Inside a 300-Year-Old Farmhouse - Ruth McKeaney’s Home Tour - Design Within Reach Ep. 19

Hello and welcome to Tesori Home. Today we are bringing you our next episode in our series Design Within Reach where we tour everyday people's homes to show you that you can create a home you love within your means. Today I am so excited to be touring Ruth and Bob McKinney's beautiful 300 year old home together with you. Ruth and Bob have restored and renovated this gorgeous home, put their personal touch on it. They have such a beautiful family that live within these walls and I'm so excited to get to share it with you today. You can check out Ruth's channel along with her book Hungry for Home at the links in the description down below along with her Instagram as well. So let's go in and see what Ruth and Bob are up to. Hi. Hi. How are you? Welcome. Thank you. Absolutely. This is Bob. Come on in. Hi Bob. Thanks for having me. Welcome to our home. Thank you. Come on in. I'd love to just start by asking how you guys got into creating this home, how you fell in love with design and home in general. I would love to hear where that all began for you both. Do you want to take this on immediately? I can take this on. You know it's funny how things happen unintentionally. You know I always had a little bit of skill to fix things up but it wasn't until we contacted a realtor and said hey we would love to live in this area and she goes how much can you afford and we told her a dollar figure and she said she actually laughed. She started laughing. You can't afford to live here. So our realtor called us back after laughing at us. She called us about a week later and said you guys said you weren't afraid of a little work and so the next thing you know we're looking at this house. It's about 120 years old. The foundation, the house is slipping off the foundation and it was just in bad shape and she goes this is what you can afford and we walked to the house and it was fascinating. We just were like oh we can knock that wall down. We can do this here and she was blown away as she was like I don't see what you guys see. So we ended up buying the house and about a year and a half later. I'm interrupting for one second. You need to understand if he might say that I had tears pouring down my face like there is no way we can do this. Wow. We really sink our heart into it. We literally went to Home Depot and bought tools with the remaining dollars we had after we bought the house and we just started doing things ourselves. You know hardwood floors and ripping out walls and tiling bathrooms and after about a year and a half after fixing this house up a realtor came to us and said you know you could sell this house for double what you bought it for and we went oh and she goes and I have another one for you. So over 16 years we moved every 18 months redoing old old homes and landed on this 300 and now eight year old farm outside of Philadelphia. Well it seems like you guys make an amazing team and I'm so excited to explore this project even though you had so many others. I know that you have to get going but I'm so glad that we got to hear your side of things too and Ruth I think you're gonna take us through now. All right. All right I love you baby. All right this house you know was 1717 so it's what 308 years old. It's only been owned by we're the fourth people on the deed. William Penn deeded it and so each family has held on to it for 100 years which is amazing. Wow. But it was a dairy farm started out as 300 acres and it you know whittled down to the 11 and a half that it is currently. But this was the butter churning room so there were vats for butter churning. There was no fireplace when we moved in but again I told you that our signature is a fireplace in the kitchen. So we put this in. Actually here's a fun story. I didn't want Bob to know how I was designing the kitchen so I did it all myself. I called the Amish we were working through it. Well the day they brought the island to put in the house he calls me the general contractor of the Amish company and he says Mrs. McKinney it's a beautiful island. You did not measure what you we can't get in your home. And so I mean we were outside so I call my husband he comes racing home from work and he proceeded to cut out all the framing of the windows so we could get it in and then he said Ruth it will never leave our house. So that's kind of a fun story about our island. So we designed that. I love a look that's kind of commercial as well as rustic. I don't want an all rustic but I love the stainless and all that kind of stuff. We also kept original cabinetry and had the Amish copy it so those are all original and then these were all copied. Okay wow I love that. In our homes I love soapstone. I love the natural stone of it so we've always used soapstone but in this house I made the second half of the island marble because I like the combination again of the old world kind of look. And then I had the gentleman at the stone quarry hone the what honing means is you take the shine off of it off my marble and he was like ma'am I can't do that nobody does that. He said because then it's going to absorb everything you're going to see every issue and I'm like that's what I want. So I want it to feel and look lived in so that's kind of the story. These are old hay they would hold the hay for cows in a dairy farm. So we found them in an antique shop and turned them into lights. Where do you find your inspiration for your style? I know you guys used to flip through magazines. So we would and I think that well first of all and people do ask me about the artwork because I love art. I think almost almost every piece we have has the story behind it and why a few of my kids love art and so we have framed you know giving them