History of the House--the Beginning

Since this blog is about documenting the work we have/are doing on our house (mainly for my own benefit, so I don't forget myself), I am going to spend some posts going over the past projects we have finished. 

We bought the house in February of 1997, after an awful 6 months of closing.  We had so many problems and several times we thought the whole thing was going to fall through.  Looking back, I wonder if the Lord wasn't warning us off, but whether we were supposed to be here or not, we pushed through until we finally got the house.



Our house, Christmas 2002

 So when we moved in, we had three young boys, 7-year-old son #1, 5-year-old son #2, and 1 1/2-year-old son #3.  Pretty much we spent the next several years parenting and getting by, not really doing much on the house.  Surprisingly we took very few pictures of the house too, so I don't have much in the "before" category.  But the exterior of the house stayed pretty much like this, just getting shabbier, until we started the Great Repainting Project in 2006, which continues to this day (more posts on that later).

 

Here we are with Sons 2 and 3 (I think #1 was at Scout Camp), in 2007.  You can see not much has changed. 

Here is the view of the back of the house.  We have quite a large yard, which is the main reason we wanted the house.  It has been really nice over the years to have a place for soccer, kickball, etc.  


I think this is the summer of 98. 

The main thing about our house is even though it is almost 100 years old, it is nothing fancy.  So I try to honor the history it has, but I don't feel bound by it.  If modern things work better, then I have no problem using them.  This is definitely a renovation, not a restoration.

The back yard looking from the deck.  That section of fence with the lattice on top needs to be replaced, it is  on the list for this year.  The deck will eventually be torn down to be replaced by a patio.

The South-West corner of the yard.  We have some veggies growing nicely in the beds and I see we need to do something about that old wading pool stuck in the corner.



More of the yard.  The whole back fence needs to be replaced.  The large pear tree (you can see the V of the trunk in front) is rotting and we are slowly taking it out. 

 The interior of the house is pretty small, we only have 1,082 sq ft. 


This is from one of the times we had the house appraised for refinancing.

In general, at this time the interior is pretty run-down.  Everything needs to be repainted.  At some point in the past, someone painted over all the stained trim.  We want to strip that off and take it back to the original.  We also want to restore the hardwood floors.  We currently have beige carpet on the floors, which has been here the whole time we have lived in the house and looks pretty bad now.  So we are hoping that can come up sometime soon. 


The front door looking into the living room.  You can see that all the trim has been painted with a high-gloss white that is now chipping.  You can also see the ugly carpet.

So that is where we started.  Sometimes I think we have come a long way, other times I think not so much.  More on past projects later.