It's Getting Messy! 4x Grandmother's 130-Year-Old Home Project

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]What's up, Russ family? We're back with another video. I'm so happy to see y'all and thanks for making me part of your day. The weather up here is pretty dag on rough. It's been raining all day and it's going to rain all night. We actually just got a slight break in the rain, but it's supposed to pick back up.

[00:00:13]I'll show youall what it's looking like here shortly. So, we're definitely going to have to do a little project inside today. You know, this house didn't always have plastic over the windows, so a lot of water got in in those areas.

[00:00:23]And there's a little bit of dry rotted wood in front of this one window. And we're going to get that ripped up so what's underneath it can breathe. Right here is where I'm talking about. You know, I've said it before. I want to repurpose this floor as much as I can.

[00:00:35]So, we'll eventually get it up board by board and resand it and put it back down, but there's no reusing this. This has to come up. So, we're going to get that done today. We're going to take out this little area. See what it's looking like underneath. And we are in the kitchen. I thought we could work on this today as well. We're definitely going to get this wood out of here. And if I have enough spare wood, we'll fix it today.

[00:00:55]But I feel like this is a little animal squirrel entry if I've ever seen it. Not to mention, these boards have had it. I would hate for somebody to come in here and one fall down with a nail hanging out and stick them in the head. That wouldn't be good. So, we're definitely going to get this out of here. It's really just this section right here. The rest of the ceiling looks pretty dagon good. But these are pretty long boards.

[00:01:14]I have a little extra wood that's stashed to the side. I'm going to see if I can match it up here and make something out of it. But worst case scenario, I'm pretty sure I have some plywood and we could go that route as well. I just don't want this hanging down and I want it closed up. You can see what the rest of the ceiling looks like in the kitchen. It's in pretty good shape. So, yep. Those are the two projects of the day. Like I said, that rain's definitely a coming. It's already came this morning, but it's coming back.

[00:01:39]And I know y'all love to hear the rain hitting the metal roof, so I'll make sure to record some of that as well. But yeah, we're just absolutely blessed to be up here another day. We're going to get some work done. There's nothing to it but to do it. And I start off every video with the old family photo finds.

[00:01:52]This is a picture of my great grandma with my grandpa. They look like they're just having a great time. They're both just smiling, chilling on a big old rock. A beautiful picture with some beautiful people. They look like they couldn't be any happier. So later on in life, my great grandma had another son.

[00:02:06]So this is my great uncle in the middle.

[00:02:08]And to his right is my great great grandmother. And they're posing for a little family picture with my great uncle in his boots. Since she was in the previous photo, I thought I'd show another one of her. And this is my great great grandmother when she's a little bit younger. I just love her look. I think she was super pretty. And she lived in this old 1895 house her entire life. The reason why these floors are still in pretty decent condition in this house is because of her. Always heard old stories of her on her hands and knees just scrubbing the floor with linseed oil. Now, these next couple photos don't have any names or dates or any places on the back, but I just love going through old school pictures. I'm sure my family took all these. They're just little travel photos. But there's an old school looking barnhouse for you.

[00:02:49]And this is a little get together outside. Looks like there's a few people there. This one's kind of in rough shape, but I just like the guy and the girl at the bottom. It kind of looks like a movie. And here's another one.

[00:02:59]I'm curious if this was a wedding or something. Or maybe they knew they were getting their picture taken. So they all dressed up the same and said, "Hey, let's look good for the camera." And last but not least, it looks like that same group. For all I know, that could have been up here. Like a little family get together. How cool. Give you an idea of what it looks like right now up here.

[00:03:16]Holy smokes, look at all that fog. It's been raining all morning and it stopped for a little bit, but it's supposed to rain all night. We only have a minute, but I'm going to show you the garden real fast. I've learned my lesson with this camera out in the rain. Look at those sunflowers. They're getting pretty big. Our peas are sprouting up. The beans and corn are doing their thing.

[00:03:33]There should be more corn coming in soon. And actually have a new little addition I'm going to do to the garden next week, so stay tuned for that. And it looks like our potato plants are giving us a little action. Finally sprouting up a little bit. Pumpkins are growing. Roma's flourishing and our lettuce is doing pretty good as well.

