Farmhouse:
a dwelling on a farm
This is our Farmhouse:
Todd Roscoe & Jolene Hanson first met in 7th grade, they fell in love 27 years later. Todd is a plumber/hunter, Jolene is a curator/business manager.
They have been renovating a farmhouse in Bristol VT with two cats and a german shepherd since 2017.
About the farmhouse:
The home was built in 1877. We purchased it in 2017 from the previous owner Max Dumas’s family. We knew the moment we walked in the doorway that this house was meant for us. Over the following 6 years we renovated the majority of the home while living in it with two teenagers, two cats and a dog! We did the work ourselves, occasionally pulling in friends and family to help.
Because of Jolene’s asthma, the first task was changing the heat from a forced air furnace to cast iron radiators. The radiators are reclaimed from Holley Hall in Bristol, and renovated homes in Stowe and Burlington. We removed the old water tank and replaced it with an on demand unit that serves for both the plumbing and heating needs of the house.
Demolition in the kitchen started immediately. The kitchen had a bathroom in the north west corner (where the stove is) and a hallway that cut through to what is now our bathroom. The current bathroom was originally a bedroom/sitting room. We removed the wall between the kitchen and the living room. Once the original supports were removed we installed a main support beam held by two 6x6 pine posts that are supported by 8X8 posts in the basement. We closed the hallway from the old kitchen to the now bathroom and framed out the north wall (stove and fridge wall) to serve as a pathway to upgrade the plumbing and electrical. This wall was not closed/finished until August of 2021.
While the kitchen and living room were in various states of demo and temporary living/kitchen usage we finished the first floor bathroom. We painted the floor white and the walls blue, brought the clawfoot tub that was originally in the second floor bathroom downstairs, installed the toilet, washer & dryer and the sink.The vintage kitchen sink was found at Resource on Pine St in Burlington, the cabinet was built by Todd in 2016 with reclaimed wood from the barn on Jolene's family farm in Starksboro.
When demoing the wall between the kitchen and living room a good deal of plaster came off of the chimney. Jolene decided to roll with it, removing the wallpaper on the remaining chimney plaster and wall along the stairs. After adding some dimension to the chimney plaster we used leftover paint from the bathroom to achieve what you see today.
Flooring was purchased to be laid in the new open kitchen living room space, when tearing up the old floor rot was found. Once the new sub floor and flooring were laid, the kitchen was temporarily reassembled using a combo of the cabinets that came with the house and ones that Todd reclaimed from two separate plumbing jobs. Todd jokes that he moved the kitchen sink at least 4 times before it found its current location.
While Todd worked on the kitchen & living room floor, Jolene debated what to do about the wall paper in the sitting room by the bathroom. Some of it had been peeled off, but the paper had a charm to it. Taking inspiration from an old building Jolene had seen in London UK, we decided to try to remove portions of it with the goal of it looking old and peeled. Using a floor steamer, she worked from wall to wall peeling it to what it is now.
At this point only the kitchen remained to be renovated on the first floor. The ceiling and north wall were still open to run plumbing and electrical and we still had carpet on the stairs.
Our first project on the second floor was the bathroom. We had already removed the tub. It was time to remove everything else. Once the demo was complete we had numerous conversations on how to pull off what we wanted (specifically another clawfoot tub). Todd found a solution. By using reclaimed tin roofing from a dilapidated barn in Bristol instead of sheetrock, we gained the extra inch and a half we needed to fit a claw foot tub against the west wall. We found the tub which we painted black with copper feet and the corner sink at ReHouse Architectural Salvage in Rochester NY. Todd, got the “senior” toilet off of a new build work site (the homeowners wanted something different)! The barn board wainscoting is from Jolene’s family farm. We used the same paint from the first floor bathroom and picked a rustic stone tile to pull the room together.
What is a senior toilet? Basically it's a tall toilet, it is easier to get on and off of if you are older, and if you're taller!
Summer was coming so we moved on to the porch. Jolene had always wanted a swinging sofa, the Millhouse BNB her mother worked at in Starksboro had a breezeway with one that she had always coveted. The swing is made from reclaimed wood from Jolene's family farm and has a twin mattress on it. The side table on the porch came from Todd's paternal grandmother.
When we purchased the home the 2nd floor had four bedrooms. The current sitting room was Todd’s youngest’s bedroom. The stairs to the attic (now the third floor) were enclosed and incredibly steep. The third floor was an unfinished attic space without a subfloor.
