Our City Farmhouse Renovation: a Brief Introduction
Ohhhhh, this house.
You may just know it simply as Drinking with Chickens HQ, but what you might not know is that it is a 113-year-old diamond-in-the-very-rough that was abandoned for 5 years before we bought it and began a decade-long renovation. We are talking vines-growing-through-cracks-in-the-walls-smashed-windows-and-doors-collapsing-deck-raccoons-living-inside kinda abandoned. Weeds growing up to the roofline that the city had to constantly come in and maintain because of the fire danger. A Mayan Temple’s worth of cinder blocks piled in the driveway from a long-ago abandoned wall project. But we’ll get to all that later.
The following photo is what the house looked like when we first went into escrow. To be fair, when we first drove by it, you couldn’t see that the front of the house had windows, the weeds were so tall. Some little landscape fairy had come along and cut them down by the time the following photo was shot.
If you’re like me, you maybe wondering: where’s the front door? Also…why is there a pallet of cement bags in the driveway that have solidified into a single boulder of cement? All valid questions.
Before.
Needless to say, we got rid of the pallet of cement (no easy task), and we moved the front door from the side of the house to the front. And also added a deck and a pergola while we were at it because the front of the house needed some damned personality. And shade. And lounge chairs. Gotta have somewhere to sit while front porch drinkin’.
Also, shout-out to privacy hedges.
After.
Before.
When this house first went on the market (a foreclosure), it was priced so high that when we went to look at it, we didn’t even slow the car down and just pointed and laughed as we kept on driving. But over the coming months, we saw it drop and drop and drop in price, until finally, one day, we were like: Maybe we should stop the car?
And it’s weird, yanno? The house was a wreck—there was no denying it. The front exterior was probably the best part of the entire thing (I’ll share before and afters of the rest of it in subsequent posts). But I just had a feeling. Without getting overly woo-woo—the house just gave me a good feeling. I could immediately see through all the cobwebs and mysterious stains. It just had so damned much potential. In fact, I envisioned it exactly as it sits today:
After.
The husband admittedly couldn’t see the vision. But he knows me well enough that when I say I have one, he signs off on it sight-unseen.
The same could not really be said for everyone else in our lives. We didn’t show it to many people at first—just our parents and our contractor buddy. And across the board, all the parents were highly concerned about the condition of the house. But what can I say? I had stars in my eyes and really sound-proof earmuffs.
Realistically, it was the only house we could afford in this neighborhood (a neighborhood we REALLY wanted to be in). And we really only afforded it by the hair on our chinny-chin-chins. Certainly, we didn’t have a clue what the hell we were getting into renovation-wise. And renovation budget-wise. But we got through it, little by little.
While the house style could probably be categorized as California Bungalow, or maybe even Craftsman-adjacent, everyone in town, for some reason, referred to it as The Farmhouse. I even remember reading that in the very bare bones real estate description. So I think that subconsciously drove me towards a sort of modern farmhouse aesthetic with our decor choices, and of course, played very nicely with the onset of our backyard chicken lifestyle. Simply put, this house was destined for Drinking with Chickens shenanigans. And we were powerless to resist.
Before.
After.
But yeah…it took us a minute to get here. 14 years of minutes, to be exact.
After.
After.
At one point, we did the front lawn thing (we even did the back lawn thing), but the ongoing struggle of the California drought made us switch to a more water-conscientious scenario…and well, a dirt front yard with some interspersed drought-tolerant landscaping seemed like the right move.
After.
Also, it’s very safe to say that there are many renovation-related reasons why our entire front and back gardens have upcycled wine bottles as garden edging.
After.
After.
The driveway still looks a little ruff.
After.
Stay tuned for befores and afters of the rest of the house!
product sources:
All paint by Behr
House walls: Private Black
Trim: Swiss Coffee
Front door: Farmhouse Red
Chairs from Target
Throw pillows from Amazon (treated to withstand being outdoors)
Birdie Side Table from Urban Outfitters (then painted Paprika by Rustoleum)
Terracotta chicken planter from Armstrong Garden Center
Rooster door knocker from Etsy
Beware of Dogs sign: homemade.