Keeping the same size of the existing house (tenant house) which was 16' x 24' with an addition for the bathroom and kitchen of 10' x 16' became the . This floor plan was popular in the era of the tenant/slave house building period. When it came time to draft and configure the design of the new tenant house, there was an option of building bigger, but we decided to stay with the perfect plan of the original shack's design.
My goal was to create something similar to the tenant house while also adding my own artistic decisions. I wanted to duplicate what was already there. Since the tenant house had board and batons, the siding was an easy match. We used the same exterior siding timber framing. Both buildings had a 8/12 pitch with a gable and valley roof, so the outside design was ready.
If you'll notice, there are old car fan blades sticking out of the flower beds.
The tenant house's exterior siding was heart-of-pine 1x12-board and baton. I used the
old boards for the cabinets in the kitchen....the baton I used for the trim on the counter top.
I used the same method for stacking up flat rocks for the piers of the house......do what??
And yes, in the photo on the left, those are the real girders from the original house! Amazing!
You t ry to make a square 8"x8" solid piece of oak into a girder! By hand! Now that's amazing!
75% of the orginial girders were in mint condition with the huge spikes jabbing out of 'em....What's supporting the mantel are the laps I cut off the oak girders...also with the spikes coming out.
The interior siding is rough-sawn 1x8,10,&12's.
The tin from the original roof was actually in great condition.
It was fun applying tin on an upside down hip.
The cabinet in the right corner is the entertainment center with a flat screen, etc. This old door's window was replaced with original left over beaded board paneling. This place is a great atmosphere to crank up the fireplace and watch a football game on a cold winter day. There is book case that goes on the left side of the room. I didn't have it built in time for the photoshoot.
The cabinet doors and door fronts were made out of the exterior siding batons from the original structure. One option was to plane the fronts, but we opted to keep the authentic groovy effect.
The counter tops, including the bathroom counter top, are a poured marine-epoxy that was like a bad science experiment gone wrong. I managed to pull it off with a "glass effect" counter top with the original siding showing beneath the resin, creating a unique look.
Here is a pocket door that is made of 7/8 's x 6" original interior siding. This was the rarest of the wood salvage. I love working with it because of its thickness and the lightness of the heart pine. If you'll notice in the mirror, I ran the other side of the pocket door perpendicular to the front. The mirror was cut to fit inside an old window frame.
The interior siding in the bathroom was the majority of the wood salvaged in the walls and ceiling of the tenant house. It was a process to prepare it for installation.....denailing, scraping with a wire brush, then running an orbital sander over every piece. The owners did the majority of this work followed by my wife. Then Pressly, my wonderful wife, put up every board in the bathroom.
The floor is 1' x 12" tongue and groove white pine put down with hand driven cut nails. Stained a dark walnut.....
Beautiful!
Found this little guy stuck away in a wall.
Here is another view of the original girder. The rock steps, we think, are the stepping stones from the "horse and carriage " drop-off from the plantation house. These worked perfectly for the steps here.
We brushed so much newspaper off of the old wood. It was used as insulation back in the day. We ended up with a small basket full of prized treasures. The earliest newspaper we found was dated May 1896.
This one was around the early 1920's-40's.
