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The Nelson House: A Farmhouse Revival

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The Nelson House: A Farmhouse Revival

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Documenting the restoration of a 1906 Folk Victorian with updates, stories, and photos from the process.

Pete Nelson ventured into the wilds of Northern Wisconsin in the Town of Gordon around 1896 and set up a saloon at the busy railhead of this lumber town. He built a home which stayed in the family untouched for years until the 1970's when it was abandoned. This is the effort to restore and preserve this home as closely as possible to the original form and function of it's period design which represents decades of life in the rural areas of our country.

10/05/2026

By now I’m sure you’ve all been able to figure it out…we decided to make paint!

At some point during all of this reading, we had another idea.

Could we actually make the paint ourselves?

Traditional linseed oil paint is remarkably simple compared with modern paint.

At its heart, it is basically linseed oil and pigment.

No giant chemistry set. No long list of ingredients we can’t pronounce. Just oil, finely ground mineral pigments, and a great deal of mixing.

So we decided to experiment.

We started researching historic recipes, Swedish painting traditions, pigment ratios, drying oils, and the different materials painters would have used to make whites, reds, ochres, and other traditional colors.

For the white body of the house, that has meant working with white mineral pigments such as titanium and zinc oxide.

For the burnt orange trim, we’ve been experimenting with iron oxide pigments — descendants of the same earth pigments that have colored buildings for centuries.

Making paint also gives us control over what goes into it. Some ingredients like stand oil (ev***rated linseed oil) to be used for its water repelling characteristics, weren’t readily available, so we replaced it with another commonly used material that does essentially the same thing, pine tar.

We can adjust the pigment load, the consistency, the amount of oil, and even make small test batches before committing to gallons of paint.

It has definitely been more work than walking into a paint store and choosing a color chip.

But there is something incredibly satisfying about taking raw oil and powdered pigment, mixing them together, and eventually brushing paint onto a house built in 1906.

We started this project because the old paint seemed to have soaked into the siding.

Now we’re standing in the workshop making our own linseed oil paint.

That is pretty much how projects at the Nelson House tend to go.

In the end, we needed roughly 20 gallons of linseed oil paint for just the main house color, and at a cost of $350 a gallon from one of only a handful of suppliers, we couldn’t see spending $8500 - $10,000 on just the paint, so we did it ourselves. In doing that we got our price for raw materials down to $35 a gallon!!!! The only special hardware we needed were a couple of pigment dispenser blades, a low gear mixing drill, and a few buckets.

09/28/2026

We’re putting out a call to the Nelson family.

As we continue restoring and researching the Nelson House, we’re hoping to connect with living relatives of the family who once called this place home—especially descendants or relatives of Robert “Bob” Eugene Nelson.

Old houses can tell us a great deal, but family stories often fill in the parts that buildings and public records cannot. We would love to hear from anyone who may remember Bob or other members of the Nelson family, or who may have inherited photographs, letters, documents, household items, or other pieces connected to the family and this property.

We’re especially looking for stories of everyday life here, family photographs, images of the house and yard, and artifacts known to have come from the Nelson property. Even a small memory or an unidentified photograph may help us better understand the people who lived within these walls.

Our goal is not simply to restore an old house, but to preserve as much of its human story as we can.

If you are related to the Nelson family—or know someone who may be—please send us a private message. And please feel free to share this post. Sometimes the right photograph, story, or family connection is only one share away.

The Nelson House — Gordon, Wisconsin

09/22/2026

Look what we had delivered!!! An early 20th century coal stove by Allen’s Stove Company. It got us thinking about what it must have been like to heat with coal for the first time. Coal burns slowly, need less tending to, and is cheap!!!

There was a time when heating a home meant heating one room at a time.

Large radiant and circulating coal stoves changed that. With long, steady fires and heavy cast-iron bodies, they warmed not just the air, but floors, walls, furniture, and surrounding rooms. Later designs used convection passages to move warm air through more of the house.

They were an important step between the fireplace and modern central heating—turning a single stove into something much closer to a whole-house heating system.

That history is part of what makes bringing a coal stove back into the Nelson House feel so fitting.

