On a very cold day in December 2016 we started our new addition. We already had the foundation in place which currently houses our finishing shop. Our temporary showroom shares some of that space, too. The addition, which is connected to our house, will become the permanent furniture showroom. Why it is connected is a part of the history of this place. For those of you who don’t know, we live on a farm. Our stone farmhouse is 104 years old and 40 or so years ago the former owner, a mason, put a foundation in but never got to build above it. We aren’t sure what his plan might have been, but with the foundation already in place we worked on designing the upper section. Plus it was easier and more economical to do it that way
Original foundation
Putting new walls in from the original foundation.
And the walls are going up
Large beams being put in place with crane
Our new addition has a barn-like feel (No surprise here!) with a Gambrel roof line and a Standing Seam metal roof. The color matches the slate on our farmhouse. BTW, several years ago, Michael took o all of the original slate that was put on 100 years ago, replaced the boards under the slate and re-nailed every piece back up. Since some of slates were broken during this process, we were lucky to be able to find more from our demo team who saved them from an old building that they took down.
Michael nailing the original slates back on the house roof.
Not the color hardy board I am going for (we bought these at auction cheap)
We often say here that we have the best backyard in Chester County, PA. Since our new showroom will be a much larger and more open space, I wanted to be able to see the view out back and have my customers be able to enjoy the view of our gardens and farm pond, as well. All the windows recently went in. After seeing the space with those windows, I changed my mind about the center windows that face out back and we are now adding large, all glass doors, which will lead to a small deck! We are in the process of making these custom doors with a craftsman who also made our two barn-like front doors. Of course we are using lots of wood inside the addition. There are big beams, wood paneled ceilings, hardwood floors and ship lap boards on the walls. We used reclaimed bead board for all the soffits. My dad cut air ventilation holes and put screening in all of them.
View out our windows to back yard
Custom door we made for the front
To see more doors like this one, click here.
Old cupola refurbished with rooster weather vane
As the weather allows, we are working on framing out all the windows and will start attaching the Hardie Plank siding to the building. This cement fiberboard should be a long lasting siding because we certainly don’t want to have to replace it any time soon! I chose colors for the siding and fretted over it for weeks. We hung three choices on the building and I stared at them in every kind of light. I finally picked one and my dad painted about 20 boards. This past weekend we attached the boards just around the dormers and they look too yellow! I called my paint guy who knows how particular I am and he said he thinks he can adjust the color. I’ve already bought 5 gallons of the custom mix (Eeeek!) so stay tuned and I will show you how it comes out. Our cupolas we got from old barn in Lancaster County our demo team took down, they had some kind of really bad spray paint finish on them, we took them to our powder coat guy and he sand blasted them then we had them powder coated. Michael and spent many days looking for the right weather vane and we found this stellar rooster that recently got mounted on our center cupola. As we continue on with the addition, I will post more blogs and pictures.
Enjoy your last days of summer!
Kelly >>>
