If you’ve been following the Sixty-One Farmhouse on Instagram you know that we are finally in the stage of putting the house back together! It’s been a long road and I’ve been looking through photos from the end of 2017 to see how far we’ve come. Last September we had just finished most of the exterior of the house and finally had nailed down what we wanted the interior of the farmhouse to look like. Here are some photos of demolition just to remind everyone of what that entailed:

Never forget. 

It’s amazing what you can uncover about the history of a house during demolition…and sometimes there are more questions than answers. If you remember, I was able to track down a photo of the farmhouse from 1925 from the family of Grace and Vascal Williams:

I’m not even sure that the staircase was there yet because there used to be a doorway right into it:

The Downstairs Floor Plan:

Based on all the layers of the house we uncovered it was evident that the farmhouse had undergone many changes. Here’s the farmhouse 1st floor layout when we purchased the house:

There were a few changes we wanted to undo and a few changes we thought the farmhouse needed to modernize it:

1. Removed the “dining room” bathroom: The farmhouse originally only had one small downstairs bathroom and the floor was rotting out from under it. Either to account for that, or to add an additional bathroom, the dining room had been converted into a large bathroom and laundry. Not only was it an odd location for a bathroom, it also resulted in awkward hallways and door locations. We removed that entire bathroom right off the bat.
2. Moved the kitchen and dining room: The small awkward den between the old master bedroom and master bath resulted in a lot of dead space so something had to be rearranged. The centered picture window in that space was the perfect spot for a kitchen sink, it would just have to be reduced in size. Everything else fell into place after that. Having the kitchen, bar, dining room and living room all together made the perfect open floor plan. 
3. Created a master suite: We were able to move the master bedroom to the other side of the house where it still adjoined with the bathroom. We also added a small closet which was huge because there were no closets downstairs before. 
4. Added a laundry, small den and 1/2 bath: By rearranging rooms we ended up with much more space and were able to add a laundry room and a half bath. We also added a small den off the master bedroom where we can put a pull-out couch for renter’s with small kids. It also adds a second living area to the downstairs.  

The guys had an overall plan but they mostly just focused on one room at at time during the framing process. Jaime owns a local custom home building company (Perkins Enterprises) with his brother Erik so he’s an expert at this type of thing. The downstairs framing was well underway by the end of last summer…this is the new master bedroom and bathroom:

Mr. Plott (who grew up in the house) said that he remembers there being a cast iron stand-alone tub in the old bathroom but eventually it was changed to a shower:

We kept the downstairs bathroom in the same place just re-arranged it to work with the new location of the bedroom:

I should mention here that the guys also had to reenforce all the ceiling and floor beams to ensure the structural integrity of the old farmhouse! You can see the new ceiling joists in this photo of Jaime and Brett installing the new smaller window for over the sink in the new kitchen area:

The Upstairs Floor Plan:

With three potential bedrooms on the second floor we really wanted to add a bathroom upstairs if it was possible. The guys basically started took it down to the bare bones because that was the only way to do it right:

Once all the walls were opened up the guys were able to find additional space: 

Here’s the original upstairs floor plan:

And here’s the new one with a new bathroom that opens up to the upstairs bathroom as well as the landing so it can be accessed but the two other bedrooms:

Framing in the new upstairs bathroom:

Looking up into the old roof, just for fun. That’s old wormy chestnut…very rare these days but plentiful back in the early 1900s because of the chestnut blight:

Sometimes I wonder if some of the wood from the this house came from the old house that sat on the property before the farmhouse. Some of the wood in the farmhouse is REALLY old. You can see an old house in the bottom right of this photo that sat right where our farmhouse sits now. And that amazing house in the background? That’s J.H. Everett’s huge Victorian house! He’s the one that built the farmhouse back in 1911 and sold it the next year. That amazing mansion doesn’t exist anymore…the First Baptist church sits there now. Can you imagine tearing that thing down?! Makes me want to cry. Anyway, the enormous mansion was built for Everett as a wedding present from his parents. According to The Heritage of Swain County it was built between 1875 and 1880 by Rufus Summerrow. I wish I could go back in time and chain myself to it when they decided to tear it down. I would. The hill in the background is where our current ranch house sits…so much coolness in one old early 1900s photo:

(Photo from The Heritage of Swain County 1988)

I’m jumping forward a bit but we did redo the roof of the farmhouse around October and it was at that point that we could really see the old roof vs. new.  You can see how the screen porch was converted into the kitchen in the 1940’s (Maybe I’ve missed my calling as a house detective…I kind of become obsessive about it.):