If you recognize the “Allen” name, this is the same company that invented the allen wrench and corresponding bolts. They were invented to reduce snags and potential hazards that large screw and bolt heads caused.

09/02/2026

Why Put Old-Fashioned Paint on an Old House?

One of the things we’ve learned while working on the Nelson House is that old buildings were designed around very different materials than modern buildings.

And sometimes the old materials simply work better with them.

Modern acrylic and latex exterior paints are excellent products. They dry quickly, cover well, and are easy to use.

But they generally work by creating a protective film over the wood.

Linseed oil paint approaches the problem differently.

Instead of simply covering the siding, the oil penetrates into the wood fibers and carries the pigment with it.

That gives it some interesting advantages on old wood.

It can help reduce how readily dry wood absorbs water while still allowing moisture v***r to move through the material. It also tends to weather differently than thick modern coatings. Rather than eventually separating and peeling away in large sheets, traditional linseed oil paint generally becomes thinner, duller, and chalkier as it ages.

Maintenance can often mean cleaning the surface and applying another very thin coat instead of repeatedly stripping layers of failing paint.

It is also incredibly economical in an unusual way.

Linseed oil paint is meant to be applied very thinly.

You don’t load the siding with paint. You brush it out and work it into the wood.

There are tradeoffs.

Linseed oil paint takes patience. Drying depends on oxygen, sunlight, temperature, and humidity. Put it on too thick and you’ll quickly learn why old painters emphasized thin coats.

But the more we learned about it, the more it seemed like a very reasonable answer to a simple question:

What kind of paint makes sense on 120-year-old wooden siding?

Maybe the answer doesn’t have to be a modern one.

08/29/2026

Once we started reading about linseed oil paint, one place kept coming up again and again:

Sweden.

Linseed oil paint has been used on Swedish wooden buildings for centuries. By the 1600s it was already being used on architectural woodwork, and as linseed oil became more readily available, its use expanded.

By the late 1800s and early 1900s, linseed oil paint had become a familiar sight on Swedish wooden houses.

And perhaps the most interesting part is that it never really went away.

Traditional linseed oil paint is still manufactured and used in Sweden today, especially on historic buildings, traditional wooden homes, windows, doors, and other exterior woodwork.

There is an entire preservation tradition built around keeping these old materials and techniques alive.

That caught our attention for another reason.

Peter Nelson, for whom the Nelson House was built in 1906, was born in Sweden.

We have no evidence that Peter personally chose linseed oil paint for this house, and we don’t want to rewrite history where the records don’t exist. But there is something fitting about restoring his old wooden house with a painting tradition that would have been completely familiar in the country where he was born.

More than a century later, Swedish homeowners and preservationists are still brushing remarkably similar paint onto old wooden buildings.

There must be something to it.

08/28/2026

We have paint!!!

While scraping the Nelson House, we started noticing something interesting.

Under the newer layers of paint, some of the oldest color didn’t seem to simply sit on top of the siding. In places, it looked as though the paint had actually soaked into the wood — almost more like a stain than the thick surface coating we tend to associate with modern house paint.

That got us curious.

The Nelson House was built in 1906, and with so much of the house still made up of its original wood siding, we wanted to better understand what kind of paint might have behaved that way.

That little observation sent us down another old-house rabbit hole.

What we began reading about was linseed oil paint — a traditional paint made primarily from linseed oil and mineral pigments.

Unlike many modern paints that are designed to create a film over the surface, linseed oil penetrates into the wood. The pigment goes with it, becoming much more closely connected to the wood fibers themselves.

Suddenly, what we were seeing while scraping made a lot more sense.

We can’t say with certainty exactly what every layer of paint on the Nelson House was made from, but seeing that old color embedded so deeply in the siding made us curious enough to start looking seriously at the old way of painting wood.

And, as usually happens around here, one question quickly became about twenty.

08/27/2026

Any guesses as to what is happening here?!

08/24/2026

Today is Köttbullens dag — Swedish Meatball Day. 🇸🇪

For the Nelson House, that feels like a fitting little holiday to recognize.

