Working on Random Projects Around the Little Pine Cottage

Working on random projects around our little pine cottage was getting us closer to finishing our historic renovations.

man leaning on kitchen sink with shiplap on the walls

In our last blog, we shared how we restored antique shiplap with a lot of loving care. The shiplap we salvaged from our neighbor’s old historic garage felt like a wonderful opportunity and responsibility for us. Truly precious gems to steward and bring back to life.

HISTORY OF OUR LITTLE PINE COTTAGE

Our little pine cottage has certainly come a long way. And has made us more aware of heritage preservation. We had no idea about these things before we bought a historic house. In fact, we were not even looking for an old or historic house. And actually, we were not looking for a house at all. I wanted to get back to our lives traveling and not buy a house.

But then, Nate found our little cottage. It was perfect. Small only 744 square feet. We were already small space dwellers to live more simple and minimal lives. It is located in the most amazing and cute historic downtown neighborhood. We learned so much about heritage preservation from our neighbors and got the bug.

Now it was our turn to contribute to the preservation efforts with our cottage. As we learned from our neighbors, they also started to gift us with old reclaimed materials to include in our renovation projects. Nate has done an amazing job stewarding this responsibility.

RANDOM SHIPLAP RESTORING PROJECTS

As we started to install the restored shiplap on our living room wall, it seemed like we might not have enough to cover the entire wall. We had to work with the reclaimed shiplap we had. If we didn’t have enough, Nate thought of using a huge part of the wall to build a built-in bookshelf instead.

This could possible be a way to store items such as books, but also art, or any other decorative item that we would want to display. We thought of all the German steins I have that could be displayed. Since I grew up in Germany as a kid we have a lot of German stuff.

Nate worked hard to restore as much of the reclaimed shiplap as possible. Even fixing the cracked and really damaged ones. He got creative and made his own wood filler from his own sawdust and glue. And used clamps and screws with boards. Also patching areas with small circular pieces of shiplap like repairing a quilt or something.

restoring reclaimed shiplap with clamps and glue

After we salvaged as much wood as possible, we realized that we actually did have enough shiplap to finish our living room wall. So, we ditched the bookshelf idea for now and covered the wall with shiplap. That way we could take more time to decide what we wanted to do.

Nate drafted up several designs of the bookshelf and worked days on it. There were so many options to choose from and I couldn’t believe his design skills for the whole house in general. He has really used artistic, engineering, and carpentry abilities to get the job done around here.

OTHER RANDOM PROJECTS AT THE COTTAGE

As we were working on the kitchen design, we realized that we had to sell our beloved antique double basin cast iron sink. Otherwise, we would have to change out our kitchen window for one with different dimensions that would work with the high back of the sink.

That was really hard for me as I loved that sink and we drove all the way to Oklahoma to get it. But, I was glad to see it go to a good home with a girl also from Oklahoma who renovates old historic homes as well. It worked out for both of us.

We replaced that sink with another old cast iron sink. The one we sold was date stamped 1936. This new one was from around the 1950s. We are not sure if that will be permanent or not yet. It’s a single basin with no drain boards on the side, but still works out fine.

Nate also applied tung oil to our front porch that he had built a few years before. He never oiled it then. Now it got a new look and feel. It was darker and turned out so good. The wood was fading and the oil made it pop again. Super beautiful.

He also worked on the 1930s indoor doors we bought with crystal knobs. They were such a great find. We got two~ one for the bedroom and the other for the office. But, he realized that the bottom of them were not even, so he had to cut them down and even them out. That was a random project to take care of.

Those doors with antique shiplap all around them and our handmade built-ins next to them looked amazing. Working on random projects around our little pine cottage was really making everything feel like it was starting to all come together so nicely.

MORE RANDOM PROJECTS COMING UP

Next, Nate will begin to work on door jams around the house. Starting with the main bedroom and office doors. Basically, for those 1930s doors I just mentioned. That would be another huge task since they would have to be built wider than normal ones because of our built-ins. Stay tuned for an upcoming blog where we share more about that process. Again, another creative engineering project.

And finally he bought a planer for his wood working projects. It was something he wanted for a long time and was quite an investment to purchase. He was like a kid that just got back from a candy store when he brought it home.

He decided to break it in with a butcher block project he was working on. That would help him practice before making our actual butcher block island (or peninsula) for the kitchen. The cool thing was that he was using old wood original to our house. So about 80 to 100 year old wood! Again, more heritage preservation straight from the source this time~ from our own little pine cottage.

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS

Thanks for joining us on this journey! We hope that you will find inspiration watching us learn as we go while we’re attempting to renovate and rebuild this old small historic cottage mostly on our own~ while working full time jobs! Stay tuned for more progress updates ahead. Read more about us here.

You can also watch a video about this here.