The first 6 months in our new house

The most difficult part of moving for me was our first few months in our new house. The different smells and sounds were uncomfortable and foreign. Home had a certain smell. Our last home smelled like lavender and dogs and muffins and big pots of dinner on the stove. We did not think about our first night in the new house and how it would feel to sleep there until we did it. How very lonely and uninviting it was to sleep in an empty house; a very big, old, dirty house that smelled like cigarettes, dirty feet, wet dogs, and old damp books. We had nothing in the house except a blow up mattress in the middle of the family room. We would wake with itchy bites all over our body from fleas left behind from the previous owner. In those moments we looked at each other and thought: "what have we done?! This whole house needs to be disinfected. How long will it take before it feels like home?"

When I look back at the first year at Peace Ridge Farm I see how much we struggled, how much we accomplished, and how much we learned. We have grown so much since our newlywed days and I can finally say the worst is over for the home renovations; an end is in sight. I can also say that I am proud of us. We did not give up. No matter how difficult it got -- winter was difficult -- we supported each other and tried to make the best of what we had. I know that we can make it through anything together after what we have been through so far.

When we started demo on our house it was like an archaeological dig site. We were so excited to peel back the layers of time and see all the hands that had touched these walls. With every layer we hammered, shoveled, and pried back we were getting closer to the original structure and intention of this old farm house. But we were also finding all the botched "updates" from previous owners that we needed to repair -- the layers of flooring and ceiling, styrofoam insulation, leaking plumbing, uncapped buried live wires...the excitement started to fade and the reality of a huge undertaking set in.

We started by rolling up the carpet throughout the house. There was shag in every color and it was infested with fleas and splattered with curious stains. It felt good to get rid of the carpets because it seemed like we were cleaning the house. We also thought it would help keep the fleas off of us when we slept!

Bedroom 1 Bedroom 2

Next, we removed the walls hiding the fireplaces. We knew a beautiful treasure (or big investment) was waiting to be found behind the awkward boxes in every room...we have 5 fireplaces, 4 chimneys, and 3 thimbles!

Bedroom 1 Bedroom 2 Living Room

The old hearth in the kitchen was by far the most labor intensive. It was bricked shut and back filled with concrete that had been poured in from the top of the chimney. After we cleaned up the opening we had the arch raised to house a stove.

After the chimneys were exposed we pulled down the ceiling in the kitchen and dining room. We also removed a wall that was hiding two doorways and two windows.

Next came the floors. When we started pulling up the floor in the kitchen....trouble began. We noticed the sewer line was disconnected and rotten under the floorboards. This means sewage was just spilling out under the house! Most of the joists needed to be replaced and we also needed a proper crawlspace to prevent future rot and allow access to new plumbing/electrical. So, we started digging, picking, and wheeling loads of dirt out of the house.

At this point, we had torn our house apart. There was no way we could live in it and felt overwhelmed at how long it may be before our home was livable again. There was no going back. We had to keep moving forward. But what had we done! We left our very cute first home for this? I was sleeping in a hammock outside and Nick was sleeping on a blow up mattress in the family room. We were spreading ourselves thin. In addition to all this demo, both of us were working full time and renovating the apartment above the garage.

When things seemed like they could not get any worse our crawl space started flooding. To prevent mold from growing we hired a company to install a french drain around the house.

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