Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 12

It's time to finally show you the front of the house!  First, here's how it looked when we bought it.  That's Insulbrick at the bottom of the front, and two colours of aluminum siding.  The upper left is the original painted concrete with some wood strapping attached to it.  The previous owner must have been adding siding as he found it, possibly leftovers from other houses.

Now, here it is when we left it last week!

 

It was a bit of a gray day, but you can see what a huge difference it makes to the look of the place.  The door under the gable makes the proportions look completely different, and without that blank space, I think the 'face' of the house makes so much more sense now.

There's still plenty of work to do, of course - parging the cracks and holes, and painting, will make it look completely different again.  I'm hoping to get the trim painted this season, but everything else will have to wait until late spring, once the cluster flies wake up from hibernation and move out.

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 11

What old house would be complete without some water damage? Fortunately this wall in the upstairs main room is drywall, and can be easily replaced. The modern vinyl floor tiles and baseboard are also slated for replacement, possibly quite soon if the bathroom (which is on the other side of the wall on the right in this picture) gets done this summer.

Although I can't summon more than a passing respect for drywall, I do love my new backyard. This is at the back of the house, facing west, on a cold and slightly dreary day last week when we were up for a March Break visit. I love the crazy tilt of the platform for hanging out laundry (just like my Grandma had, although hers stood up straight), the rough boards on the side of the shed, and of course the apple tree!

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 10

I have been cagily avoiding any outside pictures of the farmhouse, and although I'm not ready for a big "reveal" yet, I think I could start giving you a flavour of it. After all, it's almost spring!

Here's the front door. As befits a country house, you can see that it isn't used - in fact, inside it is nailed and caulked shut. There are no steps, and the bushes on either side are overgrown and getting in the way anyway. This picture also showcases the siding that I don't think I've mentioned. At the bottom is, I believe, Insulbrick. If you haven't had the pleasure of encountering this building material before, it's a type of asphalt shingle made to look like brick (most commonly) or angel stone (in this case). Since angel stone is already fake stone, another layer of fakery on top of it has never quite made sense to me. Above we have faded white aluminum or vinyl siding - we have both on the house, and I can't recall offhand which one this part is. The typical aluminum screen door finishes it off.

Some day I hope we will have steps up to a small porch - just 5 by 5 feet or so - with a roof overhead to keep off the rain as you come in. The roof will be the floor of the balcony above, if all goes well.

Now for the "good"... around the door you can just see the faintest suggestion of something reddish that has not been covered by the siding. This is a picture from inside the back woodshed, showing the original exterior of the house. The house is made of poured concrete, and the final parged layer has been carefully scored while wet, then painted white to look like brick.

When this house was built, a brick house would have been quite a status symbol. You can see it any time you drive from Ontario into the US - as soon as you're across the border, there are fewer old brick and stone houses, and more old wood frame houses. In the US it was much more common to build a big house out of wood, where in Ontario, if you had the money for a big house, you had it built of brick, even if it meant a smaller house.

I love this concrete made to look like brick! Call me crazy, but our plan is to strip away all the mismatched siding and restore the exterior, painted white lines and all. It's probably a good thing I have 50 years to finish this in...

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 9

We were finally up at the farmhouse for a weekend!

The first task I set for myself was a sort of archeological expedition through the layers of wallpaper in the living room. I could see next to the trim in one place that there were multiple layers that had been applied, with the occasional layer of paint thrown in for variety. Here you can see snippets of at least six different wallpapers, in various states of decomposition. Although some paper had been stripped off at various times, my current theory is that the pink and lime green patch in the bottom right is the oldest paper. I was a bit surprised to see that there is no finish coat of plaster on the walls; the original wallpaper seems to have been applied directly over the rough plaster coat. I'm happy to continue that theme, if I can find a wallpaper that won't be too overwhelming over the entire room.

