When the Thomas family bought the old Laurietta plantation in Fayette, Mississippi, the house that came with it wasn’t exactly a selling point.

It had been built in the 1820s and was on the National Register of Historic Places, but after years of neglect, it was a shell of its former self.

They were determined to do it right, and that meant hiring a crane to lift the 2,770-square-foot house onto supports, “where it sat for more than a year during repairs to its foundation and the installation of new insulation, plumbing, and electricity.”

Country Living reports: “Each wallboard was removed and numbered, then put back in place after the electrical updates. Scraping away decades of paint revealed original artistic details, including marbleized baseboards and faux bird’s-eye maple panels, which a restoration painter was able to revive.”

An old journal from the 1800s described what the interiors had looked like at the time, and they recreated as much of the white and wood palette as possible. The heart pine floors were lightly sanded so you can still see scars and burn marks in places. “Those imperfections are part of the story,” Tere Thomas says. “Besides, Laurietta’s not a grand house.”

The couple transformed Laurietta “from a dilapidated buzzard’s nest into a roost where their extended family could come together for weekends and holidays.”