The operative word in the phrase "gut renovation" is the first one — it takes real guts to strip a house down to the studs, then build it back up again. Especially if you're new parents, like Lisa and Mark Hellman were (to then-infant daughter Avery) when they found their 106-year-old home, situated on a former chicken farm near Jeffersonville, New York. Not only had the sprawling 6,000-square-foot building been converted into six apartments, but by the time the Hellmans discovered it, the ramshackle residence had stood abandoned for 25 years.
Beneath the exterior's yellow asbestos shingles, Lisa and Mark Hellman discovered well-preserved clapboard, which they painted with Benjamin Moore's Flat White. The couple also had the roof and all 57 windows replaced, and the porch torn down and rebuilt.
Lisa and Mark Hellman, in a yearlong, top-to-bottom-renovation, restored this 106-year-old home to its former glory, creating a pastoral family retreat in upstate New York. See before and after photos of their intensive restoration and decorating. See the slideshow with more before and after photos via Country Living.