Speaking of overwhelming... here is the "good" picture! Isn't this great wallpaper? This great stuff was only one layer down, under something reasonably modern that had been painted. I think the paint somehow made it easier to strip off the top layer, because I managed to get all this uncovered in only about a half-hour. Oddly, beneath this was a layer of wallpaper depicting ducks in a marsh... and beneath *that* was another layer of this paper, but this time upside down! I managed to find an edge piece that said "Made in Canada by Waldec", so now I'm hunting for old Canadian wallpaper catalogues that might show it.

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 8

We've had a couple of comments lately about how we're getting up to the farmhouse a lot, I guess based on these pictures I've been posting. Sadly, work is getting in the way of life as it often does, and these pictures are all ones we took over the Christmas holidays.

I have to admit that I have totally run out of pure "Heart" pictures! So, this picture will have to serve for both the Hearts and Darts side.

This is upstairs - as you can see, there's a fairly large bonus space up here, which will probably eventually have my desk and a bunch of bookshelves in it. This shot is taken from the top of the stairs. The door to the bathroom is just out of sight on the right-hand side of the picture, and the doors you can see opposite lead to the two bedrooms. You can just see the handrail over the stairs on the left of the picture.

The most exciting thing about this picture is something you can't see, and that I'm not even really sure is there. Where the board is leaning against the wall, we think there is an original doorway blocked up and covered over. It's directly over the front door, and many Ontario cottages on the island have this door, which my dad likes to call an "in-law door" - leading from the second story out into thin air. The idea seems to have been that once the farmer had more money, they would build the front porch with a balcony for that door to give access onto. I can't wait to find out whether it's really there, and to be the one to finally build that porch the house has been waiting almost 100 years for!

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 7

Here's a glimpse into what one day will be my refuge within a refuge... the "master" bedroom at the farmhouse! Even though I do mockingly call it the "master" bedroom, I think of it with quotes because a room only 9.5' on a side doesn't seem to deserve the title. Even William Turnbull's 794 square foot employee houses had an 11' by 12' bedroom.

This room has it all, don't you think? You've already seen the new closet, but they've thoughtfully left the clothes storage (those nails in the strip of wood) that predated it. Most of the original layers of wallpaper were stripped off when they blew in insulation, I assume (the little squares replaced in the walls hint at that), and they've obviously done a smashing job on hanging the new stuff. The yellow-flowered linoleum rug is probably original to 1913, although the virulent yellow floorboards underneath have probably been painted far more recently. Capping it off with the acoustic tiles nailed directly to the old ceiling is a nice crowning touch, too.

All sarcasm aside, I have a lot of hope for this room. This is another picture of the same room - the wallpaper is on only two walls and the purple paint is opposite, on the other two. This little cupboard is most likely original, and built into the space under the second chimney. The round circle on the wall is a pie plate covering the hole where a stove of some kind used to be, to heat this bedroom and I suppose the whole upstairs. I have to wonder whether the cupboard actually opened when the stove and pipe were sitting there, or whether they used to remove the stove in summertime. It also makes me chuckle every time I look at this picture and realize that the door is hung backwards, with the hinges toward the window, rather than by the wall where you would expect them.

It's just within the realm of possibility that we'll someday put a little potbellied stove in the room to heat the upstairs in winter, although it will be a pain to rebuild the missing outside part of the chimney.

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 6

It's all ours! My son, shown in the picture here, did the work of picking out the letters at the hardware store and put the names on the mailbox. Our little deception on the mailbox makes me laugh every time I think of it.

You get a bit of the flavour of our neck of the woods here. I'm not sure you can really call it a "neighbourhood" when there are only three houses you can see.

The bathroom is nice and clean, or at least it was three weeks ago when we last saw it (the rubber gloves there are a clue). This is the "bad" picture for today, not because there's anything inherently bad about the bathroom, but it is still going to need major work. The problem? That angled wall you see there starts about 4 feet from the floor, which means the shower head is only 5 feet off the floor, and my six-foot husband doesn't fit. If a guy is going to have to re-wire and re-plumb an entire house, he should at least be able to have a nice, hot, comfortable shower at the end of the day.