[00:03:49]And you know, we had to stop by the waterfall with all this rain. She's definitely flowing. I just love it. It's beautiful. That rock's a little bit bigger than what I thought. I just thought it kind of cut off right here, but it definitely goes way up in there.

[00:04:04]All right. Hopefully that's enough. It was at the bottom of the pile and I thought I'd stick it in here for a minute. It's unfortunate it's slightly wet, but it'll still get the job done.

[00:04:12]We put it in here so it wouldn't get even more wet. All right. Already got my handy dandy crowbar and we're going to start in here. It really is a balancing act trying to get this camera just right out of the windows range so the light doesn't blind you. But let's get to it.

[00:04:39]Well, that's about as bad as I thought it was going to be. Well, in the middle of ripping this wood up and trying to clean it out, my foot about went right through this. It was a pretty close call. I'm going to put a little bit of plastic over this just to keep a little bit of moisture out. But I have a feeling once I take up this top layer of floor, this entire section over here is going to have to be replaced underneath.

[00:04:58]But we got the floor up and we're letting it breathe a little bit. There we go. We covered up that little hole.

[00:05:03]The rain has officially started back up a little bit. All righty. We're in the kitchen and I got my light shining. This is definitely a little bit bigger of a job, but somebody's got to do it. So, we're gonna get this all cut out.

[00:05:13]Already measured it. It's 10 feet long.

[00:05:16]I definitely don't have enough 10- foot boards, but we'll come up with something. We're just trying to get it closed off and not make it a squirrel entry. And we don't want these boards falling down and hitting somebody, like I said. So, let's get to it.

[00:05:34]Holy cow, that was kind of a disaster. I cleaned up above me a while back, but I kind of stayed away from that corner for that reason. I thought I might fall through. Talk about raining down on me, and I'm not talking about the good kind outside. But all right, I'm going to work on getting this cleared out and organized a little bit. I'll show you what it's looking like. Figured I could use that one old board right there.

[00:05:55]Plus, it's wedged in pretty good.

[00:06:00]Other than that, she's about all cut out. Just got to fill the gaps. I'll definitely have to end up replacing these boards eventually, but they're stout enough to hold this, so we won't have to do that right now.

[00:06:33]Woo! I feel like I should sit out here for about 10 15 minutes and just wash off. That was definitely a messy job, but we got it patched up. I'll show you what I done. It's not perfect, but it's definitely patched up. And I'm not worried about a board falling down and hitting me in the head.

[00:06:48]Oh, you can hear that thunder just a roaring. I like how they had the old cylind kind of overlaps on the boards. I can eventually mimic that pattern. Right now, we just used the extra wood that we had and there's literally a giant hole with boards about to fall off. So, it doesn't exactly match the pattern, but it's a whole heck of a lot better if you ask me. Yes, no squirrels should be getting through that. That end, I had to make it work. You know, this spare wood, I didn't have boards long enough, but we filled in the gaps with the materials that we had just laying around. I'm super happy with it. We make do with what we have around here. I feel like that's how my entire heritage handled things, and that's how I'm going to do it as well. It doesn't have to be picture perfect, or we go spend an arm and a leg on it. I patched it up with what we got and that'll do for now till I replace the whole thing. I guess the weatherman did get it right. What do you know? They do know a thing or two. We're in one of my favorite spots of the house. Right above the porch area. And one of the reasons why it's my favorite is because when it rains, you can really hear it. I'll be quiet for a second. See if the camera can pick it up. It's not raining too hard, but it's definitely raining.

[00:07:59]Talk about relaxing. Ironically enough, this room is where I have something stashed that I was going to show you this video. And they're right there.

[00:08:06]We're actually underneath the room we were just in. So, I said every video I'm going to try to show y'all some old cool stuff. And when I was cleaning out this 1895 house, I found some old school shoes. There's no way I could throw these out. So, I put them all together.

[00:08:19]And I haven't even went through it myself since I put them here. Some aren't as old as others, but I know there's some old school ones in here.

