No Really….Now What??

We’ve had a lot of people ask us “So what are you going to do with the school house?” Haha, that’s a great question. We ask ourselves that every day (just kidding, we have a few ideas). We do know that we want to be super respectful of the history of the school and retain as much of the original features and character as possible. The plan right now is to turn the school house into a one bedroom, one-bathroom home. Luckily we have Gramp to head up this part of the project. He has some serious chops when it comes to project management and has done his share of small scale renovations (just don’t let him near the electric, Em said you’ll be in for a shock…!). Here’s a very basic list of the major parts of the project, in no particular order:

The Plan
Complete remaining demo (p.s. the dumpster weighed in at +2 tons)
Finalize floor plan
Fix the roof
New windows
Electric
Septic tank
Well
Plumbing
Frame interior
Insulate entire structure
Bathroom (chemical toilets are so out of style)
Kitchen
Redo addition
Driveway
Flooring
Oh yeah – address the GIANT tree that looks like it’s ready to eat the school house

Our first look at Gramp’s Old School in mid-June, also called tree vs. school house

Floor Plan
The original school house is from 1850 (lucky us there’s a sign on the school that tells us that). At some point an addition was added that housed two bathrooms and two storage areas. Below is a rough drawing of the current layout of the building.

rough sketch of current floor plan

Our plan is to keep the original building as close to the same as possible, so one big open room. We will add a kitchen on one of the walls. For the existing addition, we see this as a place to separate into one small bathroom and one small bedroom.  Gramp knows AutoCad so he’s able to render out some pretty detailed plans.

Main entrance and two doors leading to addition

Back in the Day
We’re starting to scratch the surface of the history of our family and the history of the school and its students. As we research this part of the project we’d love to hear from anyone that may have attended the school before it closed. We’re also generating a list of students based on accounts from relatives and some research at the local library. If you have a story you’d like to share please reach out to us via the form on the contact page. The other day we came across this sweet pic of Halloween at “Gramp’s Old School” circa 1940!

Halloween at the school house circa 1940

Up Next
Turkey time! All the Teffts will be converging on my house for Thanksgiving and Sarah Tefft will be home from Boston! We’ll also be celebrating Philip’s second birthday. So we’ll keep it light on the blog next week, as everyone will be immersed in family and/or gravy?? I’ve asked my siblings to each bring a logo design for “Gramp’s Old School” to dinner and I’ll be sharing what they come up with!