The Farm House Renovation (Coll's House)

My great-grandparents, Collier and Alice Tracy, built this ranch style house in 1966. They had all but raised their kids, and had built this house with retirement in mind. It was in the era of two living rooms, small kitchens, wood paneling walls, hand crafted cabinets, and olive green appliances. They loved playing cards and dominos, and hosting friends in their home, the ladies residing in living room where card tables were set up, and the men in the formal living room sitting around the bay window. Oh, and of course, there were wood folding doors to separate the two rooms. My great-grandma was a painter, and her art was what decorated the walls of their home. I don't have many memories of my great-grandma, as she passed away when I was 4 years old, but I do have this photograph type memory in my head of being on her front porch, and her answering the door. She was tall, thin and smiled sweetly at me. I've heard stories of how much she loved the Lord, and His Word, goodness, what I wouldn't have given to have had a cup of tea sitting at her breakfast nook with her.

My great grandpa- "Coll" as we great-grandkids called him, would bring my mom the mail every morning when I was little, and for us-those gummy orange slice candies from the farm store that he would cut them in half with his dirty pocket knife of course. He always wore a cowboy hat and had a tooth pick in his mouth that somehow never moved, or fell out, no matter how big he smiled or how much he talked. He loved horses, and was a true cowboy. I have a vivid memory of him killing a snake with a hoe, cutting the rattler off and sticking it in his pocket...one of those things that really sticks with you as a kid.

As we got older, and when my parents built a house in town, the tables turned and we would come to Coll's House to visit instead. He married when he was in his 30's (really late for back then), so as a bachelor then, and a widower now, he knew his way around the kitchen and was quite the host, always offering you popcorn upon your arrival. He would even make us kids cream cheese and hotdog slices smashed between two graham crackers. I'm not sure where he got this recipe, but my brother was the only one who would ask for seconds.

I loved going to Coll's because it had a huge basement. I'm not sure the facination with kids and basements, but I thought it was so awesome...oh, and the fact that the master bath had two doors to get into it (things that impress kids I guess). But as a 16-year-old, the year Coll passed away, my favorite thing about the house was the view. It was set on a hill that overlooked our farm, the Washita River Valley, and literally had the best view no mater which direction you looked.

That view (and the basement) are about the only things that we haven't changed when it comes to Coll's House. All of the work, minus 3 weeks before we moved in, took place over a year's span, taking about 1 long weekend trip a month. Clay and I couldn't have done this renovation without the help of our family and friends (THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!). It's because of their skill, generosity, time, and love that we are getting to live in this home now, and we can't say thank you enough.

Something that was helpful in this process was that because I grew up coming to this house often, I could be in Ada (where we were living at the time), but picture the layout in my head. So planning what we were going to do seemed super easy. What was sometimes frustrating, is the fact we lived 4 hrs away from the farm house. So when we visited, it was like ants at a picnic, we were pedal to the metal to get as much stuff as we could done.

TV always makes things look like they go WAY faster than they really do, but we did find that demo, for the most part, went pretty fast. It was the "putting back" that requires the time and patience. But in all reality, for the amount of trips and the hours that we worked, we truly accomplished a lot more than we every should have.

I was so excited for the BIG IMPACT projects, and the one that was at the top of the list was the color of the outside brick. I love brick, but wasn't a huge fan of the orange/red brick, and so we did our research (asked our friends in construction), and went with a stucco/brick elastic paint (it will expand and contract with the temperature) called Creamy. I'm SO happy with how it turned out.

BEFORE

My dad pressure washed the house before we got there that weekend, and then Clay sprayed the first coat on the entire house the first day, and the second coat the next.

AFTER

It was exactly what I was hoping it would be, and all of a sudden, it felt like a completely different house. My grandpa even nicknamed it "The White House".

Another big impact for the outside were the front porch poles, we wanted them to stand out more, in color and in size. Clay plained some old wood our neighbor in Ada gave him, and after staining it, we couldn't believe the difference they made.

(We're still planning to put shutters (and possibly window boxes) on the windows that will be stained to match the porch poles, but that and more landscaping will be a project for another day)

The rest of the "big impact" projects were on the inside of the house, so without further ado, let's head on in!

BEFORE

We assume that this was built as a desk, and although this is definitely a space that could be used, it wasn't very functional. We also had a little old termite damage there by the door that we had to take care of as well.

