Lofty Idealism

Wasted space is the cardinal sin of intentional living. In an old farmhouse with upwards of 12 people sleeping over at a time, and with any number of projects in the works on any given day, what might be a "junk drawer" in a New York City apartment becomes a "junk room" or "indefinitely unclaimed section of an entire house."

We've worked in the last year to remedy a lot of the clutter at Better Farm—first with trips to the transfer station, then with a dumpster rental, and finally with a reclamation of unused, wasted space. It's a renaissance of sorts; complete with the sweet addition of cozy sleeping lofts and nooks in places that would otherwise go totally unused and ignored. All it took was a little ingenuity, some high ceilings, and an innate desire to live in something resembling a big treehouse.

Better Farm's office and side entrance were natural choices to add sleeping accommodations, as each room boasts extremely high ceilings. Through some additional research, we discovered a crawl space next to the loft on the third floor that had, in the 1970s, been an actual bedroom (thank you Fred for putting so much work into that room so many years ago!). The entrance to said space was long-since covered up; so we decided to re-reveal the sleeping quarters by punching a hole in the upstairs hallway ceiling, and installing a ladder. Before and after photos following the jump!

Before & After:

The loft series

 

All carpentry work by Craig Rice

Side entranceway
(yellow paint selection courtesy of Mike Brown; paint job courtesy of Brian Hines)

 











The Office

Upstairs Crawlspace

Better Renovations: Upstairs Hallway, After

Thanks to a generous donation from Corinne's office, Better Farm is the lucky recipient of a ton of Flor's heavy duty red carpet squares. The pieces are extremely durable and easy to clean—a major plus in a high-traffic farm house. We'll be using them on the staircase and in the loft, as well.

Corinne, Butch, and I ripped up the old carpeting first, which was half disintegrated and the source of a HUGE dust cloud during removal. Corinne followed up with a good sweep (39 years of dust is pretty intense), I went in next with some wet rags, and then Butch got to work patching holes and old stove pipe ducts before measuring the awkwardly shaped upstairs hallway and laying down the squares. Here are some before shots:




And... after:

Better Renovations: Upstairs Hallway, Before

I think wall-to-wall carpeting at least in this upstairs hallway is essential because of the mismatched wood from the 1970 renovation and addition...

Other thoughts:

• Too much clutter? (In which case, relocation is necessary for books...)
• Necessary to sand down/re-stain bannister?
• Uniform color for all doors?
• Any other thoughts?