Letters from a very old farmhouse

January

This is your very first letter from our very old farmhouse. I intend to write a letter each month, maybe more, maybe less. I will be sharing our historic home restoration experiences… the good, the bad. We have learned so much in the last two years, and we haven’t even moved into our home yet. This will be a space for all of it.

Some days this house feels like a dream. The restored floors, the view of the barn from the windows in the house, the fact that the rooms hold centuries worth of stories.

And some days it feels heavy, overwhelming, and very real.

Both are true right now.

We are in one of those in-between phases that doesn’t always photograph beautifully. A lot has been finished, but so much is still unresolved. The house still needs utilities and has many unfinished spaces. The barn is halfway between vision and reality. The garden is dormant but planned in my head.

Instagram is best for holding the more polished parts of that. This is where I can tell you the rest.

Keeping Room

Where we actually are

The farmhouse itself is nearly livable now, but not quite settled. We have replaced the siding, the roof, the windows, restored the floors, some walls, some ceilings. We have carefully stripped away layers of peeling paint from brick and from wood. We repaired and remodeled the bathrooms and the kitchen. We replaced the busted radiators. We ripped out knob and tube electricity and rewired the whole house. I have been painting room by room every weekend for two years. Much of this work has been accomplished in the heat and in the cold with no utilities. All while working hard to restore and preserve the character in this home. It has been quite the adventure, and I wouldn’t trade it in for anything.

Now, we have moved out of our two years of survival mode and into something more subtle: decision fatigue. And honestly, just fatigue in general. Tying up unfinished projects. Every remaining choice… lighting, finishes, appliances… feels like it carries more weight than the ones before it. And so, I have decided that our best course is to wait and see. We can spend the remainder of our New England winter preparing to move, which is really just buttoning up projects that are already underway and getting the plumbing and electricity hooked up. Then we can move in, get a feel for the space, and see what feels right. There are still spaces that need color choices, furniture decisions, and even mapping out how to utilize different rooms.

So that’s the plan, for now. Slow thoughtful progress, and also some much-needed rest. We have sacrificed a lot of time with friends and family and doing things that we love over the last two years in order to accomplish all that was needed to get to this point. But holy cow, has it been worth it. Feeling very proud and very grateful and really looking forward to what comes next.