places of honor and not putting them on our fridge necessarily to take down but I've actually framed them like I would a beautiful piece of art. So our laundry room and different places in the house you'll see huge pieces of art that our daughters have done. Wow. In fact there's one in our laundry room that it's a cow and it's half done and originally my daughter before she was going to college she didn't have time to finish it and she kept coming home and saying do you want me to finish it and I was like no. It's kind of like life right we are always in process and we're going to leave it half finished. So anyway that's the story. That's beautiful. I love that so much. Well why don't we go over here and you have a little like breakfast stuff and this gorgeous piece of art was this done by one of your children? No actually and actually this was the original kitchen right here. Okay. We took a wall down here. This we we frequent this little restaurant and they sell art and this artist I have two of his paintings it was this one was in the bar area and I asked if I could buy it. I think a lot of people will get pieces for their homes but they're like not in love with it keep switching things around. I feel like the pieces you have in your home are ones that you're in love with and aren't really going anywhere. I felt this strongly when Bob and I would go to the garage sales or estate sales. I would rather leave my house empty and slowly purchase and accumulate over time pieces that are timeless which is why like rugs I don't even care if there's a hole in it like there's a hole in this one right here. I love it and it feels like it's been here for 100 years and yeah I'm I'm a firm believer in that and to build a room around something whether it's a rug or a piece of furniture. Okay before we leave this room I have one more thing to show you okay and this has to do with you know we were moving so much but wanting there to be a consistency and we have a wall over here where all five of our kids you know you might say well you guys haven't been there here that long and you were in other houses so we would measure and copy what we had in a prior home and then for the last 10 years we have kept it going. Now we're going to go into this hallway and I'm going to show you my favorite bathroom in the house. Okay let's do it. Here is a fun little hallway because it started out as super dark but Bob cut this opening and hung a light and then we put artwork. I love artwork in unexpected places. I mean you wouldn't expect to see artwork up there. Yeah. And in this bathroom it's where we've done brick on the floor and I wanted a really bold fun European wallpaper and then I painted the trim you know a green to match the wallpaper. That is so fun. I love and bathrooms specifically I think are such a fun place to play and people walk in and are like oh I wouldn't expect this and that's exactly what I would say. Bathrooms and laundry rooms or closets. So if you come through here this is our den. What a cozy room. I think you know one of the things that people have asked me is like our picture wall and I was in my 20s and I was at a friend's home in Charlotte in her mother's house and they had every wall from floor to ceiling was in black and white pictures and it has stuck with me. It just gave a sense of history and legacy of that family and so we started doing it. Today there's not a lot of homes you go into where people have their family photos up anymore. I feel like when you look at a lot of homes that are in magazines or like homes that people aspire to there's no family photos and that makes me sad because I'm like what's a way and I know it's not for everyone but what's a way we can incorporate family photos in a way that we also love aesthetically and I love that you've done this because this is your this is what home is. Yeah and I think you know you know I wrote a book called Hungry for Home and I think you know people say well why did you do it? My heart is how to how to give someone a tool to how to create an intentional family culture because everyone has one so to be intentional about it is important and and knowing who you are as a family is really important and we did a mission statement when we first got married. What do we value as a couple and what are we going to value as a family and how do you incorporate that with your family? So I think chronicling your family's life is really important. I can walk into someone's house and go yeah a designer did it and it's beautiful but I want to know who you are. Yeah and and that you know a lot of people don't have the courage I think and maybe flipping the houses has given us courage I'm not sure but you know I always tell people put you into it. It's not just about being beautiful. Wow. So anyway. Well if you want to hear more about that we'll link Ruth's book down below Hungry for Home so that you can buy it and hear more about her heart behind her homes and family culture. There's so much in there that's so good so. We do our family all our family traditions over the course of a year which are a lot. Yeah. As well as family recipes, gardening, entertaining, and decorating so it's a fun thing. I'm excited to take ideas now that we have our daughter I'm like and you guys seem to be doing something right I need to write down some notes. So as we go what's fun is we go into this room and it's our living room and the light on this side of the house is so nice. Again someone painted this of our orchard that's outside and you know so everything this is that artist that's in the kitchen. We found this painting in the basement under water and it's from over a hundred years ago and we had it put behind glass so that it could but you can see the damage in the corner but again I mean if you look over