“I bought this place in July of 2009,” said Fran Rodgers of her large, circa-1865 farmhouse in Turner. “When I bought it, I knew that there were a ton of things wrong with it.”

In addition to the first floor living space, the house has an apartment upstairs and a studio apartment in the barn. Rodgers lived upstairs for the first year, renovating that space first.

The floor in the upstairs living room “is a very pretty narrow oak,” according to Rodgers, so she refinished it. The kitchen cabinets, however, were made of plywood, and were in dire need of refinishing. An artist, Rodgers used her oil paints to paint ON the cabinets was what was IN the cabinets. “It’s a funky, fun kitchen,” she said.

Three of the rooms upstairs have their original tin ceilings. She scraped and refinished them with a metallic paint.

Because she planned to living on the first floor and wanted to keep the noise level down, Rodgers carpeted the upstairs bedrooms.

She also renovated the studio apartment over the barn, repairing water damage, painting, and replacing windows.

Antique cast-iron radiators throughout the house circulate heat, and, she said, “The first winter I lived downstairs I had three of them burst.” Rodgers didn’t realize this had happened for a couple of days because she had closed off those rooms to conserve energy. “The three rooms had wall-to-wall carpeting, and the carpets were soaked to the point where it was raining in the basement,” she said. It was the middle of January, and Rodgers tore up the carpeting and dragged it out to the barn, where it froze.

Underneath the carpeting, Rodgers discovered disintegrating linoleum, and underneath that, pumpkin pine. The linoleum was laid with a glue that Rodgers found nearly impossible to remove. “The floor sander that I rented didn’t do a good job, and I even tried pouring boiling water on it!”

Ultimately, Rodgers found that the best method to remove the glue was with a paint scraper. “I scraped, and scraped, and kept scraping … It took me the entire winter to scrape up the old linoleum.” She added, “The floors are absolutely stunning now.”

After that, and only because the newly exposed wood floors looked so great, “I took a look at the living room floor, by choice.” Pulling up the carpet she found – you guessed it – linoleum. And underneath that, bird’s eye maple.

Having been constructed before indoor plumbing, the home’s bathrooms were added much later. “There’s a two-seater in the barn,” said Rodgers, “and when the plumbing came in, they just plunked it wherever they could,” making for a floor plan that didn’t make a lot of sense.

In fact, when Rodgers purchased the farmhouse, you had to walk through the narrow first floor bathroom to get to a back bedroom, which was also the laundry room.

“I also had a ridiculous closet off of the living room, near the bathroom, which shared a wall with the isolated back bedroom.” Rodgers ripped the closet out, opening the living room up to the back bedroom via a short hallway.

Replacing the door from the bathroom to the bedroom with a wall created the perfect place for a bathroom vanity.

After removing the carpet, linoleum, and cardboard wall cover from the back bedroom, Rodgers found not only a pumpkin pine floor, but pumpkin pine walls. Although she refinished the wood floor, Rodgers removed a wide piece of pumpkin pine from the wall for use elsewhere. She also removed windows and part of the exterior wall, creating a space for a very large, fixed-pane window flanked by two double-hungs.

Relocating the laundry room to another part of the home, she installed a small sink where the washing machine had been, creating a functional space for her new studio.

“One of the things that I really like to do,” she said, “is reuse.” Rodgers refashioned the pumpkin pine from the wall into a rustic bathroom vanity, topped by a pounded metal vessel sink.

She also cut wine corks into wafers and used them as flooring in her bathroom, and the bathroom door is going to be a slider – exposed like a barn door as opposed to a pocket door.

Contributing to the vintage ambiance of the bathroom, a colorful stained glass window graces the wall between the bathroom and kitchen. Rodgers supposes that it may have been installed long ago as a way to get light into the windowless bathroom.

When she bought the farmhouse, the first floor kitchen was just awful. “I was sick of it since day one,” she said.

Now, one of the kitchen’s four walls has been completely refinished, with other renovations well under way. Rodgers removed the old range from its cramped alcove and replaced it with a deep pantry. To its right, she built cabinets as well as a space for her fish tank — bringing life, light and color to the space. To the left of the pantry, the antique stained glass window that separates the kitchen from the bathroom was left in place.

She especially disliked having the kitchen sink in the area that doubled as the main entrance to the apartment. She plans on tearing it out, along with its cabinetry, to open up the space.

On the opposite wall, the old built-in cabinet was too shallow. She tore it apart and fit a piece in the back, making it deep enough to accommodate the kitchen sink, and then reattached the cabinets. She also ripped out the dysfunctional open shelving above the cabinets.

For her new countertop, as well as her new center island, Rodgers purchased cedar landscape timbers. She whacked the 4x4s into 5/8″ wafers, glued them to the thick plywood base, as you would tiles, grouted in between them, and sanded until the counter and island surfaces were even and smooth. She will finish them with a food-safe butcher block oil.

Creating her unique countertops, she laughed, has been horrifically time consuming, but worth every ounce of effort.

“Since the mid 1970s, I’ve had these old wooden boxes,” said Rodgers. “I’ve used them as furniture, as bookshelves, and as supports for my bed … they’re a part of me.” She put drawer slides on them and built a face for each, making them into drawers in her kitchen island. The island will also house her new stovetop and built-in oven.

Initially, Rodgers replaced the two windows in the kitchen. More recently, however, she changed her mind and purchased a long window that will span the entire length of the only exterior wall in the kitchen. Underneath it, she will build a shallow shelf for her houseplants.

The old kitchen drop ceiling is constructed of tongue in groove pine. “I love old stuff, and I don’t need or want anything to be perfect,” she said, but the large holes in the center of the room were a problem.

Rodgers found several decorative pressed tin panels, similar to the tin ceilings upstairs. She cut holes in several sections and purchased recessed lighting. The tin panels and recessed lights, as well as a galvanized steel pipe that Rodgers will fashion into a rack for hanging cookware, will decorate the ceiling, light the room, and provide functional features above the stovetop.

In 1978, out of necessity, Rodgers taught herself how to do alterations on garments by taking the garments apart before re-stitching them to the correct sizes.

Now, at the age of 65, Rodgers applies those same principles and techniques to the renovations at her farmhouse. She also goes to Lowes in Auburn for advice and materials.

“I’ll go in with a problem,” she said, “and they’ll teach me how to solve it.” All of these projects, she admitted, have been a learning experience, and it hasn’t helped that in her old house, nothing is plumb, nothing is level, and nothing is square.

Undaunted, Rodgers enjoys bringing new life to stuff. “Little by little,” she said, “I’m finding and preserving things that I know I will reuse … because, boy, do I have plans.”

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