These pages on our web site will be to share the experiences with friends and family of restoring the old old farm house we purchased a couple of months back. The history on the house is that it was built sometime around 1909 by the Meacham family in Lamar County Texas. C.W. Meacham was a prominent citizen in Lamar county and the old house reflects that with the types of wallpaper and floor coverings used in the house. The original wallpaper was discovered behind hideous sheetrock some previous owners had put up and the floor covering was under rotted CDX plywood that was covered with an orange shag carpet of all things. The land where the house sits now, at one time had another house on it which burned down. The Meecham house sat about 1/4 mile from where it does now. The house was cut in half, moved and put back together. Whoever did that did a real good job as the only way to tell it was sawed in half is under trim boards on the front and back porches.
Our plans with the house are to have it as near restored as possible by Fall 2014. My twin daughters will graduate the spring of '14. When that happens I am done working at a job for a living. I have been working for 40 years now and still have 5 to go. 45 is enuff ! But back to the house. Renovation will start in the back bedroom. The thought here is to make all the mistakes in the room that will be used the least once all the work is done(I know - it never is !). We will also use this room while we work on the rest of the house. At one time in my life I built houses, apartments and condos in the Denton and Dallas areas. So I know how to do most of the work that will need to be done, but I will need to lean on some friends when it comes to replacing the roof, electrical work and barn tear down. And someone who is not afraid of crawling around under a dark old house !!
The old house is in remarkably good shape structurally. With the exception of dipping in one corner it is pretty level too. The PO's(previous owners) had placed a portion of rain gutter over the front porch without a drain. Over the years the rain water weakened the area on the corner of the house and it began to sag. So the first order of business is to call in the guy that levels houses and get that fixed. This should happen in May '09. Before and while the leveling is being done, the back bedrooom will have the wall boards removed and the ceiling boards removed. Insulation will be installed and outlets will be installed in the walls and one in the ceiling for a fan. The house is currently wired with one outlet in each room and one ceiling outlet in each room. I don't trust the old wiring! Where we go from there depends on money flow and what the boss wants done. Since we are out there just about every week-end these pages will be updated often.
Thanx for checking out about the old house and hope you enjoy the pictures and stories of horror !!
April '09
I installed a drain line from the gutters on the north side of the house to the pond. With the amount of rain we have had, the pond is just about full. We have not had time to fish the pond yet but was told there are fish in it. If not, there soon will be...
Aw man, had to do some extensive work in the bathroom. When I removed the toilet I discovered the wax ring was not there, well practically not there. It had dried up some time ago and the water from the toilet was running over the flange into the wood floors. The PO's had just stacked up more plywood to raise the toilet off the floor... So I removed the damaged floor in the bath room and for now replaced it with 3/4" plywood and put down the self adhesive tiles. Then I installed a new toilet and standing sink. For temporary work it came out pretty nicely. Only knicked one water supply line that had to be repaired ! Once we got the water turned on there was a leak in the shower handle. Now mind you, we are a good two hour round trip from town. Thought I had the right stuff to fix the shower with but no. So after two trips to town and one heck of long night, I got the shower fixed. The shower ain't pretty but I promise you, it's one of the best showers in the country !! Now mama and the girls can come out and feel comfortable knowing they have a place to shower and well you know...
Another disaster --- once the toilet was installed after two flushes it would no longer flush. Discovered the septic tank was full. So we had the tank pumped. The septic tank is an 500 gallon fiberglass one that has seen better days. It will work fine for now though. So, we had the tank pumped and the next day it came about a 4" rain and filled the tank. No problem I thought, the lateral lines should take care of the water - wrong. The lateral lines were full of tree roots, sludge and who knows what else. How the PO's lived there I don't have a clue. At any rate, after a week-end of some very intensive labor and only one disagreement with the boss we replaced the lateral lines. Now the plumbing works great !