The little closet at the top of the tub is cute, though. It probably exists only because the chimney coming through the hallway upstairs means the door to the bathroom had to be a certain distance from the outside wall, which forced the sink to be where it is, and the toilet and tub followed from there. I hope I can figure out a better arrangement.

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 5

Today I'll finally bring you into the living room, the place where I anticipate spending the bulk of my non-sleeping time at the farmhouse. Here we have the Fisher wood stove; the view (which you can't really see) across the fields to the neighbour's old barn; the original beadboard paneling, covered in many layers of old paint; and an old door, also beadboard, leading to the only closet in the house, which is under the stairs.

There are nice tall windows that stretch down low all through the house. This can be a bit of pain when you want to put furniture or a sink in front of them, but I'd rather have the extra light they let in, especially in wintertime when the sun is low. All the original wooden single-hung windows are in the house. I'm also looking forward to stripping off all the layers of wallpaper which I've discovered are hiding under the white paint on the walls. They've probably done a good job of preserving the plaster.

Now let's look at a different view of the same room. Notice the dropped ceiling (with bonus peeling paint by the back door), which hides the plumbing for the bathroom that was added sometime in the last 50 years (remember the exposed pipes in the dining room?). When someone flushes upstairs, you can all too clearly hear the water whooshing past over your head and down into the basement.

The fluorescent lighting fixture is not a feature I'm eager to retain. I don't mind the grate in the ceiling, though, which lets warm air from the stove up to the second floor - a practical touch, since the stairway doesn't let any heat go up. (The stairs are behind the wall on the left-hand side of this picture, if you're curious). The vinyl tiles on the floor cover the entire main floor, and they will have to go. There's plywood under them, and we'll probably live with the original floorboards for a while until my husband convinces me they're too impractical for the long term.

The trapdoor you see on the right leads to the basement. This is a slight improvement on my parents' farm where the kitchen table had to be moved to get to the basement trapdoor, but I doubt we'll be going up and down that often.

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 4

I'm generally happy with how much hasn't been done to the farmhouse - I was looking for something that hadn't been too badly re-muddled over the years. However, as this shot shows, the house hasn't completely escaped. I suppose they were going for a rustic effect, or else cared only about function and not about looks; but in a room that's only 9.5 feet on a side, this floor-to-ceiling eyesore really dominates it. The only closet in the house when it was built was under the stairs, so I freely admit that more storage space is needed. I'd far rather have a freestanding armoire, though, and eventually I probably will. (For extra credit, notice how the acoustic tiles nailed to the ceiling stop short of the closet, leaving a gap of old molting plaster.)

Now for the today's good side... the picture isn't of the house itself, but the pies in this apple were picked off our very own apple tree! My mom picked them in November before the frost came, kept them until Christmas, and made pie for us for New Years. They are great baking apples - they kept their shape nicely in the pie and even still had a bit of a crunch in them.

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 3

If you know me at all, you know I love to cook. After our first visit to the farmhouse I was startled to find that I had spent almost no time considering the kitchen at all, and couldn't even remember how the cabinets and appliances were laid out. I guess I was already thinking of it as gutted!

I'm not a big fan of dumpsters full of perfectly good building materials, but I'm also not a big fan of this kitchen. The 1970s medicine cabinet posing as a window, the faux-rustic handles, and especially the oh-so-practical plywood backsplash are not what I would choose for myself.

One hilarious thing you can't see in the picture is that the kitchen sink doesn't connect to the septic system. The drain pipe runs straight out a hole knocked in the outside wall, and empties onto the ground!

Plans are up in the air for replacing the kitchen - we certainly won't do it any time soon, since this one is perfectly functional once my plumbing-capable spouse handles the drainage issues.