here on this wall when I got out of law school my dad had been given something when he got out of law school and it's a verse in scripture that talks about the law of the Lord and he had it framed for me and then my mom wrote music and when she died 20 years ago each one of us six kids were given music sheets of the songs she had written for us each individually and so I framed that so every single thing I like to have some sort of story and connection behind. Can you tell me a bit about you have gorgeous rugs gorgeous furniture where do you usually I mean you said you used to do estate sales and where else do you love to shop? All right I had a friend getting rid of it was a yellow chair she brought it over she was throwing it away and I recovered it. These we saw and caught on one of our vacations but they were too expensive for us. A couple years later the owner of that called us and said I'll give you a deal shipped him down to us a friend who was going through a really hard divorce she was getting rid of furniture she gave us this couch and I recovered it so everything is kind of like just put together. Oh my gosh and that's what makes a cozy collected lived in home. I'm a trash picker it was raining one day and I was going down we have this long driveway and I was going down it and my neighbor had put in a rug in her trash can it was raining and I'm looking around is anyone watching and I take it out. I love it. I pulled it up and it's upstairs. Oh you're speaking my language oh man. Well that man's trash right? Another man's treasure. Well why don't you lead us here into the foyer. Yes so here's the foyer which I love. This is a fun story so we were in Park City I have a lot of family that lives in Park City and one of the galleries has these you know I don't know what kind of metal these are out of iron or something and I had told Bob how much I loved this this the artistry of this gentleman so for our 10th anniversary Bob called him and said can you do our five kids and he said well if I do your five kids you'll never be able to afford to go send them to college. He said but I do have some stock children I'll do four girls and a boy and just connect them so that's what we did here so yeah. Amazing. Then we found because obviously as you know the main line is a train line that goes from the city all the way out and I found somebody who collected the train books and this shows you right here let's see Brogner Oakey owned this. This was from 1912. He was the owner of these 90 acres and so we went ahead and it kind of gives you the history of the house. Wow. Yeah. I love it and also love how wide it is in here. I know. It's such a breathable space and I love the flow of your home just going from room to room. And obviously we don't even need a lock because it's still locked by a big old board in between. It seems like all these you know little nooks. Oh wow. Right. That's another one of my great grandfather's clocks and that one is I think that one's first Corinthians so beautiful fun so you just never know where you're looking. I love it. This is the dining room which I love. We turned the fireplace into a gas fireplace. Okay. And yeah again the curved walls and when we moved into this house the chandelier was still candles. Wow. So there wasn't even lit. Here are two more paintings that I had done. This one I had Bob done for Christmas. We have a place out in Idaho for a ski place that we have and that's the view from our back porch and then there's the painting when we were in Stratford-Upon-Avon that somebody painted for us. How special. Now I have to ask is this a room that you guys eat in often or is this? Yes. Yeah this is where if you have family dinner this is the table. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Because I feel like people don't use their dining rooms anymore and you know I was on Bob Goff has a podcast and I was on his podcast and we were talking about memorializing things around the table. He gave me such a fun again it's their tradition but I thought wow I wish I had known that earlier. When he has guests they all go under the table and sign under the table. And I'm like you know if rooms had memories if walls had memories I just thought that was a beautiful generational type of of gift so. And I love how you have it set here. Thank you. Bob made all these placemats. He got a hide and he cut them and then he put our hillside farm up here. Bless. And he made these square placements. That is special. So much love put into this home. So I can take you upstairs if you'd like to our bedroom and my office which are kind of fun. I would love to see. So if you come up here again I love things to look different and a little out of the ordinary. When we bought this house there's a door here and the shelving was here but it was just white and I took the door off and we painted this and I wallpapered around the top. So again just having something just a little bit artistry and looking like that. And you did high gloss high gloss. Well I'll take you to my next high gloss place because in here is my office and this used to be my son's playroom and I said to Bob I want high gloss and I even want the furniture. We had this built and I said I want everything painted the high gloss and these are plaster walls. So high gloss they were like no don't do it because there's so many imperfections. So he had to do 10 coats. Oh my gosh. I know but it was worth it to me because I had something envisioned in my head that I wanted and these when I wrote the book these are the metal plates that they ran the pages on for the book. So I got three of those to put on the walls. How neat. Now have you ever made decisions in your homes or maybe this home specifically like say the high gloss that just didn't go the way you