Our Farmhouse Restoration

Our Farmhouse Restoration Like this page to view our journey as we restore one of the oldest homes in Trinity, Alabama. F.D. Home Rd. and N. Seneca Drive.

Believed to have been built in the late 1890’s to early 1900’s, our home is a classic "L" American Farmhouse. The original house included two stories in the main portion, with a single story run on the north side. It formerly featured a back porch in the same "L" shape as the home itself. All evidence discovered so far indicates the house was built by Frances Dawson Lile, who was born in Trinity o

n Feb. 11, 1880. Lile attended the University of Alabama in 1898-1899 and married his wife in 1910. The Lile family was one of the three founding families of the town we now know as Trinity. Lile was the co-owner of Trinity's general store "Lile and Company". The store was on the same property as our home and was somewhere around the intersection of Mt. We purchased this home from the town in the spring of 2013, shortly after our one year wedding anniversary and finding out that we were pregnant with our daughter. Throughout the years the house received many repairs and updates of varying quality, including indoor plumbing and an addition in the 1970s. We discovered several areas of extreme rot in the substructure of the house, which was built on top of river rocks about 6 inches off of the ground. These discoveries led to the house being lifted off of the ground, moved, and a new foundation and substructure built underneath the house in order to preserve it. We were forced to completely demolish the existing plaster walls in order to move the house & replace the original early 1900’s electrical wires. Unfortunately, every plank of the original flooring on the lower level had to be removed due to the extensive rot. We removed the 1970's eight foot drop ceilings to reveal the original ten foot ceilings and (to our surprise) original transom windows throughout the house. We peeled away multiple layers of linoleum, wallpaper, and s**g carpet. We also tweaked the floor plan inside to make the space more useable for our family while preserving the integrity and original bones of the home (no open floor plan here!). It took more years of hard work & more going over our budget than we want to think about, but in 2016 we finally moved into our home. We will no doubt continue to work on our home and restore this part of Trinity’s history for many years to come. Through it all, we know that God is good all the time & appreciate every kind word of encouragement that has been given to us over the past 8 years.

A little kitchen before and after.
12/26/2017

A little kitchen before and after.

11/23/2017
We'll probably never be able to say the word "finished", but at least some things are getting close.
10/22/2017

We'll probably never be able to say the word "finished", but at least some things are getting close.

We're baaaaaaaack....
09/08/2017

We're baaaaaaaack....

If you ever wonder why we prefer old over new..... doing a deep clean on a dresser we've had for seven or eight years th...
10/22/2016

If you ever wonder why we prefer old over new..... doing a deep clean on a dresser we've had for seven or eight years that we just moved out of storage from our move and a postcard from the 30s falls out. Everything has a history.

So excited about this addition to our kitchen (and thankful to my parents for giving it to us). Growing up, I have so ma...
10/22/2016

So excited about this addition to our kitchen (and thankful to my parents for giving it to us). Growing up, I have so many memories of this cabinet. For my entire early childhood, my grandmother used it every night to roll out biscuit dough on the porcelain countertop to be used when she got up before dawn the next morning to cook breakfast. My first memory of helping prepare anything is using her round, metal biscuit cutter on that dough and then stacking them in her Tupperware container for the next day. Before that, my great, great aunts used it to sift flour and store cornbread and pies, along with all of their kitchen necessities, because it was the only countertop and cabinet they had in the entire kitchen aside from a small pie safe. For the past 16 years, it has sat in my parents' kitchen (but in the same house the entire time) and served as a place for my grandmother & mother's chicken and dressing at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Growing up, it displayed a beautiful blue bowl my dad bought for my mother when they bought the family home. The bowl came from King's Hardware, a store owned by the family of the person who I would meet years later and who would become my work partner, best friend, and part of our family. One of my first dates with my husband, who I've been on this crazy home restoration journey with, was baking Christmas Cookies at this countertop. It's crazy that a piece of furniture can mean so much, but this one is pretty special.

A few recent pictures of our work in progress.
10/21/2016

A few recent pictures of our work in progress.

Getting started.
06/05/2016

Getting started.

This is amazing.
06/05/2016

This is amazing.

PLEASE READ: ** I toured this home a few weeks ago. The photos shown are a mix of the photos in the listing as well as the photos I took (unprofessional of course haha) but I wanted to share them. As you will notice one photo has my friend at the top of the stairs carelessly inked over so she's not in the photo. I seriously have contemplated buying this house. Wouldn't it make a beautiful For The Love of Old Houses headquarters? ;) However, sigh, it is a bit far for me from family so...we will see. I wanted to share it with you all. It had previously been used as a wedding venue.
c.1904. Church St, Troy, AL 3,300 square feet. 4 bedrooms, 1.5 baths on 0.5 acre. It is zoned Commercial/Residential. (it has a commercial kitchen at this time) *Message for Contact Information* For Sale: $149,900!

When digging a couple of bricks out of the yard escalates quickly.
05/22/2016

When digging a couple of bricks out of the yard escalates quickly.

Busy day of tearing down the first old lean to.
04/09/2016

Busy day of tearing down the first old lean to.

Working on the porch in the snow flurry on this beautiful first day of spring.
03/21/2016

Working on the porch in the snow flurry on this beautiful first day of spring.

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Trinity, AL
35673

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