The Fullers’ Going Dutch Colonial Style
My husband and I — along with our six kids, ages 17 to 1 — bought a 1920 Dutch Colonial Revival house in upper Wisconsin. Unfortunately, while the house was built by a master mason and plasterer, it was sold several times (and updated by each buyer) and then finally purchased out of foreclosure and flipped. Yes….flipped.
Gone are all the original doors, moulding, windows and more. They even hid the 2.5” maple flooring under carpet and laminate wood. New walls were added. Original walls were torn down and the entire building was covered in vinyl.
My husband and I have spent our first year basically “deconstructing” everything past owners have done and are making a conscientious effort to restore it to its original blueprint. We are documenting our journey through our blog, Going Dutch Colonial Style.
Here is a link to our blog: http://goingdutchcolonialstyle.blogspot.com/.
This is the only part of the house left original – the built in closets and window seat.
This picture shows the wonderful pre-primed trimmed that was glued, yes glued, to the house. They never even bothered to paint it. I guess the house-flippers thought pre-primed meant ready to install.
Backyard: In our backyard, we found buried the original outhouse pit with over 200 vintage bottles; the original sand point well; and a sidewalk. We fenced off the backyard from the garage back and removed the large silver maple. This area is now the family garden plot, measuring roughly 60’ x 30’.
Rubber Adhesive Kitchen: this is what our floors looked like under the laminate flooring.
this is what the kitchen floor looks like after many hours with a heat gun and scraper.
this is the chimney, finally exposed, and the original hallway opened up. We now have a main hallway that extends from the front door all the way to the back door.