A New Meaning to Working-at-Home

As most of you already know, we found this property in Tennessee that had a 1950s farmhouse, a large industrial building (that was operating as a church) and a tiny little barn. It was perfect for us. Eric could have his workshop in the industrial building and I could have my painting studio in the front area and then we would live in the farmhouse and my office would be in one of the rooms off of the main house. And we have plenty of extra storage in that little barn. Finally, we could separate the workshop from our living quarters!

But when we closed on the property, and despite having a thorough home inspection, we decided that we would gut out about 50 percent of the farmhouse and rehab the entire structure. When we started to take down the drywall in some areas, we were not happy with how things were built in the interior.

For instance, some walls had almost a foot of empty space behind the drywall and behind it was gorgeous, old tongue-and-groove wood! Since we  believe in doing things right, we wanted to expose the wood and fix what the prior owner had done in his “renovations.”

Initially, we thought we would live in it and rehab at the same time. But after some thought, we decided on living in the industrial building instead and Eric would set up his workshop, temporarily, in the main house. That way, his workshop wouldn’t be a hindrance when we are rehabbing. We don’t exactly need to cover up or protect machinery and equipment to sand a wood wall!

So now that the splint is unpacked and stacked, and the planer is running, I thought I would give a really quick tour of Eric’s new temporary workshop in a few pics. He’s been working two weeks straight now getting ready for his upcoming classes the next two weeks.

Above is our future kitchen! Eric took off all the doors and currently, it’s holding some of his molds. He also set up his wood bending station on the counter which happens to be tiled. We definitely will be removing that! I don’t want to think about how many germs get into all that grout on a kitchen counter!

Eric’s bandsaw is sitting next to the fireplace that we already started ripping apart. Here you can see the wood wall that we discovered after removing uneven drywall and layers of old wallpaper.

Here’s more of the wood wall. I slightly have an affinity for  this vintage wallpaper we discovered underneath. But I liked the wood wall better. So we will continue the tedious task of removing paper and ancient glue.

Now onto the master bedroom. What? Well of course! He is using every room in this house as his workshop. His planer, sander, dust collector machine and all his other heavy “dust making” equipment are located here. We ripped up the ugly red carpet and now it’s a great space for Eric to work in. See all those boxes and parts over there in the back? They’re sitting on top of a large jacuzzi tub. I’m not kidding. There really is a gigantic tub back there and Eric is using it for storage.

I cannot wait until we remove that monstrosity and replace it with a simple soaking tub. Ahhhhh….

Finally, we have his large workstation that sits in the middle of the living room. I think it’s nice and at least he has a great view with the wall of windows! I didn’t show you where he was storing all his shipping supplies—they are in the den sitting on the stone platform where the wood stove is. Best to not reveal everything!

I know Eric wishes he could really spread out in the industrial building like we originally planned. But he, I mean “we” (Freudian slip) will eventually finish the house and then do a “swap.” Until then, Chance and I are really loving living in this huge building! Plenty of space to play around in.

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