In absolute numbers, I suppose you could say we lived in the place for free, once you compare what we paid for the place and added as renovations against the selling price two decades later, but I’m not sure that would hold up if we factored in inflation or what we might have earned if we’d placed much of that money in the stock market.
Even so, here’s some of what we had done:
- Reshingled the roof.
- Lined the chimney. And then the other.
- Replaced the cracked boiler.
- Saved the barn from collapse, created a mother-in-law apartment, later removed the second-floor deck from the house to the loft, and wired the loft.
- Replaced the downstairs windows.
- Remodeled the kitchen.
- Remodeled the upstairs bathroom.
- Restored the downstairs bathroom as more of a utility room and added a kitchen pantry.
- Replaced the sump pump, this time sunken into the floor.
- Replaced the rotten bulkhead with steel.
And that’s not counting all the garden beds and plantings or tree work.
Jnana's Red Barn 