a junk house bathroom

For several years now, we have been 99.9% done with the Junk House project. The house has been livable in every single way, with that last little fraction of unfinished projects being things that we had lived with for so long, we didn't even notice them anymore.

I won't bore you with the list of projects, but it did include a doorknob that needed to be installed for ten years. And, we've had the door knob for ten years.

Ten years.

To put on a door knob.

One of the fellas who worked on the outside of the Junk House back in 2001, for some reason has not had the foresight to change his phone number since that long ago project. Every year or two, I call him up and ask if he's game for any number of odds and ends projects. He always is, and last week he was nice enough to come over and finish up my list.

Door and baseboard trim were all that was left in the boys bathroom, and with that project finished up, I think it's time for a little before and after. Are you up for a stroll down Junk House memory lane?


Picture the tub with some bubbles, a good book and some nice scented candles.

And make sure you notice the outdoor lights over the sink.


If these scans weren't such poor quality, we could zoom in and really investigate what's happening on that wall. Thank goodness for the olden days of film.

The bathroom was functioning for the first part of the gutting process, but I refused to use it. There is not enough bleach on the earth, people.

Not.

Enough.

Bleach.

I happily got in my car and drove to my in-laws when need be.


Now, compared to the before, the after definitely makes a statement, but on it's own, it's pretty basic. I didn't go all out decorating - it is a boys bathroom after all, no one else uses it, and they could not possibly care less what it looks like. I actually avoid going in there as much as possible. At least until the DOD contacts me to see if they can use whatever is growing in there as a new biological weapon. Then, I grab a bottle of bleach and face the monster.

Oh, I kid. Truly I do. I can't really complain about the original state of the bathroom, and then let you know my bathroom cleaning skills are less than stellar, can I? So, here's my story....I clean daily with a toothbrush. There. Was that convincing enough? No? We'd probably best just move on.

Here's the after.


Now, since we're already in the bathroom, tell me what you make of this. This is what greets me every single time me and my bottle of bleach pay a visit to the men's room.


I specifically got the easiest to operate tp holder for this room. When it comes to all things housekeeping related, lets just say some of my family members are not necessarily of the go above and beyond frame of mind. I wanted to make things easy for them. Apparently, it's still not easy enough. No matter how many times I put the roll on the holder, it always ends up on the floor. Always.

Kinda funny.

Similarly, I estimate that the same amount of effort is required to close a cupboard door, but this is my pantry on any given day.


If you have seen the movie The Sixth Sense, you will notice an eerie similarity to the kitchen scene. So, in their defense, I suppose my family could possibly be totally off the hook here. And if, like the movie, I have a female ghost living in my house, I will simply embrace the fact that I am no longer totally alone in a household of men.

I wonder if she cleans bathrooms?

the junk house - outbuilding edition

It has been a week since the lovely and well loved Farm Chick, Serena, featured this little blog as her link of the week. How stinkin fun for me. I have so enjoyed meeting all of you and can't thank Serena enough! I'll try though....Serena, you are the best and the original. Thanks for introducing me to your wonderful Farm Chick following!

So, after that little bit of sweetness, are you ready for some ugly?

It's been a while since we visited the Junk House, so perhaps a recap is in order.

Ten years ago, back when I was regularly taking hallucinogenic drugs (there's no other logical explanation) we bought the Junk House. The house was in bad shape, but it really wasn't that hard to see it had potential.

The outbuildings had potential too.

Potential to induce nightmares.

Individually, and aside from the extreme neglect they had suffered, the buildings are not the worst thing we could have dealt with. While there wasn't a lot of charm there, they could have been spruced up and made to work. However, they were grouped too close together, and had structural damage issues from a former resident who really, really liked fire. They needed to go.

Front....


Side....


Other side....


And back....


360 degrees of architecture gone bad.

Our farm actually used to be a dairy back in the day. Not far enough back for the buildings to have been really cool and old. Just far enough back for them to be really ugly and old.

This is what was left of the milking parlor, and I suppose I should be quite happy that all we had to deal with was four hundred million yards of concrete. I think it's safe to assume the buildings that used to be there probably made your eyes bleed as well.


