Beechwood Revival Episode 7: 100 Year Old Roof Restoration and New Foundation Walls

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Before this house can be beautiful again, we have to strip it all the way down.

Catch Up On the Renovation Story So Far

If you are just finding the Beechwood Revival Project, pull up a chair, friend. Here is where we have been before we head into the 100 year old roof restoration on the property.

In Episode 1 we shared how we bought the Beechwood house to be closer to my son’s high school. I fell in love with this street and I fell in love with this house, and together with my husband Daron, we made it ours.

In Episode 2 we started demo. Once we got inside, we realized the condition was worse than we expected, so for it to be safe for us to actually live in, we had to take it all the way down to the studs.

In Episode 3 we said goodbye to two things I genuinely was not ready to let go of. The trees I fought hard to save. And the original sunroom.

In Episode 4 we went underground. We dug for the new addition, ran into a sewer pipe nobody expected, and found an old cistern that had been sitting under this house for a hundred years.

In Episode 6 the walls finally started going back up. We framed, moved the staircase, and pulled out an old fireplace only to find hundreds of pounds of concrete poured on the original hardwood floors underneath.

Now we look up. This week, it is all about the roof.

What 100 Year Old Roof Restoration Actually Looks Like

Welcome back to Episode 7 of the Beechwood Revival.

This episode we are tackling the roof. We pulled every single shingle off this house, inspected the decking underneath, and checked every single board before we let anything new go on top of it. On a house this old, you cannot skip that step. If the bones under the shingles are not solid, nothing you put on top of them is going to hold up the way it should.

Waterproofing Before Anything Else

Once the roof was stripped down, we waterproofed the entire exterior. That gives this old girl a solid protective base before any new materials go on. It is not the exciting part of the process, and it is definitely not the part that photographs well, but it is the part that protects everything else we have built so far. A hundred years from now, this is the work nobody will see and everybody will be grateful for.

A Little Character on Top

We also added decorative chimneys to the roofline. Practically speaking, this house does not need them the way it did a century ago. But a home like this deserves a little character, and the chimneys bring back some of the charm this street would have seen when the house was first built.

New Foundation Walls for the Addition

And then, y’all, we got into the big stuff. Foundation walls for the new addition.

Every single piece has to be right before you pour concrete. The layout, the measurements, the forms, all of it has to line up exactly before the truck ever shows up. This is where it starts to get real. Once that concrete goes in, there is no taking it back and starting over.

Building the Parts Nobody Sees

Every episode of this renovation keeps teaching me some version of the same thing. The parts nobody sees are usually the parts that matter most. A solid roof deck. A waterproofed exterior. A foundation wall poured exactly right. None of it is glamorous. All of it is what holds everything else up.

If you are in a season of life right now where the work feels invisible, where nobody is clapping for the parts you are getting right, I want you to hear this. That work still counts. It might count more than any of the parts people can see.

What’s Next

Next up, those new foundation walls cure and we move into the next phase of bringing the addition to life. Follow along at Our Farmer House so you do not miss it.