A BRAND NEW HOUSE, BUILT WITH OLD MATERIALS

A lady in love with antiques decided to rebuild a rotten barn located on the property she owned in Minnesota. Passionate about architecture of old houses in France and England, the owner did not want to have a simple solid shed, but with a real house in which to accommodate her relatives and friends who come to visit and in which she can escape herself for the moments when she feels the need of peace. So she filed a request seeking approval from local authorities to rebuild the rotten outhouse.

THE OLD SHED TRANSFORMED INTO A BEAUTIFUL HOUSE IN TUDOR STYLE

The authorities’ response said that the old building can be transformed into a house, on condition that is kept the same impression on ground and the same roof line. Once received the green light, the owner asked for the help of the architecture company Murphy & Co. Design for the project of a house in Tudor style, as she saw in one of her numerous journeys through Europe.

For authenticity, the team of architects led by Jeff Murphy and the owner of the old shed started looking for various recycled materials, to use in the construction of new house with old air. They managed to get some wooden beams recovered from the demolition of some old barns dating from the mid-1800s, which were used for the house structure, the slate from the roof of a barn built in 1810 in Pensylvannia, and the limestone (stone which was plated outside the house) found after reconsolidation works of an old bridge in Minneapolis. Even the wooden floor covering the living room has been used through the 1880s, being part of the structure of a barn in Wisconsin. And besides all this, was called on some skilled carpenters to make the entrance door, the woodworks and other wooden items.

INTERIOR DRESSED IN WOOD AND FULL OF HISTORY

The owner’s native talent in design and her passion for antiques, contributed greatly to the interior design to make it look really born in the years 1600-1800 in Europe. Finally, after years when she collected various decorations, furniture (for example the kitchen island used formerly in a butcher or the wood shelf that was part of the furniture of a pharmacy hundreds of years ago), accessories and lamps from various antique fairs, the owner could truly valorize them.

Understanding how important this project is for the beneficiary, the architects involved have carefully studied before even the wood joining methods used in Tudor style. So they did their best to learn and then to apply the joining methods used half a millennium ago, combining the beams from the structure of the house using wooden wedges.

Because the surface of the house measures only 79.9 square meters, the architects decided to choose a partition in open plan in the living room area, isolating only the bedroom and bath. So the living room, the kitchen and the dining area share a common room, each of the three areas of activity being separated visually using the structure of massive beams made of recycled wood. The kitchen and the dining area occupy one side of the spacious living room that has an impressive fireplace.