Students from Conestoga College’s renovation technicians program have been busy polishing a rare gem over the last two weeks.
Approximately 20 college students are completing renovations to portions of the 1840s stone farmhouse on Blair Road known as the Resource House at the rare Charitable Research Reserve.
Earlier this year, rare was selected as one of two outreach projects for the college’s program. Students, faculty and advisors invested time in the project, but also donated more than $8,000 in materials.
“The in-kind value of their donated service is tremendous,” said Patti Leather, rare’s director of community relations and development.
“They have also kindly gone to their colleagues and have managed to get donations of materials for projects in the farmhouse.”
Leather estimates that donated materials and labour will save rare roughly one-quarter of the estimated $412,000 cost to renovate the Resource House.
During the two-week project, students gutted the ceilings on the second floor of the Resource House, uncovered and inspected a main floor fireplace, installed and caulked new energy-saving windows throughout the building, gutted the former summer kitchen and rebuilt a warp-around porch on the south side of the former farmhouse.
“It been wonderful to have the students here,” said Leather.
“They’ve been able to achieve a lot in very little time.”
“It’s been a lot of fun,” said Rick Enthammer, one of the students involved in the project.
“I’d rather work on a house like this than a newer home. You see methods of construction that aren’t used anymore. Working on a 1970s home is not as interesting as this.”
Resource House and the adjacent historic Scottish Slit Barn will become the central interpretive and education facility for the 1,000-acre nature preserve. Although it has been ongoing for at least a year, work being completed by the students pushes the project into its third phase.
Leather explained that once complete, the upper level of the Resource House will become live/work space for three visiting researchers, while the main floor will be used for public space for classrooms and a kitchen. The nearby barn is also undergoing renovations and will serve as a venue for special events, as a rainy-day classroom and exhibition hall.
“This has been a great project for the students and they’ve been fortunate because the weather has held,” said program advisor Gary Adam of Pioneer Craftsman.
“Another couple of days and they’ll have this thing wrapped up.” Instructor Scott Cocks agrees.
“They (the students) have gotten to see forms of construction here that are no longer used and they can now see how a small project can quickly become a larger project when working on an older home,” he said.
“They’ve been great to work with and it would be nice to do it again some time.”
Founded in 2001, rare Charitable Research Reserve exists to preserve, in perpetuity, more than 900 acres of environmentally significant land.