AFTER

Clay did an amazing job making this vision come to life! This set up is way more functional for our family. New light fixture, the built-in itself, as well as, new sheetrock because of the termite damage and some paint to finish it off.

As you walk on into the entryway, to your right is the living room,

BEFORE

Even as a little girl, I remember that brown leather couch being right in that spot. There wasn't a whole lot to be done to this room, besides some fresh paint, a wall being taken down (more on that later), and some old termite damage around the bay window.

AFTER

New carpet, fresh paint, a different ceiling fan, and then an exposed beam to frame out the bay window! Oh, and did I mention the popcorn ceilings? They're throughout the entire house and we scrapped them all (thanks dad for your help in this). Let's just say I'm thankful to have it done, and I never want to do it again. (More pictures to come of the living room, don't want to give away too much of the other projects just yet.)

As you continue walking past the living room, you enter the kitchen.

BEFORE

It was small, dark and even if you really wanted to have "two cooks in the kitchen" it would have been cramped in more ways than one.

AFTER

I know that it looks like we completely changed the layout, but really all we did was remove the little breakfast bar, and then make the wall between the kitchen and dining room a half way/turned bar height counter.

We kept the original cabinets, but painted them. (Thanks so our friend Joseph for his expertise in this area.) We painted the cabinet boxes, but Joseph sprayed the doors for us, and they turned out amazing. Paint colors are Sherwin Williams Alabaster for the top cabinets, and Sherwin Williams Black Spruce for the bottoms (black spruce might possibly be my favorite paint color I've ever painted), and the knobs came from Hobby Lobby. Clay built the island from an old table that came from a demo job in my home church's kitchen about 8 year ago. I remembered that table having the coffee pot always on it. We sanded, painted and then added the butcher block top.

We added a new kitchen sink, new overhead lighting (thanks David and Jon Parker), new countertops & backsplash, new trim, and added new stainless steel appliances. A huge thank you to our friend Jerry for his amazing work on our backsplash!

BEFORE

Another view from inside the kitchen looking out towards the living room. Again, this was BIG IMPACT. I can't wait for you to see the difference!

AFTER

WAY different right?! I love to cook, and I knew that I would be doing a lot of that since the closest restaurant is 15+ miles away. Wanting to still be apart of things, and be able to see what the kid(s) are doing was a huge reason of getting rid of that wall. Huge thanks to Adam's Cabinets for the help in making the bar height counter, as well as building the cabinet for the microwave. (We still have 1 more thing to do in this picture, and that is to have drawer fronts made for those two drawers you see, but it wasn't something that was going to keep us from moving in). My Papa was a HUGE help in any new plugs that we needed, as well as, the under-counter lighting.

AFTER

A couple of other big impacts in this kitchen was taking half of the wall down in-between the dining room and the kitchen, making all 3 rooms (kitchen, dining, and living) one big useable space. We did raise the wall above the stove and extend it to make a bar seating area that extends into the dining room area. We got this idea from a show we watched on HGTV, and it worked great in this space, and saved some demo, making the space more functional!

BEFORE

My great grandparents used this space as a second living room, but we always saw it as a dining room.

AFTER

Dining room AFTER LOTS of paint. I think we ended up doing 2 coats of Kilz and then 4 coats of Sherwin Williams Alabaster, but we're excited with how it turned out! New flooring in this room, along with a new light fixture. Probably my favorite thing in this room would be the stained glass on the back door. A friend of my great-grandma's made this for her, and I think it's just beautiful! We kept the original trim in this room, and some in the kitchen, I love the vintage feel.

BEFORE

We knew we wanted to keep the built-in, but needed to lighten up the walls around it.

AFTER

Standing in the back corner of the dining room, you get the other view. Something that I love about this house are the built-ins. We decided to leave the original woodwork, with so much white on the walls, it really brings in some warmth. One thing we did do that you can see from this angle is the cookbook shelf. This is a nod to the first house Clay and I bought in Ada. It had a shelf just like this, and was perfect for cookbooks. I asked Clay if we could do this in this wall, and he and my Papa made it happen!

BEFORE

On the other side of the dining room wall, is the office. Clay was SUPER EXCITED about having a desk and a place for all his books! Just needed a little TLC and some paint.

AFTER

We painted the Wayne's coating around the room, added a new light fixture, painted the original desk, and added a new window shade. We plan to paint the file cabinet the same color as the desk as well.

As you walk through the office, you enter the laundry room.

