Another Old Farm

Our second son Christian has found a job near our home in Hopewell with a company he is excited to grow with. He has just found an old farm to make his own near here which he considers "living in paradise". The offer was accepted this week and we are all full of dreams and visions and hopes this will be his old farm!

Here it is.

The front door...

The front porch...

The garage barn...

 Inside is the work room...
 

And three bays for cars etc...

Above is a studio...

Behind this barn is a tractor building...

And behind that is a small animal barn with two horse stalls next to the small animal stalls...

In the back meadow is a horse barn with seven more horse bays...

And plenty of grooming space across from them...

And now the farmhouse greenhouse...

The brick patio on one side of it...

The kitchen on the other side...

The dining room...

The mud room behind it...

The coat room in front of it...

The stairs are next to the dining room here...

With a graceful handrail and spindles...

Under the stairs is the powder room...

And then comes the library...

And the sunroom...

Off the sunroom is a back deck...

In the center back of the house is the living room...

There are three bedrooms upstairs and two bathrooms...

This bath has a dressing room!

And the basement has a soapstone sink...

There are seven manicured acres with old specimen trees, an old water pump, smokehouse and a stream on this property. All are a dream come true for Christian!

Colonial Floorboards

In 1691 any Eastern White Pine in America measuring 24" wide at least, was preserved for the King of England's making of Naval ships which was written into "The Massachusetts Bay Charter". This pine was twice the height of any previously growing in England, stood straight up to 230' tall; free of branches up to 80', while being more flexible, lighter and less resinous than any other pines. They made the best single stick mast ships of their day which conquered the Dutch and could have the French fleets. In 1772 an English law was passed protecting 12" wide pines and then even 8" wide trees were included.

Old Farm was built in 1717 and is an example of the statement that "never under any circumstances, would the floorboards of any colonial home exceed 23" in width". All of the floor boards here taper and are fitted together.

Colonists paid for a Royal License to cut trees on their own property which were not marked for the King. This "tax" was reason for the "Pine Riot of 1772" and another reason for the Revolution. The first colonial flag had a pine tree emblazoned on it and a flag of the white pine was flown at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Upstairs we have boards wider than 23" (still less than 24") because the law applied only to the first floor of colonial homes.

Painting Old Beams II

The master bedroom ceiling beams are nearly 300 years old and have relatively smooth sides, but bottoms with rougher carvings (which in places allowed for a drop ceiling of lathe and plaster finishing). After sanding all the nuances and cracks with 80 and 120 grit sand paper, we filled many (hand-made) nail holes before caulking everywhere. The beams are painted with a thick coat of primer and a finish coat of Benjamin Moore's "White" Satin paint.

Bill carved out all of the beam cracks with a sharp putty knife and suctioned each one with the cupped end of a vacuum cleaner after sanding.

When finished, we left for home as the sun was setting on the front of the house with sunlight still streaming in the front windows and lighting up these amazing hand hewn old beams... we can now wake to see here.

It was too cold to open all of the doors, but soon there will be Cape Cod sunlight streaming in from all directions to reflect off the interesting wood surfaces in this house.

A Curtain Closet

The upstairs loft space has a hallway behind the chimney we made a closet by hanging curtains and clothes poles between the beams and two constructed end walls. The curtains were made of a thick Belgian Linen with tall ruffles and deep hems (to let out as they shrink from washings). I've used a sailors knot tie-back to keep the center curtain open and allow for easy access.

Inside is a small antique Danish "Handkerchief Dresser" with a marble top and whitewashed wood. It fits and blends in easily with room to hang and store in front of it. Below is my favorite bedroom closet with a dresser and exposed clothes pole from the blog "This is Glamorous".

Front and Back Doors

The back door is now painted Zieder Zee Blue and the front doors are Moorland Green from the Fine Paints of Europe. Below are two darker shades of this marine quality paint used close together and so striking. 

(Image from Fine Paints of Europe website)

Painting the Living Room

Bill drove us through a blizzard this holiday weekend... to experience a big blizzard at Old Farm and paint the living room floor while sequestered there. This original floor was the last of the living room to be painted, but needed a very wide board patched first.

We used an original old floor board from upstairs (which was removed to create the stairs cathedral ceiling), for the patch. It was ship-lapped on all four sides for a tight fit. Luckily the floor here had been reinforced with sub-floor boards, although they needed much chiseling and disc-sanding for installation. This patch is in one of three prominent boards near the hearth which measure about 22" wide. On a colonial house first floor, boards this wide were a status symbol and taxed by the English.

Bill meticulously cleaned the floor board joints with a puddy knife's edge and vacuum nozzle before disc sanding and priming them. This room faces South and is sunlit nearly all day. It is also 12' square, so painting it all white and adding a large mirror was an easy decision.

With temperatures in the single digits, we ran our wood stove and fans all night to finish the painting and leave just before the next heavy snowstorm hit. The walls in this room were painted Benjamin Moore's Eggshell White, the trim and wood wall boards are Benjamin Moore's Satin White, and the floor has two coats of an oil based white after white primer.

Above the fireplace looks to have original paneling around our third new flu and rebuilt chimney.

 A parting snow shot...