It's hard to see, but there is another pad of concrete beyond this one. Lots and lots of concrete.

Here is the far end of that second concrete pad.


I suppose now would be the appropriate time to tell you that our pond started out as a manure pit for the dairy. Yum.

After all the concrete was broken up and disposed of, we planted grass in it's place. Lots and lots of grass. And my last resident mower only has a couple years left at home.


Eventually, that group of buildings was demolished and a new barn was built.


Much better.

We still have two more buildings to deal with. One has major cute potential - it's a hexagon shape and when it's done it will be very cool.
The other one, while not as bad as those showcased above, still needs to pretty much go to the great metal siding scrapyard in the sky and be reborn of barn wood. As the new barn totally blocks it from daily sight, it's not a super high priority.

I have to say that while I certainly err on the drama/whining side of Junk House story telling, going back through the pictures from those early days reminds me of how glad I am we took our sad little farm and helped it become the happy place it is today. Hallucinogenic drugs or not, and while I might not choose to do it all again, I'm so glad we saw a glimpse of what this little patch of country land could be, and dove in.

the junk house - part three

It has been really fun to finally document the junk house remodel. I have been wanting to scrapbook the project, and have most of the supplies, but it is all in the craft supply black hole along with many of my other creative good intentions. Until now, all I've had to show people is a stack of pictures that I could never seem to find when I needed them. I'm glad to have other people enjoy the look back with me.

Lets head into the dining room.....


It has a great view of our front hayfield, but only had one window. One of our contractor friends traveled over for a long weekend, and he and my hubby added the bay addition. We built the wall along the kitchen, covered the rough beams with new trim, and bead boarded the walls and ceiling. The dining walls are my very favorite color, kind of a robins egg, aqua blue.



I have a lot of vintage china, but this is my favorite pattern. My mom found service for 12, plus all the serving pieces, many years ago. She has slowly been giving it to me, and it fits my house perfectly. Thanks, mom!


The stairs were one of the more interesting projects we tackled in the house. If you look closely at the top, the landing is two steps short of the hall, so when you got to the top, you either turned left, went up two steps into the front bedroom, or went the other way, up two, and down the hall. Dangerous nighttime bathroom trips!


Our contractor was able to come up with a great solution, and now I love the staircase.

Last, I'll take you down the hall to the scary bathroom. I don't have any pictures of the inside of the bathroom, and I'm pretty sure that's because the sink was actually behind the door, so you could only open the door half way (if that). The bathroom was painted a dark, bright blue and was very, very gross.


I can't tell you how much it bothers me that you can see my toilet in the after picture. I certainly could have put the sink on that side, but didn't think of it until all was done. When you are doing a project like this, the stupidest things keep you awake at night!

Just a few questions came up after the kitchen post. The first was what kind of material we used on the ceilings.
All the painted trim in our house is MDF material. If you are going to paint, it is so much nicer to work with because there are no knots or rough patches. We got it though our local lumberyard, but I know they sell it at Home Depot.
The trim paint in part of the house is a semi-gloss. We did all that painting ourselves, but when we did the second phase, we hired a painter and started using oil base paint. The difference is huge. The oil has a much smoother, nicer finish, but it is not fun to work with.
Last year, I visited a historic home that had dark walls, and gloss creamy white trim. It was gorgeous, and if I had seen that finish, I would have considered gloss for the trim as an option as well.

More Junk House to come.....stay tuned!

the junk house -kitchen edition

Now that you've seen the outside of the Junk House, it's time to venture inside. The kitchen was, of course, the most consuming individual room of the remodel.

It was actually remodeled twice. Once, from the initial gutting, and then again when we decided to make the house our permanent home. You see, we were just going to live in the house while we were building our new home. In order to make it livable though, we had to put a lot of time and money into it...windows, insulation, all new siding, and total reinforcement of the non-existent foundation (remember, we're 97 years old). In that process, the place started to grow on us, and we decided to make it our permanent home. While the house was just fine for a temporary place to live, knowing we were going to live here for a very long time made us re-think the big picture and function of the current floor plan. Unfortunately, we ended up re-doing and un-doing some of our recently completed remodeling projects. It almost killed my husband to take out/move walls that had just been freshly sheet rocked, painted and trimmed out.

