Our Farmhouse: An Easy Wall Paper Back Splash! {a farmhouse remodel how-to}

We bought our 1930's farmhouse a few years ago, and between work, play, and having a baby, we've been chipping away at remodeling and reclaiming it. We really bought this house for the land (21 acres of Iowa gorgeous!)--- the house needed quite a bit of work. From refinishing the hardwood floors (quite a project), carpeting the living room, and painting EVERYTHING, we've made some good progress.

But there was one major eyesore that we couldn't decide how to remedy... the kitchen back splash.

A (super quick) Spring Tour...

It's been a while since I shared much about our little homestead- I think the last time I put up a bunch of pictures of what's going on around our little farm was when I was giving updates on the house progress.

Now that the weather is nice, we're not spending much time inside-- I'm out in the sunshine any chance I can get!

Blessings this Week: 05.06.2016

It has been an incredible week.

Nothing too profound has happened. Nothing too exciting.

And yet, all those little blessings fill up my days and make every moment so special.

Here's what I've been up to this week:

I don't think I'll ever get bored of these country sunsets.

...   ...   ...   ...   ...

So, Wait, What Are You Doing to Your House? (A Farmhouse Update)

I realize that besides showing you the dog house, we haven't done any updates on our little home remodel recently.

Which, means, well.. I'm in the dog house. With my mom. Who wants to see all the updates, with none of the messy gravel roads that it takes to come visit.

Fair enough.

It does get me thinking, though- I kind of vaguely mentioned that we are doing a remodel in our sweet 1934 farmhouse... and then launched into the millions of posts about the hardwood floors... but I never told you about the plan. About all the dreams.

It's about time I get on that, huh?

Here are all the plans to date... and while there is more in store in the file labeled "Eventually," these are the ideas for the immediate future.

And by "immediate," I mean, "whenever we get a spare minute."

A "Den" Fit for Bear

Since Bear joined our little farmstead, things have changed pretty dramatically around here.

Mostly in respect to my morning routine. I now have to, get this, wake up on time and act responsibly toward the care of someone other than myself. I know. I know.

But, besides my new morning walk-and-water schedule, life with this big old boy named Bear has been pretty smooth sailing. He's such a friendly dog that it's easy to forgive his few faults- like how he's always very excited to see us (read: jumps up sometimes), and how he doesn't really understand the concept of "Come," and the slobber.

Oh, the slobber.

The slobber is one (of several) reasons that Bear is an outside dog. Yes, an outside dog. That means that Bear doesn't come in the house. He comes into the entryway at night to sleep, but he stays outside for most of the day, where he can sniff and dig and slobber to his heart's content.

To get ready for Bear, we needed to make an outdoor shelter of sorts to protect him from the elements during the day, and also he's really old and likes to sleep a lot, so we wanted him to have a place to be comfy for his morning, mid-day, and afternoon naps.

Luckily, our farmplace has ninety million buildings.

(That's an exaggeration.)

Protecting Hardwood Floors with Tennis Balls

Now that my hardwood floors have been refinished (hallelujah), I'm freaking out like a crazy person every time I drop a spoon ("Did it DENT my floor??").

It's all about authenticity, right?

Honestly, though, I know that these floors are going to be lived on. Life will happen on these floors. I will drop stuff and dent the floor. I will scratch it up. God willing, someday a child may scribble on it with crayon. That's life. I get it.

But, just because I know damage will happen doesn't mean that I won't prevent it if I can. We learned, during the restoration, that this is it for the kitchen- there's not enough of the hardwood left to refinish the floor again. When the time comes that the kitchen floor is kaput (hopefully like, 50 years from now), we'll be replacing it, not reclaiming it.

I'd like to keep my floors as protected as possible, and being that furniture tends to be the toughest on floors, I wanted to keep chair legs and tables from scraping up all our hard work.

Refinishing Hardwood Floors: The Tips and The Tools

Reclaiming our hardwood floors ended up just like most remodels:

More time consuming than we expected it would be.

In part, that's because we're both working full time, and because there were some unexpected delays thrown in there.

And in part, it's because we're a little... optimistic.

In truth, refinishing our hardwood floors, by ourselves (with the exception of some much appreciated family and friends who we begged to come help us), was a lot of work. There are a lot of details that I didn't realize were a part of this project.

And we ended up needing a lot more stuff than I thought we would... a lot of it that I wouldn't have ever thought we could need. It's a really good thing that I have a hubby who's experienced in these kind of projects and had a lot of this on hand- otherwise we would have had to make far more trips to the hardware store than we did.

