This Old House #2: History Lessons.

Okey dokey. Hows about a history lesson?

Like I said, the house was finished in 1903. Since then, it has (supposedly) been a home, apartments, a school, a museum, CONDEMNED, and then a home again. I'm hoping to dig up some more info on the history of the house from when it was built to about 1975, but from 1975 to present I have pretty darn good info. We are purchasing it from a daughter that inherited it from her mother I think somewhere between 1995/2000. The mom had bought it in 1976, supposedly saving it from being knocked down to make way for newer houses. So for the last 40 years it's belonged to the same family, but everyone around here STILL refers to it by the name of the original builders. Kinda funny.

Pic of the house supposedly from around the time it was finished in the early 1900's.



Couple more from between then to maybe the 60's?







And a pic when it was a musuem.



Here's where it gets fun. When mom bought it in 1976, she started this.



Which has these.









She has hand drawn maps for the yard, where she planted all the trees, drawings of each floor and then individual rooms detailing what she changed and how she went about doing it.







And she even has a bunch of pics from who knows when. Apparently, the house had been painted white at some point, and then sand blasted back to original brick. Don't know if she was the one who did the sandblasting or not. Notice the lack of the porch and the cupola? on the roof.



Porch is back, still no cupola.



This is the back of the house. Now there is a carport attached to the bump there, and lots and lots of trees.



There were also a couple of interior pics but nothing that really shows much of what was going on.






Now its our turn to start / continue the story!

This Old House: dorkpunch Edition.

Y'all thought I was dead, didn't ya?

So, not to jinx anything (knock on wood and all that) but it looks like we are set to close next week. We have been working towards purchasing this house for over a year.

A bit of back story: We've been looking to "upgrade" for a couple of years now. We knew our price range, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted, but there was just nothing that fit the bill. We *love* our teensy little community. I got to thinking about an acquaintance who mentioned they were going to be retiring eventually. They have this gorgeous old house, that oddly enough I would see ever time I pulled out of our driveway- it was 2 blocks away at the end of the "T". I called him and one other acquaintance who also had a home a couple of blocks away the same day, explained our situation, and asked them to let me know if they were ever interested in selling. Well, we got a call back saying yes, they were planning on retiring in the next year or two anyways so why not come over and take a look at the house to see if its anything we might be interested in.

Lets just say its about as close to love at first sight as you can get. Both my wife and I (and the boys) *loved* it. The boys took a while to warm up to it but warm up they did! We worked out a deal giving them time to get retired and figure out what they wanted to do with life and also giving us time to sell our home and get our ducks in a row.

The best laid plans...

Didn't have any luck getting our house sold. Through a series of small miracles, we have been able to liquidate some assets (er... sawdust some timber?) and find renters for our house. So in the last 3 weeks, We've moved out, moved in, spent a week at Scout camp, unpacked, hauled more stuff, cleaned the old house, still working on a few other items over there that need attention, got the renters moved in, hauled more stuff, etc etc etc...

I'm pooped. School starts in a week and a half.

Anyways, without further ado- here's This Old House.













Some random specs:

Started being built 1897/98, and finished in 1903. Has had a very interesting and storied life, of which I hope to chronicle here. Sits on 1.3 acres, has a wicked awesome 30x60 shop and lots of space and one of the best parts- LOTS AND LOTS of BIG trees!

Wish us luck in getting all the i's dotted and t's crossed next week!