I cannot begin to describe how disgusting the kitchen was. It's hard to see just how grimy and gross it was in this scanned photo. Cedar shakes ran around the tops of the cabinets, the light fixtures were covered with thick brown dirt and when we removed the cupboards, we found a mouse graveyard. Blech!


I have tried to stand in the same spot for the after pictures to give a good idea of how things have changed.


I think the only thing that stayed the same is the kitchen window over the sink, which isn't visible in this shot.

Below is the view from the living room, through the dining room.


We added the wall between the kitchen and dining room.


For phase two of the kitchen remodel, we took out a wall to make the kitchen bigger and added another wall of cabinets.


Here's one more after. (I think you've seen enough before's to get the idea.)


I love my kitchen. I love the vintage/retro feel. If there was room, I would have a bigger eating bar, but we make due with the two seater. That's the only thing I think I would change.

Dear Meadowbrook Kitchen,
You are an awesome kitchen. You have cooked lots of hearty meals for the men in my life, and they are grateful. On occasion, you crank out some great chick food too, for me and whatever girls I can convince to visit! The only issue I have with you is that somehow you are letting the occasional mouse get in under my sink. I have done my part with a can of spray foam, but somehow they seem to sneak by on the rare occasion. Is there a secret passage I don't know about? I don't appreciate you fraternizing with the enemy, and feel we really need to deal with this, then we can get back to our normal, great relationship. I look forward to many more culinary adventures together. You're a good, hardworking kitchen.

p.s. It is hard to take good indoor pictures! I had the toughest time getting accurate color and exposure. The walls in the kitchen are a light apple green, but I couldn't seem to get that to show up right.

the junk house

Ten years ago, when we decided to move from the burbs to the country, we were planning to buy a bit of acreage and build a home. We ended up buying the second place we looked at. It had it all. A great view of the mountains, a pond with fish, and green fields. It was a peaceful, rural setting - just what we wanted to start our new way of life. It was the perfect piece of land. With just one exception. Actually several exceptions. Rather large exceptions. It came with this......

The Junk House

Notice the lovely bright blue astro turf? It's covering up the gaping holes in the porch flooring. And who doesn't enjoy a nice refrigerator on their front porch. A lovely way to offer guests a beverage before they even knock on the door. "Hi there, guests - welcome to Montucky! Grab a brewski and watch your step!" Not exactly the picture I was hoping to paint for our beautiful country life.

Back view.

Note the hot tub on the back porch that, until today, I hadn't thought about for about nine years. The nightmares will return tonight. The "garage" on the end was an obvious add on, the peak of the roof covered part of the upstairs bedroom window, and the living room window downstairs looked into the garage. Charming.

A little distance helps....a little.

The farther you get, the better it looks.

I loved the property, but despised the house and it's hideous group of outbuildings (a post all their own, coming soon.) I suggested to my husband that we see if we could potentially buy the property, minus the five acres or so that the house occupied. He pointed out that if we didn't buy it and fix it up, we'd be living next to it forever. Good point.

We ended up buying the whole property, and thus began the biggest project of our lives. A total gutting, almost ten years, and many changes of plans later we still have two doorknobs to put on and a couple pieces of baseboard trim to install, but we're pretty much there.

*My youngest just walked in and saw the old house pictures laying about. He said "I remember those days! Those ugly days." He was the one who coined the phrase "Junk House." He was five when we moved here and absolutely couldn't comprehend that the house would ever be livable. He would tear up and ask why we bought a junk house instead of a real house. It took a long time, but we finally got it up to his standards.

Here's an after shot.

Dear Meadowbrook Cottage,
Thank you for hanging in there for 97 years before we found you. Your potential shined (shone?) through the dead mouse bodies and the chicken manure on the floor, and it didn't take long before I had every room color picked and every piece of furniture placed. In my mind anyway. In reality, it took a very, very long time to get you where you are today. You're a good, fine house.

p.s. Here's a photo of our place in days gone by. Our neighbor's grandma had lived in our house at one time, and they found this photo among her things.