1862 Greek Revival Farmhouse in Michigan

[Don M]

I like those, I built a base cabinet for a sink in my summer kitchen & made doors just like those from recycled bead board.

[Duffy666]

Beautiful doors and cabinet, though I had to go through the pictures twice because I was admiring the light fixtures at first. ☺

[oaktree]

I like those, I built a base cabinet for a sink in my summer kitchen & made doors just like those from recycled bead board.

Don, I'd love to see pictures of that! Have you built any other cupboards? I have another set of antique cupboard doors that are even older with two vertical raised panels for another future cupboard, and I see tempting old cupboard doors at the salvage place all the time.

[oaktree]

Beautiful doors and cabinet, though I had to go through the pictures twice because I was admiring the light fixtures at first. ☺

Thanks so much, Duffy! It pretty addictive collecting lamps parts and putting all these light fixtures together...they were all very inexpensive because I bought everything in pieces.

Here's one of my favorites in the living room (added because there were no lights at all in there):



I have more that I'll post later too.

[Don M]

Very nice ceiling fixture!

[Gothichome]

Oaktree, what a fantastic job you have done. The home looks clean and fresh while still maintaining the core essence of the homes vintage. And that table it cleaned up nicely, still think it's realy old. And the character that's on it could tell a thousand stories.

[oaktree]

Oaktree, what a fantastic job you have done. The home looks clean and fresh while still maintaining the core essence of the homes vintage. And that table it cleaned up nicely, still think it's realy old. And the character that's on it could tell a thousand stories.

Thanks for the kind words, Don and Gothichome! It's become a very comfortable house, and I can take my time with all the rest of it.

I had a very knowledgable woodworker fix my table. He said it's French, and it could be as much as 200 years old. With French farm tables, it's harder to tell because the construction was the same for hundreds of years. I put some clear paste wax on the top and then one layer of Brown Briwax, which really warmed it up. The color turned out well with the faded mustard paint on the base. I can push the bench under the table to use it as an additional prep surface, which works really well but is hardly ever needed. I love all the knife marks on the top, and the chairs certainly have plenty of character too.





I've been picking up the chairs at estate sales and antique places for about $10-20 each. Those primitive chairs are actually really comfortable, and it's cool to see all the weird repairs from before people used wood glue. We fixed them all with lots of glue though, so you can actually sit on them now. More modern chairs would have definitely been too tall for the table.

(I got rid of that tin light because it was too dark, and replaced it with the antique pan chandelier.)

Sitting at that table in the kitchen is so comfortable that I just always sit there instead of in the living room.

[oaktree]

Some pictures of the master bedroom, where it looks like there used to be a stove because of the burn marks on the floor. It was originally multiple smaller rooms.



I went down multiple layers of flooring to the original floors, which were painted different colors. When I bought the house there was fake wood vinyl flooring. I redid the floors, trim, doors, and painted. The crown molding looked okay, so I just painted it.



This is a late 1800s/early 1900s oil print from Germany that my grandfather bought in Poland after the WW2.



I replaced the remote controlled ceiling fan with this 40s light fixture, which has a nice design on the bottom of the shade.





Some pictures of the original floors, and then after repairing and refinishing. I wonder if this might be where the kitchen was? However, I was told kitchens in my kind of house were usually in the middle where the front door is (where mine is now). I wasn't able to look at the original floors in the kitchen for hints because I have slightly newer wood floors in the kitchen (machine made long planks that span the entire room lengthwise) that I kept.

In the master bedroom, there was fake wood vinyl on top of other fake wood vinyl and I think some other vinyl and then some of the long narrow wood planks but only in a small part of the room and then finally the original painted floors.

[Don M]

Looks super!

[oaktree]

Thanks, Don!