This is our second Christmas at the farm and last year we put up a live tree in the huge family room that is actually an addition to our old farmhouse. We didn't build it, it came that way. I like the family room, it's large and roomy but very cold. In the summer it's great---free air conditioning, but in the winter, it is an ice rink. There is a fireplace in there, but it is pretty pathetic. It`s for show rather than anything. The little bit of heat you get out of it is a joke. It has a tiny insert that could fit maybe three logs top---and those are small logs not long burning huge ones. And it has no blower. We have no idea why they bothered to put it in there. It cost a pretty fortune. It`s made entirely of marble and was imported from Europe. But it acts more like a space heater than a fireplace.
Back in the summer, Oldest started running a doggie daycare from my home and has got quite a lot of dogs prebooked for the upcoming Christmas holidays. I elected to designate the family room to her and her boarding dogs We have put up a door to this room to block out noise, smell, privacy and to help keep the cold air from penetrating the rest of the house. The dogs can tolerate the cold and besides, (tip for you dog lovers out there) keeping your dog in a cold room helps their coats to grow in nice and thick. But this left us with nowhere to put up our Christmas tree.
There is a front room that was once the old parlour but we have converted it into our office; then there is the kitchen; and a dining room off the kitchen....and then there is this room. What makes this room confusing is it has the house`s original front door in it.
There is a front room that was once the old parlour but we have converted it into our office; then there is the kitchen; and a dining room off the kitchen....and then there is this room. What makes this room confusing is it has the house`s original front door in it.
The staircase is to the right in the above photo and to the left is a huge wall to wall built in bookshelf. The photo below was taken when we toured the house. We since painted the blue trim white and painted over the bottom panel doors white as well. I think I burned the curtains.
As you can see, we moved the television into this room and hence it became the new family room even though it could only fit a sofa into it and one table. As you can imagine, I hated the bookshelf and new from the start it was eventually coming down. However, renovating my house has sadly taken a back burner to settling into the rest of the farm. But when I got the boot out of the family room, sort of speak, and Christmas was looming just over a month away....37 days to be exact....I began to look at my options. And this room was my best option. To be honest, I played with the idea of moving the family room into the dining room as it would require redecorating rather than renovating. But a spur of the moment ambition on my and Oldest`s part, we decided to gamble 37 days before Christmas and tear down that eyesore of a bookshelf. I had enormous fears of what lay beneath. The center wall backs onto the chimney outside. As far as I know, there is no fireplace beneath this wall, the fireplace probably went to the basement where they burned coal in the earlier years. Since then the only use it gets is it acts as housing for a colony of bats that occasionally find their way into my house.
I`ve lived in old houses before and have renovated old houses before and assumed the eyesore was hiding something nasty. Have you ever seen century old plaster walls? One word. Scary. But we went for it and pulled out the crowbar and tore down the first shelf. I was ecstatic to find this beneath.
I`ve lived in old houses before and have renovated old houses before and assumed the eyesore was hiding something nasty. Have you ever seen century old plaster walls? One word. Scary. But we went for it and pulled out the crowbar and tore down the first shelf. I was ecstatic to find this beneath.
Yes, my friends, that is drywall!! So we kept swinging that crowbar until all shelves came down.
With the easiest part out of the way (haha, I'm so funny) we tackled the bottom part of the unit. That required my favourite tool the reciprocating saw....doesn't that have the coolest name, I love saying it, re-cccip-rocating saw! My kids think I'm loony but I can wield that saw like it's nobodies business. See.
All done. A bit of missing pieces around the windows where the shelves and cabinets surrounded them but other than that, all I need to do is some minor patching and painting! I'm so happy! And relieved. Now the countdown is on to finish the room and have it ready in time for Old Saint Nick's visit.