Here’s what the house looks like patched together from the inside…the insulation you see is the only insulation in the whole house…and I’m guessing it was added in the 1940s as well. That’s the old kitchen stove chimney which we sadly had to take out because it was crumbling:

I’m just going to share one last photo for now because this post is getting a little long. My favorite from this past year…Jaime and Brett taking a break from rebuilding a floor. They are the hardest workers I know! And I think the photo looks so timeless (except for the McFlurry and ShopVac):

You can read more posts about the Sixty-One Park Farmhouse here and follow more progress on Instagram here (@sixtyonepark) and here (@lilblueboo). 

Thanks so much for reading! The most often asked question we get is what we are going to do with it! It will be a historic Airbnb starting this summer for those visiting Bryson City and the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

I’ve been putting off blogging about the exterior of the Sixty-One Park Farmhouse because it was such an enormous job. It took me a few days to wrap my head around all that had been completed because it’s really a blur. I was looking back at photos from last March when demolition was still underway and we decided to take the aluminum siding off. Here’s what the farmhouse looked like when we first started:  

We started with demolition on the inside and then moved to the outside. At some point during the life of the farmhouse aluminum siding had been put on which was great for us because it preserved a lot of the original wood siding underneath. That wood being revealed is over 100 years old:

Brett always likes to point out to Sienna and I how the parts of every old house served a purpose. Even the wood was chosen for a specific reason (for strength, or ability to withstand the elements).  It is all these little details that we don’t think about today, and why the house has taken so long to put back together with no short cuts: 

When the storm windows were removed we realized that the original windows were still in place, with the old wavy glass. Sadly most of them would have had to be rebuilt so we decided to replace them but I saved them for a future project: 

The guys really tried to think as far out as possible so that they would not have to go back and do anything twice or do something out of order, which meant stopping work and refocusing when they ran into something that had to be done. Like on this particular morning, the old kitchen window (which is now the laundry room) became the first window to be replaced. It was a very early morning project as you can see from the headlamp Brett is wearing: 

Then the porch windows were replaced. We were able to keep siding that was under the porch or otherwise protected from the rain and sun, but other than that we decided to replace most of the other areas:

In the photo below Jaime and his dad were prepping for new siding. The new white boards are called “band boards” and they ground the house, drawing a distinct break between the foundation and the house itself. 

We actually had a local mill custom make all the replacement siding so it was the exact same size as the old and could be easily blended right back in.  Each piece received a coat of primer to the front and the back and then an initial coat of paint, just so it wouldn’t be left unfinished on the house for too long. It is tough to get good help these days…my chickens left tiny little feet marks across every single board more than once:

The old house was typical of most old houses in that it didn’t have any sheathing or waterproofing. It also didn’t have any insulation, so we found every little rot because when the inside of the siding got wet, it just dried out over the years. Modern codes and insulation requirements required us to add sheathing and waterproofing:

We have the best partners in the project, Jaime and his wife Jaime. Yes they have they exact same name! Jaime made these little wood stacking things so that dozens of boards could be painted at once. I call them “stacky thingies” but apparently they are called sticker stackers:

And voila, the new siding goes up:

 
Here’s Jaime using a “swing stick” or “story pole” to narrow up the siding so it matched when meeting above and below the window, just like the old-timers. Such a simple tool and I can think of all kinds of projects this would probably help with: quilting, tiling etc. And yes, he’s working by headlamp here, before the sun was even up. He and Brett saw almost 250 sunrises in 2017:

The siding actually took a long time because the guys only work in the mornings before work. They would get about a half a wall done per day.  They also work every Saturday. They are so incredibly committed, I don’t know how they do it.  Here’s a time lapse of one of the walls being worked on in September:

 

A post shared by Sixty-One Park (@sixtyonepark) on Sep 2, 2017 at 10:02am PDT

Here’s Brett prepping one of the windows for installation before siding was fixed. I remember that day because he had to get rid of a hug hornets next early that morning in order to work up there:

By November the siding was done except for some small areas that still needed paint: 

Here’s the “before” photo again:

And the “after”:

And a beautiful morning sunrise: 

I have a lot more to catch you up on but it will be available as an Airbnb this coming summer so stay tuned! 

You can see more of the history and progress posts about the restoration of this 100+ year old farmhouse by clicking here. 

You can also follow along at the @Sixtyonepark Instagram account too!