Prepping and Varnishing! (Refinishing Hardwood Floors, Part 4)

Just when it seemed that I'd be covered in sawdust for eternity... our hardwood floors were: 

x Scraped of glue

x Sanded with a drum sander

x Edged and detailed

x The hole was filled

... and now there was just one more thing left on the list--

Varnish. 

How to Repair a Hole in a Hardwood Floor

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We interrupt your sanding-hardwood-floors pleasure to bring you...

This hole.

Yep.

My kitchen floor- the one I've been scraping glue off of and sanding down tirelessly? It had a hole in it.

Sanding Edges and Corners (Refinishing Hardwood Floors, Part 3)

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Okay, so, we'd already pulled up carpet and removed glue from our hardwood floors, and then sanded them down using a drum sander. The next step was to sand those areas that the drum sander just couldn't hit- mainly the edges and the hard-to-reach spots.





See those dark edges? The drum sander couldn't reach all the way to each wall, so it was time to get out the edger. We rented an edging sander from our local hardware store, and called in some forced labor volunteers to help us out.

 Honestly, I don't know that we would have gotten everything done nearly as well or as quickly as we did without the help of our cousin and a co-worker who put in some long, crouched over hours helping us out. 

Sanding Hardwood Floors with a Drum Sander (Refinishing Hardwood Floors, Part 2)

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Well.

Last time I wrote about our floors, I had just gotten done removing the carpet adhesive and vinyl glue from three rooms- it was the first step in refinishing our beautiful, original, 1934 hardwoods.

After that long process, I was so excited to get to sanding-- after all, it couldn't possibly take as long as scraping all that glue, right?

Mmm.

Removing Glue (or Adhesive) from Hardwood Floors

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It started with the carpet.

Our little 1934 farmhouse had a tiny kitchen... that was carpeted.

I knew from the get-go that I didn't really want to have carpet in the kitchen (mostly because I'm a klutzy mess and I'm sure that the poor carpet would be covered in spaghetti-sauce stains about 4 minutes after I moved in)...

... but realizing that the carpet was covering the original, 1934 hardwood floors made me even more determined to get rid of it and reclaim those beautiful floors!

In fact, I figured, while I was at it, why not reclaim ALL the hardwood floors???

A Spark of the Divine

I'll be honest.

In light of all the hurt in the world, in the midst of scary words like ISIS, of devastated refugee families, of hunger close to home... it seems a little silly, this home remodel project of ours.

I mean, in the face of eternity, does pulling up carpets really matter?

5 Painting Tips for the Truly Amateur: A Farmhouse Update

Whew!

We've been busy bees around our little farmhouse lately! All the flooring is torn up, walls are washed, and we just finished doing all the painting on the first floor.

Five rooms are done, and I've learned some very important tips when it comes to painting your home.

Disclosure: Some of the links provided in this post are affiliate links. **

Choosing Paint, And Why We Went with Diamond Vogel: A Farmhouse Update

To be perfectly honest, when we started this house project, I had no idea what I was doing.

Still don't, for the most part.

I'm learning as I go.

But one thing that I did know, right from the start, was that I wanted to use quality paint to paint all of our interior walls.

Painting is inconvenient even if you do it right, but it can be a huge ole pain in the neck if you don't do it right. There's really no sense in using cheapy-cheap paint and then repainting everything because  a) it looks terrible or b) it chips, fades, peels, or just does funny cheap-paint things.

I'm all for doing things right the first time.

But what paint brand to go with?

Progress.

Well! Now that we're homeowners, we're discovering the absolute joy that is remodeling our house.

Besides a couple really quick pictures and the big announcement, I haven't said a whole lot about the house or our home projects, I realize. So, here's the skinny.

Back in June, we purchased a 1934 farmhouse in rural Iowa, and also around 20 acres of land (some pasture, some farmland, and a little pond), along with a barn, two machine sheds, and some other buildings.

For the past few years, we've lived right at the Camp where we work, (the commute has been awesome), but we've really wanted to get our own place and have been looking for a while. This lovely acreage came available, and all the pieces fell into place, and now it's ours.

We're incredibly, undeservedly blessed.

The house is in pretty darn good condition, but we decided to take advantage of the fact that we don't need to move in right away and do a few updates and remodel-y things to make it "ours."

Here's what we've been working on for the past few weeks/months...