[00:08:25]Look at that. For all I know, these could have been my great great great grandma's.

[00:08:30]Check out the little nails in the bottom of them. Here's an old school boot. You know, I've been looking all inside of them. See if I could find a name or anything. And no luck with that. And I don't know if these are as old as the other ones, but I did find the brand name. It says EJ right there. So, let me know in the comments if you know anything about these shoes or even if you've had a pair of these old school shoes yourself. Very cool. I can never get enough of this stuff. You know, to a lot of people, they're probably just dirty old shoes, but to me, they mean everything. Man, my hair is just caked with that dirt from the ceiling.

[00:09:01]The birds are just the chirping. But all righty, since we're out here and we got good lighting, I might as well answer the question of the video. And I figured this question was pretty fitting since my last video actually stayed the night here. If you haven't seen that, go check it out. All righty. And Tim Joel's question is, has there ever been any paranormal activity at the old homestead or the land? I get this question a lot in all kinds of shapes and forms. And the answer to it is no. And I will say this, I'm human like everybody else. You know, you can go in your bathroom if the lights are cut off and work yourself up and get a little scared. So, when I first started coming up here, it was different. And I'd be lying to you if I told you I didn't get a little freaked out at times. You know, you're up here all by yourself. It gets late. You hear a noise. You're like, "What's that?" But the trick that I used to kind of calm down and ease my nerves is I kind of just started talking to my family. I would walk around and say, "Hey, great great great grandma. I'm around here just cleaning this place up. I'm going to get it looking good as new." And I kind of just killed it with positivity.

[00:09:59]But the more and more that I came up here, I've got this sense of just like comfortability. And somebody could say that is paranormal. It's not like spooky and scary like most people think, but just like this sense of calmness, like I'm where I'm supposed to be and I just have no worries. You know, most people see this old house and they're like, "Wo, are there ghosts in there?" Kind of like this question. I've even had a couple small channels reach out to me and try to come do some little ghost stuff. Now, I'd be lying if I told you I didn't feel my family's presence around here. Maybe it's just a me thing, or maybe it's a bigger power, or maybe they're just looking down, wanting me to feel comfortable. You know, me personally, I got love for everything.

[00:10:35]people, animals, the past, the future.

[00:10:38]So, I don't really think anything negative would ever mess with me. And if it did, I would just try to show it love. But this has been my family spot for over 130 years. I truly believe they're looking down, smiling, looking after me. So, there's your answer. I appreciate the question, Tim. And if you got a question for me, leave it in the comments. You never know, I might pick it next video. Man, it got dark on me pretty quick. Well, I'm happy with today. I feel like we made the most out of it. And I know people love when I work on the old house. There's just so much stuff to do around here. There's no doubt this house is my main goal. I'm just really trying to build this channel up so I'll have more resources to put into the house. With that being said, make sure you subscribe, you like the videos, you go tell your friends, too.

[00:11:17]It really helps me grow and I'll be able to do more and more to this house the bigger I get. You know, everything I'm doing my family did back in the day. You know, the house, the garden, the pasture down there. I'm eventually going to get animals in there. I'm sure they had the creek and waterfall cleared out.

[00:11:31]Enjoying that. So, I'm just trying to bring it all back to life. And thank you so much for being a part of this journey. I can hear that rain picking up. I'm sure you can, too. I just want to give a quick shout out to those that go above and beyond to help support me and the channel. For our supporter memberships to the channel, we have Steven and Sean. Thank y'all so much for the support. It doesn't go unnoticed.

[00:11:49]This little shadow is distracting me.

[00:11:50]I'm over here playing with it. That's something I've always wanted to get good at. My little message for today is to step up to somebody that you care about.

[00:11:58]you know, be the one to vocalize that you care about them, that you love them, and you just appreciate them being around. Even if it's not ordinary for you. Go up to them, tell them you love them, how much you appreciate them, and just give them a big old hug. We can all do that. It doesn't take much, and it probably means a whole lot more to somebody than you think. Hopefully, I inspired you to go get a little something done today. That about does it for this video. Like always, I'll be thinking about you, Rusted Grit family.

[00:12:20]Till next time.