Question and Answer Session About Our Old Renovated Farmhouse

Question and Answer Session About Our Old Renovated Farmhouse. Answering all your questions about our first home, the farmhouse we renovated over three years!

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A young newlywed couple, 10 weeks pregnant with their first baby, stands in the doorway of their just-purchased first home. It is a 120 year old house in the middle of a small town in Montana. And it’s a little scary to look at. It needs a lot of love.

As they walk in the front door the threshold almost falls through. They get inside. The whole downstairs is covered with disgusting blue carpet, so they instantly tear that up. But underneath, is a mix of sub-floor, plywood, particle board, sticks, and linoleum tile. And that’s just where there aren’t just big gaping holes into the spider-infested crawlspace.

The couple look back and forth at each other, wondering what the heck they got themselves into.

That was me and Luke a little over three years ago when we first bought this house.

It was definitely a fixer-upper. You had to really have a wild imagination to see the potential of what it could become. But our dreams have slowly, and with a lot of hard work, have come to reality all these years later as we are finally finished with the renovation and are getting ready to move out of this house.

I’ve gotten a ton of questions regarding the renovation, selling the house, etc, so I thought I’d answer all the most-asked questions in this post!

Question and Answer Session About Our Old Renovated Farmhouse

#1 How did you manage living in a remodel with little children?

It was hard. Especially as our first started crawling and walking around independently. The floor was rough and unfinished, and there was chronically construction dust all over the place. So I had to let go of a lot of expectations I had about how clean it needed to be. Things don’t need to be sterile for kids, it’s actually better for their immune systems if they aren’t sterile. But it was still a mental block I had to get past.

I also had to take the kids outside or in a room across the house when Luke was using loud tools so that it didn’t scare them. So just logistically there were things like that to figure out, that were a little inconvenient. Overall though, it was very very good for us. It calmed me down as a mother and gave all of us experience together that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. Me, Luke, and all our kids are way more chill about things than we would have been if we just lived in a normal house all these years!

#2 Why do you want to move? Especially after working so hard to make it perfect?

Moving after 2 to 3 years was always our plan with this house. We originally bought it as a fix and flip because it was literally all we could afford. Looking back, it was the best investment decision we could have made, with how low the market was then and how high it is now. But we had always been planning on fixing it up, making a profit on it, and then using that money to buy our dream homestead. Even though it is such a beautiful home, and I’ll be sad to leave it, I’m so thankful that it has allowed us to afford the house we want on more land.

#3 What was your first impression when you bought it?

“What have we gotten ourselves into??”

That’s kinda what we first thought about it.

It was a little scary, and it almost wasn’t even livable. It took a lot of imagination and dreaming to plan out how we wanted it to end up.

But man am I glad we stuck with it and did the work even though it was a little scary!

#4 Did restoration seem intimidating?

Very. Especially for me having no experience with it and this being our first time as homeowners. Luke came into it with a lot of carpentry knowledge and was able to do every part of the renovation himself. But even so, we knew it would be a big, long, exhausting job.

#5 Is it hard for you to think about leaving the place where both your babies were born?

Yes, this is one of the hardest parts for me. I get very attached to places with memories, and the more special the memory, the harder it is to let go of that place. Being able to point out the spots on the floor where each of my children were born isn’t something everyone can do, and I don’t take that for granted. Even thinking about leaving has been hard, but I know it’ll really hit me once we are actually physically moving things out and driving away. Or when we drive past the place to see how it’s doing later on. It will just feel so final.

But I keep reminding myself that we will fill our next home with just as lovely of memories. Before I know it we will already have had two or three babies born there also and it won’t seem as hard. It’ll start feeling like OUR place.

#6 Do you own a TV? I didn’t see one in your home tour

If you missed our home tour you can see it HERE on the blog, or watch it on the YouTube channel.

Yes we do own a TV. We used to have it up on top of the piano, but when we were getting the house ready to list we put it in storage to clear out some space. Me and Luke do enjoy watching a show in the evenings after the kids go to bed and after we do our Bible reading, but we have just been using the laptop set up on a coffee table in front of the couch. I actually prefer to use the laptop because it can get put away when you’re not using it.

I don’t like having a TV out all the time, I don’t really like how it looks aesthetically, and we also just don’t need it that much. The only time we use it is in the evenings for a short time, like I said, and our kids don’t watch TV at all. So we shall see if we put it up in the new house when we move or not.

#7 What inspired the yellow doors?

I’ve always been obsessed with mustard yellow. All of my favorite shirts are this color.

But I hadn’t considered (or maybe I just hadn’t gotten brave enough) to paint something on our house that bold or different of a color. That is until I saw Farmhouse Vernacular paint her whole kitchen a similar shade of yellow. And it was amazing. So I decided that I must paint something that color before we left! So front and back door it was! And someday I will be painting my kitchen that color too, because I’m obsessed.

#8 Did you add the french doors, or were they already there?

When we first moved in there was just a regular single exterior door with a window on the east of it (left-hand side if you are in the house). I don’t remember which one of us thought of putting in french doors, but Luke installed them and I absolutely love how they look! They make the kitchen flow right out into the porch and it makes it feel nice and open.

#9 How big is your house?

This house is 1,176 sqft. It is pretty small, but even so, it still is able to fit three bedrooms and a massive kitchen. I just wish it had one more bathroom, that would make it totally perfect for a family with several kids!

#10 What is the layout of your house and property?

This house is two stories tall. The upstairs has the two small kids bedrooms, each with an open closet. The downstairs is the main hub of activity. You come into he front door into the living room, then off to the right (in the south-east corner) is the master bedroom. Straight forward (in the south-west corner is the kitchen), then in the north-west corner is the bathroom. Then you are back around to the north-east which is the living room.

The front yard is pretty small, just some grass, a flower bed along the house, and the sidewalk. Then you go around to the back which opens up to a huge yard. We are on two city lots here so we have a nice amount of space for being in town. The first yard is the garden / grass for the kids to play in. Then the second half of the yard is the chicken run with their coop, which is also the house for meat rabbits.

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#11 How old is the house?

It was built in 1905 so it is 116 years old exactly. Old houses are my favorite! I love they style, the build, that they’ve been around so long and seen so much. It’s just all so cool!

#12 Do you know anything about the original owners from over 100 years ago?

No, unfortunately not. I’ve tried to do some research and find out who originally built it and also who all has lived here. I’m so curious! But I haven’t been able to find much of anything. Maybe I’m just going about it wrong haha So if anyone has a good idea for how to find that out please leave it in the comments!

I hope you enjoyed this question and answer session about our old renovated farmhouse!

And blessings.

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Question and Answer Session About Our Old Renovated Farmhouse