Situated on a 160 acre's in Woodville, Ohio, Her Wildwood Farm was built in 1971, and is a 1,050 SF brick ranch. It had remained untouched til May of 2020, which ended up becoming a cathartic time and an inside and outside job for ourselves and this little house. During the covid lockdown while others felt trapped, isolated, and stuck indoors...we drew together and flourished on our farm. We found purpose working alongside one another. We began in the garden before the sun rose and spent our days working on the house, then fell into bed well after the moon was upon us. This labor of love consumed us seven days a week, 12-16 hours a day for more than a year..
 
This home had to be torn down to the studs before the real work could even begin. I designed a new floor plan where we added a half bathroom, small laundry room, a linen closet, and a walk-in closet to one of the bedrooms. I created a new kitchen layout, we updated the electrical and plumbing, installed new insulation, windows, drywall and flooring throughout. I selected a taupe/white paint color named "alpaca" for the exterior of the house, which gave it a soft hue to nestle it into our wooded landscape. I luted our barns for supplies to build custom projects, galore (all that my Dad had saved from our family hardware and lumber store that had been closed for almost 30 years), I longed for a "visually quiet" farmhouse where we could feel at home.. I couldn't wait to unpack the basement full of treasures I'd collected from my world travels. I stated by purchasing nearly everything very early in the process of this colossal gut-renovation, as to control the budget (thank goodness as the supply chain  broke  soon after, and prices skyrocketed. I designed custom bathroom vanities and found a local craftsmen to build them for me, using wood from trees felled on our land. I had to be very creative in how to achieve my goals, and traded/bartered services and antiques as payment for many things my Dad became too tired to build. I found a dutch door at an auction, and had it hand carved to say "Peace To All Who Enter", by a local craftsman. Every single time I enter our home, I'm reminded of all the love, work and refusal to compromise on details, as we invested our own blood, sweat and tears into each project. We did nearly everything ourselves, laying flooring, tile, installed windows. I found a hand-carved, hundred-plus year old sandstone sun behind one of the barns that my dad had picked up many years before. It became the focal point in our one full-bathroom, and that was the first room we completed in the house. Many a night I laid in that tub and stared at that sun as I cried, thinking we'd never be finished. This odyssey was a great labor of love for us all. This is what I did when I was not afraid. What will you do?

HER WILDWOOD FARM