered so, so many things >>>dead birds, dead mice, snake skins, dead cats, lots of termite damage and unmentionable grossness. There were some bright spots too, marbles, 1945-55 UK Basketball schedules and old beer cans.

The biggest workout came in the removal of 2 fireplace(aghast! we remove the fireplaces!). One fireplace was hidden between closets. Its chimney didn’t even pierce the ceiling, instead many decades before it had been completely enclosed. The second fireplace was added in the 1970’s and had some issues, beyond also sitting right where my future bed would rest.

We did find lots of wonderful old wood hidden beneath the layers of wallpaper and grime. The walls were mainly made of 1×6 pine boards, though the center walls were of much older wood of varying sizes.

So we bought a broken house.

rives.rash@gmail.com — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 23:25:23 +0000

At the end of September 2015, we did something crazy and bought a house and 38.5 acres. The first time we took our kids there, the 2 year old dubbed it the “Broken House”, and the name stuck.