May '09
Began demo in the back bedroom. One word of wisdom for anyone that may be thinking about doing what we are - don't forget to get a couple of cans of wasp and hornet spray ! They love to live between the wall boards and the siding and don't much care for you to disturb their nesting area. The PO's had put false ceilings in every room so I tore the one out in the bedroom. Next I tore down all the sheet rock from all the walls, removed the old carpet and for now left the CDX that has been nailed down to the floor. There are a million or more nails in the walls from the sheetrock and the nails used to hold down the old cheesecloth stuff the original wallpaper was glued to. Out to be fun getting those out. I removed the wall boards from the outside walls of the house to be able to install insulation. Even tho the wall boards are 2x6 or 2x8 tongue and groove boards, they came off the walls fairly easy and with little damage. Once the insulation is installed and the wiring has been run, I will remove all the nails, sand the boards down a little and reinstall them. Then we'll sand down the boards on the other two walls and paint. I really would like to leave the boards natural looking and cover them with shellac but there are way too many nail holes for that. The ceiling is made up of 2x8 t&g boards. I will probably remove those and give them the same treatment as the wall boards. The only problem is that there is a few inches deep mud dobber nest on the ceiling boards. What a mess that will be. Guess it can't be much worse than the walls though, there were mud dobber nest about a foot thick in the walls !! The bottom sills on the window frames will need to be repaired also. For now, I am repairing and using the original windows which still have the original glass in them. When we get moved out there, we'll install the sash replacement windows. If everything goes right and the rain holds off, the week of the 16th the house will be leveled and I will be out there for five whole days !! I should be able to finish the bedroom, but then again...
June '09
Well, the five days off were productive but not enough to finish the bedroom ! We did get the house leveled and it feels much better. There were a couple of pretty bad bows in a some floor joists so we are going to let those settle a while then block them up. The idea about sanding the wall and ceiling boards and reinstalling them proved to be a futile effort at restoration. Some boards were just way to rotten and others had so many nails in them that after working on one board for almost two hours I just gave up ! The ceiling boards were too rotten to use. So I tore everything out and replaced it with sheetrock for now. I will be back out there for a few more days in a couple of weeks. Update: Man is it hot now !.. I got all the insulation in the outer walls and ceiling, installed the sheetrock, taped and bedded, and finally got some paint on the walls. I installed ceiling tiles. Next week I will paint everything then install the crown molding, wainscot, and trim it out. We are using the original trim and windows. July 4th is coming up soon and we wanted to be able to spend the night in the bedroom. I don't think this is going to happen unless we can get a BIG window unit installed !!! At any rate, we'll have fun eating hotdogs and watermelon on the old front porch.... 
December '09
Here it is almost Christmas !! I finished the bedroom and moved in a couple of beds. We spent Thanksgiving there and had a good one. Work on the house has been slowed somewhat by deer season and a burglery. Someone broke into the house and took all my hand and power tools. Hard lesson learned, but in the future I will keep a record of all serial numbers and take pictures of everything ! Hopefully, the cameras we installed will help us catch them if they come back plus I don't leave anything out there anymore - it's a pain having to haul all that stuff, but better than having some thieving bastard take it all. Since finishing the bedroom, we removed carpet in all the bedrooms, cleaned up alot, tore down the old tin barn and started to work on the dogtrot. The house is separated in two halves with one side being all bedrooms and the other has a small bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. Between the halves is like a long hall called a dogtrot. Back in the old days two cabins would be built with a covered run in between them and this is where the dogs would hang out - hence the name dog trot. In later years the dogtrot became a part of the house but was still used to 'air condition' the house. Both ends of it were opened up to let air flow thru the house on warmer days and in the winter, the wood stove in the kitchen kept it warm so most folks slept on it that time of the year. We want to put the dogtrot back in it's original shape so our work has been focused on that. Once I removed all the sheet rock from the walls, and removed the false ceiling, to our surprise the walls were covered with dutch type lap siding and the ceiling was beadboard ! Nice !... The floor under the CDX and vinyl stick downs is in real good shape too. The previous owners had removed the back doors and put in a window. We plan on removing the window and replacing it with french doors that will open up to the back porch which will be our den. Work has progressed nicely on it and we hope to have it completed with the exception of the floor by the end of the year. This first pic is of the dogtrot the day we bought the house, second is how it looked after all the crap was taken out and the third is the current state of it. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you !!!