planned and you're like that was not it. Okay we had this conversation recently because we've done so many houses. Bob and I recently had a conversation about is there anything we would have done differently in this house. The good thing about moving so much is you got to say ah the next house will do differently right or this really works and we love it and so in this house there's really nothing that we've said we wouldn't do again. Because you tested it out you played with all the other ones and this was where you're like okay I'm confident in what I love and yeah amazing. Well so the high gloss is really fun. All right I'll take you to my bedroom. Okay I'll show you what I did which is kind of a fun thing. I love the light in this bedroom. Oh it's amazing. And here is an artist that I absolutely love her work. That is a gorgeous piece of art. I went to her apartment in um I think she's in New Hoper anyway up there and uh I bought that but wow I love it. It's cheerful but I took all five of my kids and Bob and I at the same age at 18 and I blew them up and I framed them so. I'm gonna cry. I know so that's all of us at the same age. Stop wait that is beautiful. So you've got cute kids. Thank you and then yeah recovered old couches that I found. Do you have a fireplace in every room? Every room. Wow you have another another plaque. That was my great-grandfather made those as for me in my house we will serve the lord so I have a lot of his plaques around our house but I love again here's another feature the the arch so beautiful and here we have a dressing room. This is every woman's dream is to have a dressing room. Well it's fun to see those plaques of my great-uncle like this one says trust and obey like we've got we put them over light switches we put them in bookshelves so that you know it's just kind of something unexpected. It's so it's so amazing and that kind of plays into the whole idea of your family culture too you know that being such a central part of your family your faith and how that's felt in every room with not only just the words that have so much life in them but also the fact that your grandfather was the one. My great great-grandfather. Why don't we head downstairs and chat a little bit more. I would love to know what prompted this book. It's kind I'm going to give you probably the cliff note version right. I think and I'm specifically speaking to women on this topic because I'm not a man so I have no idea but I think women go through these identity crisis change points in their life. For me it was leaving being a trial lawyer to being a stay-at-home mom and moving all the time not knowing anybody who what was my identity or purpose at that point. That second transition where I felt the earth literally shift under my feet was when my oldest was leaving for college and all of a sudden I realized unbeknownst to me I felt like my purpose was walking out the door and I don't know when that happened but it does and it was jolting for me because I thought oh my gosh I'm gonna have more time after my kids leave than I even had with them in home and I don't think women prepare for that and if you haven't tended and cultivated your marriage during that time that's a hard change. So all this was beginning to happen where I was realizing oh my gosh in a few years I'll be an empty nester and who am I going to be. I feel like I've kind of reinvented myself a few times from obviously lawyer to house slipper and decorator to anyway and I had an uncle visiting me and he called me into the into that room into my living room and he said may I ask you a very personal question and he said what are you 100% depending on the Lord for right now it's a hard question and I said besides raising the kids and he said yes and I said nothing and he said I know he said you've left little to no room for you to see God work and him get the glory not you and Bob so he said may I challenge you with something ask the Lord to give you a vision beyond your resources beyond your financial means your personal capital and your education so he gets all the glory not you so I began to pray that anyways the last thing I ever would have ever imagined myself doing was writing a book I just didn't feel like I had anything to say our whole motivation from the very beginning was to create a safe place to be imperfect in and how do you how do you create a place where not only your family feels safe but anyone who comes in how do you curate that and so if I thought I had anything to offer it was to give tools to other families so that's what we did we did we took our farm over the course of a year we put our family traditions over that how they were made why they were made our family recipes for generations and then decorating entertaining and gardening so that's how that started well thank you that was really beautifully put and thank you for writing it if you want to buy Ruth's book Hungry for Home you can check out the link in the description down below Ruth also has a YouTube channel where you share hosting gardening home design yes there's three places actually so I have a show on Homeworthy called at home with Ruth McKinney that's a YouTube and then I do my own YouTube which is just Hungry for Home on YouTube but on Instagram at Hungry for Home every Tuesday I give a tip whether it's a cooking tip a gardening tip or even like a family tip so those are kind of like the three places all right so you know where to find Ruth to connect with her more if you want to catch the deleted scenes and extended interview portion of this video you can join us over on Patreon and you'll get to see more of Ruth's home and also hear more of her heart behind her home so make sure to check that out in the link down below all right well thank you so much guys we did it we did it