Once the kids moved out we demoed the two north bedroom walls (the previous owners had sheet rocked the ceilings so we left them). We rented a drum floor sander and edger to remove the paint from the floors leaving some remnants to get the effect you see today. The closets are from Ikea, we have fastened them to the walls, but are removable to keep the charm of an original farmhouse, which would not have closets!
Jolene found the wallpaper on Wayfair.com. Todd is a deer hunter which inspired the deer. Todd’s son and Jolene are Star Wars fans which inspired the Star Wars wallpaper installed in what had been Todd’s son’s bedroom. The big wall frame in the Star Wars room was a gift.
Next we began demoing the hall and south bedrooms. We opened the wall between the stairs, removed and rebuilt the stairs to the third floor, and laid the subfloor in the attic. We decided to put a family room on the second floor making access to the third floor easy and aesthetically pleasing, this led us to reshape the walls in the hall and owl bedroom. Like the north side, we sanded the floors, installed an Ikea closet and purchased the wallpapers from Wayfair.com.
The sofa and coffee table in the 2nd floor family room are also from Wayfair, the record cabinet was found locally on the side of the road, and the drink caddy was a gift from our friend Sam. The lazy boy chair made its way from California with Jolene when she moved back to Vermont. It had been handed down to her by friends who had been moving out of the country. The colorful pillow was found by Todd!
In the middle of working on the 2nd and third floor, the opportunity to purchase the parcel next door arose, we decided to refinance the house to do so. The one thing we did not consider was that this would require an appraisal of our home by the bank. Thankfully we had more or less finished the 2nd floor, Jolene was able to make it look great with furniture placement, but the kitchen ceiling and wall were wide open. We had 5 days to solve this problem, it needed to be cheap and we still needed access through the ceiling. Todd came up with the solutions. The back wall boards were a wall in the barn. We pulled them off carefully, removed the nails, sanded them and installed them in the kitchen. The tin ceiling came from RK Miles in Middlebury. The sheets were the exact length we needed and we could easily take it down to run the remaining wiring we would need to finish the third floor.
The appraisal came through and we purchased the parcel next door which is now home to our hipcamp (airbnb for campers).
Just before the decision to buy the land we had started to pressure wash the paint off of the exterior of the house in preparation to prime and repaint the house. The house shingles are cedar which allowed them to be considered finished by the appraiser. We decided on navy blue hue. We took a week off of work, rented a lift, purchased a paint sprayer and got to work. We did a coat of the primer followed by a coat of the blue, then touch ups. Jolene worked on the trim and gutters.
Todd was not aware of the degree to which Jolene planned to build out the third floor and to this day wishes he had shimmed the beams for the subfloor! First step was to address the original windows that were falling apart and had some rot. We found the current windows at the “boneyard” of Brownell Window and Doors warehouse that sold customer rejects. We installed a knee wall for storage, used the existing rafters to place the new ceiling on top of, installed an attic access, built in the water closet and kitchenette.
It was finally time to finish the kitchen! We installed the three windows overlooking the porch which Jolene literally pulled out of a dumpster at Brownells window and door. The cabinets are from Ikea. The knobs are insulators for electric fencing from Jolene’s family farm. The Island was Jolene's brain child. This was conceived early in renovation, we needed a place to eat and cook, and tools were a part of our everyday lives often stored in the kitchen and living room area. On a trip to home depot Jolene found the tool box marked down, it was a damaged floor model. Todd modified it to fit the island top bringing a whole new meaning to kitchen tools!
As we finished up in the house, we began working on the barn and the exterior property. Our wedding in August of 2022 was our deadline to have the house completed (sans a few button up things), to get the basement level of the barn in usable condition and be able to meet the needs of campers. We hosted our wedding on our property!
The three priorities for the barn were, dig out the basement floor and pour a concrete. Replace the stairs from the main level to the 2nd floor. Remove the 2nd floor flooring (it had been a chicken coop) and lay a subfloor. These tasks were completed with days to spare thanks to a number of our friends and family lending a hand and Jolenes bestie Sheri gifting the concrete and labor for the barn basement!
In addition Todd built and installed an outdoor shower and port-o-let while Jolene and her mother cleaned up the parcel next door adding paths and tent sites that would become our hipcamp.