AFTER

We really only gave the white walls a fresh coat of paint, so we didn't have a before picture. I have some more ideas for this room to make it a little more functional and pretty, that will be another blog I'm sure. On the other side of the laundry, is Clay's bathroom.

BEFORE

At the far end of the house, closest to the garage, is Clay's bathroom. I feel like in all Ranch Style houses, there is this bathroom. Designed with the working man in mind who can come in from outside and straight into the bathroom to shower up, hopefully to prevent the rest of the house from getting dirty. Whoever thought of this was a genius, and I will forever be grateful!

AFTER

We actually did more in this bathroom than we were expecting, but were able to "up-cycle" a few things to make it look great! We kept the original countertop, just gave it a good cleaning, put in a wider and deeper sink, new faucet, and new light fixture. We gave the wood work a good polishing, new hardware, and spray painted an old silver mirror I already had.

AFTER

We also added a window shade, and painted the Wayne's coating around the bathroom the same color as the kitchen bottom cabinets to give it a more masculine look.

NOW, we're headed to the other end of the house to see the bedrooms and master bath! I'll also drop a couple of the other views of the living room on our way.

AFTER

I seriously can't get over how open everything feels now.

AFTER

This doorway is where you enter in from the front door entryway. Also, the classic "frame around the TV" that is a nod to the Latta house and those sweet years with my roommates (Laura, still get so many compliments on this cool idea of yours!)

AFTER

I initially thought that I would want a window seat built into this bay window (and we may one day), but for now, I love that my chairs have a little nook, it's where Clay and I have our coffee every morning looking out at this beautiful view, it hasn't quite sunk in that this is our home now.

(Fun fact: this yellow chair is original to this house and used by my great grandma. I took it back to Ada about 6 years ago, not knowing that it would return so soon. It is quite worn, on the armrests, I often catch myself sitting in it wondering what my great grandma did in this chair, read, quilt, and visit are my top guesses).

Now, to the other end of the house...

This hallway really didn't change much besides a fresh coat of paint, but this hallway leads to all of the bedrooms in the house as well as the other full bath. The two doors on the left are bedrooms, while the other two doors lead to the bathroom, and master bedroom.

BEFORE

This was another big impact project. But really, it didn't take up a big part of the budget, just some elbow grease and paint, I love projects like that!

AFTER

I couldn't believe how just doing a few things made such a difference in this space. What we did replace in this bathroom was the sink, mirror, light fixture, cabinet hardware, and wallpaper. We also removed the swirly trim, which we felt like updated it a lot as well.

AFTER

Originally, I had painted the Wayne's Coating Alabaster (white), but once we painted Clay's bathroom the same as the kitchen cabinets, I fell IN LOVE. It just made everything look so elegant and exactly what I was picturing in my head for this bathroom. I already had the wallpaper, (Rifle Paper Co), and love how it all just comes together.

Next up is the Master bedroom.

BEFORE

BEFORE

As you can see, the light fixture for the room was in the corner. None of the bedrooms had ceiling fans or lights in the middle of the room, so that was a big thing on the list. We can't thank David and Jon Parker enough for their time and expertise in putting in these in each bedroom!

AFTER

Fresh paint, new windows, window shades, ceiling fan in the middle of the room were the changes in this room. I love all the natural light that pours in during the afternoon!

AFTER

This is the other side view of the room, the master is really spacious and has a his and hers closets. It also has its own entrance to the bathroom.

Across the hallway from the master bedroom is Shepherd's Room.

BEFORE

AFTER

Fresh paint, new windows, ceiling fan, and window shades spruced this room right up!

And right next door, is the guest room.

BEFORE

AFTER

Fresh paint, new windows, window shades, and ceiling fan were the changes in this room! This beautiful quilt was made by my Grandma Judy as a wedding gift for Clay and I.

AFTER

The other view of the guest room.

And that concludes the tour of our house!

Again, we couldn't have done it without our friends and family who volunteered so much of their time and skill to making our house a home. Below you'll see some "in progress" pictures of our crew who helped!

Thank you Dad, Mom, Papa, Grandee, Grandma, Popo, Randa, Riley, Seth, Taylor, David Parker, Jon Parker, Joseph Cypert, Jimmy Wilmoth, Dave Anderson, and Jerry & Marian Wilmoth. Without your help, our dream home would still be just a dream.

Clay, thank you for always being so patient, for making the design visions in my head come to life, and for your constant love and grace you give me each day. I can't believe we're finally home!