Tonight's 'good' side... along with the house we gained two outbuildings, both full of junk and possible treasures. My son in particular has shown the most interest in sorting through them and putting aside things he thinks have value. He brought in this little hurricane lantern just as we were leaving during the holidays - I didn't even have time to brush the thick layer of dust off it, as you can see. The power often goes off there, since all electricity comes through one access point where the island is closest to the mainland. It was off for about eight hours while we were there, in fact. Filling this little lantern up with kerosene and having it handy will be practical while also indulging my nostalgia.

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts, Part 2

Tonight I bring you two shots from what will eventually be my son's bedroom. When I think of a cottage getaway kids' room, I imagine a light and airy white room, with a bed and dresser and shelves with artistically arranged shells. I suspect that romantic notion will be dispelled as soon as we've been in there a while and the usual clutter of clothes and books is strewn over the floor, but the child should have at least a decent base to build on, shouldn't he?

So, here's a "before" picture, taken on the day we picked up the keys. Start with a dozen or two layers of wallpaper that have been partially stripped off. Add some mysterious squares of plaster that have been removed, perhaps to blow insulation into the wall, and replaced with squares of drywall that don't fit and aren't flush with the wall around them. Add stomach-turning green paint on the trim and a baseboard heater. You can't really see the flaking paint and plaster on the ceiling in this shot, or the hundreds of dead cluster flies between the window and the storm window, or the "closet" that consists of a piece of wood with nails sticking out of it. (I'm sure you'll take my word for it).

I do believe the bones are good here. The room is small - something like 9.5 feet square - but fortunately the knee wall is over 5 feet tall. There won't be any room left over after a bed, combo armoire/dresser and bookcase go in, but it will be a cosy retreat for him eventually.

Today the "good" picture is harder than the "bad", because I don't know if everyone else will see it the same way that I do. I love the charm of the old painted chair, the faded flowers on the wallpaper, and especially the linoleum rug.

I had only recently read about these linoleum rugs that were popular at the turn of the century. They came in various sized squares that were appropriate for a room, and they could be just laid out and used the way they came. They were generally printed with a border, and usually faked to look like a real woven wool rug.

This has no border, so it may have just been cut from a square of sheet linoleum. The floor boards (which you can't see in this shot) were originally painted to match the background of the pattern. The pattern features an acanthus leaf pattern, very similar to what you see in William Morris designs. The edges and center are pretty worn, but I should be able to salvage a good-sized rectangle of it to use as a bedside rug in my own bedroom later.

Farmhouse Hearts and Darts - Part 1 of an Occasional Series

Our new farmhouse needs a ton of work, and I wanted to highlight some of the things that drew me to it, as well as some of the more hilarious aspects that need to be addressed. So, here's part 1 of what will hopefully be an occasional series - a pair of pictures. (Click for full-size versions in all their glory).

I'll do the 'bad' first today - this is a corner of what will eventually be our dining room. I'm sure you'll notice right off the bat that there's a toilet in it. There's a sink on the other side of the window, to go with it. But, notice too, the exposed pipes for the water supply and waste - those connect with the upstairs bathroom. They just don't have the charm of exposed pipes in a loft, now, do they? And why is the wallpaper so dark in that upper corner? It's not a lighting issue with the camera, I assure you. Did the former occupant used to sit there and smoke? No, on second thought, don't answer that.

I suppose the toilet roll holder on the back of the door is quite convenient. And, sadly, we'll probably end up using this toilet (well scrubbed first) when we replace the upstairs bathroom.

On the better side, here's our woodstove on the first night we had company over. My dad built the fire when we arrived, and my mom prepared some spiced cider that's warming up in the red soup pot. Although the house has electric baseboards for heat as well, I hope to burn many cords of wood in this old Fisher stove. I don't think you can make out its little feet in this shot, but you might be able to make out the pine trees gracing the doors.

Right from the first day I staked out my favourite sitting spot, in front of the stove, with a view out the side window to the east where an old barn is in the process of falling down in the most picturesque way imaginable. As long as there's a basket of knitting and a bookshelf nearby, I think I'll be able to amuse myself quite well.