Peter Nelson was born in Sweden in 1865, and although we can’t know exactly what meals were served around this table more than a century ago, dishes like köttbullar — Swedish meatballs — were part of the traditional home cooking that immigrants carried with them across the Atlantic.

By the early 1900s, meatballs served with potatoes, gravy, and preserved berries had become familiar comfort food in Swedish homes: simple ingredients, filling portions, and the kind of meal meant to be shared around a family table.

So tonight, on August 23rd, we’re giving a small nod to Peter’s Swedish roots and to the food traditions that may have followed him all the way to Gordon, Wisconsin.🇸🇪🏡

08/06/2026

Some stories leave footprints.

While cleaning the original maple floors in the Nelson House, we noticed something that stopped us in our tracks.

Tiny green paw prints.

They’re the same soft green as the old paint on the living room walls, our guess is mid to late 1930s, suggesting that nearly 100 years ago a family pet—perhaps a curious farm dog or house cat—took a stroll through some wet paint and then wandered through the house, leaving its mark behind. More than likely, no one noticed until the paint had dried, or perhaps they simply smiled and decided to leave them.

It’s a small reminder that this wasn’t just a beautiful Victorian house. It was a working farmhouse.

For families like the Nelsons, the line between home and farm was often blurred. Dogs weren’t just companions—they guarded the property, gathered livestock, kept predators at bay, and eagerly greeted family members returning from the fields. Cats earned their keep by controlling mice in the pantry, cellar, and barn. Both came and went through the house, especially during Wisconsin winters, tracking in snow, mud…and apparently, once upon a time, fresh paint.

These little prints are easy to overlook, but they’re among the most human discoveries we’ve made. They weren’t left by a famous craftsman or carefully planned by the home’s builders. They were left by a beloved animal simply following its family through an ordinary day.

A century later, those footsteps are still here.

It’s moments like these that remind us that historic houses aren’t just collections of lumber and plaster—they’re records of everyday lives. And sometimes, the smallest details tell the biggest stories. 🐾🏡

08/01/2026

There is something fitting about painting an old farmhouse the same way the people who built it would have understood.

In 1906, a farmer couldn’t simply drive to the hardware store and choose from hundreds of colors. Paint was often mixed at home or by the local painter from a handful of trusted ingredients. Linseed oil—pressed from flaxseed—served as the binder. Earth and mineral pigments gave the paint its color. A little turpentine helped it flow and soak into the wood. Every bucket was stirred by hand, every coat brushed on one board at a time.

For the Nelson House, we’re following that same tradition.

We’ll be making our own linseed oil paint using a modernized version of a classic Swedish recipe. While we’ll use today’s best practices and carefully selected pigments for consistency and longevity, the heart of the recipe remains more than a century old. The result is a breathable paint that bonds with the wood instead of trapping moisture beneath a plastic film—a finish that ages with dignity rather than peeling away.

The house itself will wear a timeless farmhouse white, made from titanium dioxide and zinc oxide pigments. Although titanium dioxide wasn’t available in 1906, (they would have used lead oxide) it gives us the brilliant, durable white people have come to expect while preserving the traditional appearance of a white-painted farmhouse.

The trim will be finished in a warm Swedish red-orange, colored with dark red iron oxide—a nod to the historic reds that have graced Scandinavian buildings for generations.

Why white houses and red barns?

For generations, white became the color of homes because it represented cleanliness, prosperity, and care. Whitewashed buildings reflected summer heat, brightened long northern winters, and announced that the family had invested the time and expense to protect their home.

Barns told a different story. Across Sweden and later rural America, red iron oxide pigments were inexpensive, abundant, and exceptionally durable. Mixed into linseed oil, they created a weather-resistant coating that stood up to years of sun, rain, snow, and hard farm work. As Swedish immigrants settled across the Upper Midwest, they carried that tradition with them, and the familiar pairing of white houses and red barns became part of the American countryside.

We’re excited to continue that tradition—not by opening a can of factory paint, but by making our own, just as generations before us did.

Sometimes, preserving history isn’t just about how something looks.

It’s about remembering how it was done.

Address

14433 S Old Highway 53
Gordon, WI
54838

Telephone

952-303-9375

Website

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