Best wishes at the crossroads, Muddy. Sounds like you have some real good things going for you.
We have a 100+ year old farm house too. It has been tastefully maintained over the years, with good attention to detail. We have done a lot of work in the last three years or so that I've lived here. Started out by buying some decent tools; a table saw, sliding compound miter saw, portable belt sander, drills, etc. We have bought a lot of lumber and made a lot of things from rustic but sturdy shelves and other useful items, to solid wood plank floors. We use a lot of quality stain and wood protectant, and especially wood oils like teak and tung. We like the oil finish better than the poly. It is more durable actually and ages well. When it wears in a while, another coat of oil and a buffing brings out the character of the wood.
We built our own kitchen table and several benches, including doing our own padded bench seats. Most of our wooden benches have wooden back rests. These hand made things look way better, in our opinion, than mass produced particle board items and they are bigger and have more useable space; plus they all have that rustic/primitive vibe that we desire. We converted a downstairs room into a really nice bathroom with a huge soaking tub and Roman fixtures. The tub sits toward the center of the room so you don't feel clastrophobic taking a bath; its wide open and has a twelve inch heavy wooden shelf around it that the tub dropped into. The shelf is well sanded and waterproofed, stained, oiled, and buffed to a beautiful butternut looking surface. Any splashed water beads up and wipes off without soaking in and leaving water marks. The tub and fixtures alone cost $1000 and we did all the work ourselves. The tub has a wooden skirt made of vertical three quarter inch boards from the floor to the overhanging shelf the tub sits in. The frame for the tub is built of two by fours screwed into the floor, etc., and the frame is covered with stained and oiled trim as indicated above. Zero tile. We even made our own mirror - bought a big three by three foot mirror and set it on boards in silicone and screwed stained and oiled boards with a channel for the mirror, over the edges of the mirror and into the backing boards. The whole mirror assembly is screwed into the wall studs with four inch counterset screws. We built towel rack shelves out of stained and oiled boards as well. The whole atmosphere of the new bathroom is pleasing to the eye, highly functional and relaxing, and blends in with the rustic nature of the house and property.
That is just part of what we have done and the vibe that the place has. We heat with wood and have an awesome air tight wood stove that will burn for over ten hours and produces a beautiful glow of burning wood thru its big door window.
We are always building something as resources allow, and the place is paid for. We have one of the largest properties in our little town. It's very quiet and peaceful with almost no cars using our street. The town actually grew up around this place over the years.
Your place sounds awesome - sweet home Alabama . . . . . Sounds like you were "Southbound" and had the "Statesboro Blues" somewhere along the line. By the way, we all sometimes feel like we are tied to the "Whipping Post".
Good luck and best wishes.
