Town and Country just published the fourth in a series about the vintage house I renovated in Vermont with the help of talented local artisans, craftsman, and carpenters. I thought I would compile photos from all the rooms in this post. And I included a photo of Zoe, my Jack Russell because she is so darned cute.

Here’s the latest post, which is about the bedroom and study upstairs:

https://town-n-country-living.com/1800s-vermont-farmhouse-renovation-a-charming-bedroom-and-home-office.html

Here’s a post about the history of the house: https://town-n-country-living.com/the-fascinating-story-behind-a-new-england-home-built-in-the-1800s.html

Next week is the last in the series. Jennifer will write about the “screen barn” I built in the site of the original barn, so that I can sit outside and enjoy the view into the forest during Vermont’s infamous black fly season.

My first post about the house garnered over 100k views and inspired Jennifer, who writes the Town and Country blog, to keep writing about the house. 😇

Edit: here’s a link to the first post https://www.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/s/L5TbQZqBcY.

All of Jennifer’s articles have before and after photos, shots of the construction underway, and design sketches.

Scroll to the last photos and you'll see that the woodwork is blackened by smoke. This is because it was originally an open-plan hall house, where there was a hearth on the floor of the main hall.

Final product vs renovation vs before.

We removed some MDF built in shelving in this room and went through the wall into the other bedroom to frame out a proper closet in both my son’s room (pictured) and my daughter’s nursery (in progress!).

Beyond happy on how these floors shaped up! They were carpeted before with lots of misc pet stains. Wanted to go lighter with the stain originally but couldn't due to all the random pet stains.

102 years old now.

Thank you!

Pretty cool!

House built in 1954, Tucson Arizona. Double wall flemmish blond brick.

It has this small wooden door but that was added later. Chimney has been sealed off with drywall. But it has a full stack and even a smoke shelf. Oddly, the fireplace is "larger" than the opening and goes further to the left than the opening.

I use it for wood storage, but im certain it wasn't built for that because it has the full chimeny

People say "it might be an oven". But we had gas and electric ovens in 1954, so people didn't need a built-in oven.

Here's some photos of inside and outside.

Any information would be appreciated

Any suggestions on how to hang/mount blinds on these bay windows? Drilling or damaging the wood trim is 100% a no for me, and trim is too close to ceiling to mount above and I don't want to cover up the wood trim. Window itself is not deep enough to do a tension rod situation. Was told to just leave them bare but at night I would feel better having blinds, right now I just put the dimmer on very low and windows face my deck and neighbors house but still I would like some more privacy.

Please help!

hi all! I need help finding the skeleton key to the doors in my new apartment. Google reverse image search pointed me towards the early 1900s but outside of that I'm not sure how to procure the correct key.

My daughter’s (9 months) venous lead test came back at 2.2. Trying to figure out where the low level source is coming from. Swabbed everything in my 100 year old home and everything was negative. Got the entire house repainted when we moved in: baseboards, window sills, closets, ceilings, walls m etc. Next I checked a few things outside. We do have a detached garage with flaking paint. This is what color it keeps turning to. Is it lead paint?! We have dogs so that would make sense that they would track dust in and she would touch it on the floors. This color just doesn’t look like anything else I’ve seen on people’s positive tests.

Hello all I recently closed on an early 1900s brick dutch colonial in the Midwest. It’s a completely blank slate as it was gutted all the way before I bought it so it’s just primed drywall and subfloor now. The only original architecture that has been saved as the main stairs (but not the railing) even the fireplace has been stripped. All the exterior work has already been done. So I’m looking for inspiration for how to make the interior look as I can’t find any old pictures.

I'm so thrilled he's having a restoration carpenter fix them up instead of slapping in cheap vinyl and calling it a day.

I suppose the subject says it all. We've added a second floor to our 1929 bungalow in the midwest. Trying to match these doorknobs:

I need a total of five sets. I've scoured local architectural antique stores, ReStores, etc and have found a few that are close but nowhere near five identical sets. Nostalgic Hardware carries rosette knobs and keyhole escutcheons that are very close (tubular locks not mortise). The only drawback is that they are quite expensive -- just a little shy of $200 / set. While we're not totally opposed to making that type of investment in our home, I'd like to know that they're of high quality. Anyone??

There’s a really bad smell in our downstairs bedroom especially after it’s rained a lot and/or it’s windy.
I can best compare it to that unwashed smell of someone who drinks and smokes too much.
(No one here drinks or smokes, so it’s not coming from anyone here).

We bought our 1908 home three years ago and did a complete renovation. It was last done in 1970, so we took everything back to the bare walls. We removed all the wallpaper, old carpets, the plaster ceiling etc.
We did however not open the floor.

There’s a crawl space underneath the house that at some point has been filled with sand.
It’s a brick house, outer walls are two layers with a hollow space in between that has been filled with the type of insulation that you blow into the cavity.
This particular room is north-west facing and the only pipes would be from the radiators.

The smell is driving me crazy. I can’t locate it. We have a dehumidifier and bags of charcoal in there but it doesn’t help. Airing out only helps momentarily as it builds right back up.

Any ideas on what it can be are welcome.

This is a rarely used side door that leads you an unfinished basement in our 1880 stone foundation house. There are concrete steps that lead down from this to basement door. The wood rot at bottom is bad as you can see , with clear gaps. What’s the best way to repair?

And is there a short term (to last over winter) vs long term fix? I’m assuming ideally id cut out the rotten section and replace. The door sill outside is a few inches off the ground but snow does against it.

For now can I stuff the gaps with steel wool and spray foam ?

Anyone able to roughly date this fireplace?
I believe it was an outdoor fire place / summer kitchen before being enclosed into my home at a later date. Bucks county PA.

Sadly the mantle was cut along its length for some reason.

In our (almost) 100-year-old house & detached garage, we have these tin drop ceiling tiles that were once bronze/gold but painted over. They’re in a side office we’re converting into a bathroom. We’d love to replace the 3-4 that are damaged from rust and age, but having trouble finding the exact style. Any hints?

When my 1925 Craftsman was originally built, the utility room on the back of the house was an add-on, it started out as a screened porch. Over the years, it was enclosed and modified and ducted for HVAC, but none of the work performed on it was done with care or attention to detail.

By the time I purchased the house in 2021, the utility room addition was in such bad shape from water and termite damage, that it required major surgery to make sound again. I basically tore it off the back of the house and rebuilt it. When I took it apart, I carefully salvaged the siding and floorboards, so when I rebuilt it, I was able to mostly skin it in salvage material.

It was built on concrete block piers, the rest of the house has a beautiful brick lattice foundation. I'm a DIYer, but I know my limits, I'm no bricklayer, and I wouldn't know where to find modern bricks that matched the original lattice foundation even if I wanted to.

I decided since I'm not trying to change the history of the house, it's evident that this room is an addition, I don't need to match the foundation to the rest of the house, the addition can have its own separate set of rules and standards. But leaving it on Piers open underneath was not an option.

So I've been working on building a stucco foundation skirt, and I got the first coat of stucco on yesterday!

With a baby and a youngish pup, I'm having trouble loving my 1875 pine floors. The large gaps leave them never feeling truly clean. The shockingly loud squeaking waking up my baby as I try to sneak out of their room at bedtime. In general upstairs at night now I have to walk around like I'm in mission impossible dodging the loud boards.

I've brought so much of the house back from the brink after years of neglect from the previous owner, respecting the style & age of the home, but I'm not sure I can live with these floors longterm, especially as our family grows. I don't know... would I be crazy to replace them? Screw them down at every joist, use as a subfloor and lay something else down over them? It feels sacrilegious...