Farmhouse Renovation: Month 4 Update

If you are new here, we bought a c.1900 Iowa farmhouse roughly 4 months ago and promptly took a bulldozer to a large portion of it. Over the last couple of months we have completely updated what remained of the original structure, and added on a large addition (for some much needed square footage).

I have posted several updates thus far, but this is the one I have been waiting for!

This is the first update where the layout of the house is easy to understand, since the walls are complete with drywall. Not everyone can look at a room full of stick walls and picture the final product, and I have tried to take that into account when posting in the past, but now everything will be quite easy to picture!

Ok lets start in the kitchen….

Here’s a throwback photo of the previous kitchen. Adam is 6 foot 4 in tall and he could barely walk underneath the pendant light fixture in the middle of the room without hitting his head. This was due to a significant bow in the trusses, as they could not support the proper amount of weight. Also, check out how close the top of the door frame to the bathroom is…just an inch or two!

Below is a picture of the new kitchen, with a properly installed 8 foot ceiling! The opening on the far left is the same door to the bathroom pictured above, however this time around it has over a foot of clearance between the top of the door frame and the ceiling.

Moving on to the stairs….

You will notice that new the steps are no longer steep, and are also a normal size. In addition, we have a large window at the top of the stairs now, that provides a source of natural light but also serves as an added safety function, should someone need to evacuate out of the second floor for any reason.

I recently caught a photo of our mini inspector checking out the window at the top of the stairs…

The last photo I have for you is of the new master bathroom. The original structure had no master suite, so I have no before photo to share! And while this bathroom is not extravagant by any means, it adds value and much needed space.

Alright, that’s all I have for you today! I am excited to see what the next update brings, as we can start putting our personal touch on the project with paint and flooring, etc. Since we work on the farmhouse in our spare time, and both have other full time jobs and 2 year old child, sometimes things take longer to finish than we would prefer. It’s all about balance, and we are still figuring that out as we go.

Thank you for stopping by the blog today, and we look forward to catching up with you again soon! In the mean time, feel free to follow us on Instagram or Facebook :)

Until next time,

Rachael