We bought our house a year before we got married. The woman that lived here was an invalid and moved to a home, and we got the house because no one even inquired about it all summer, and the home she went to wanted the money. She, and her deceased husband, were the original owners of this 1915 house, a 4 square with a gable roof. They never had any children, so the house was immaculate for it’s age. This was in 1980, mortgage rates were 12%, it’s the best 45,000 we ever spent. It was not fancy, but very well built, just what we wanted.
I remember a guy coming over and commenting that it was a really nice ‘starter’ home. It took us about 3 weeks to decide it was our forever home. Many of the improvements we made we asked ourselves “Are we doing this with the plan to sell, or stay here.
It is in the same school district I, and my Dad went to (so my kids too).
TheHusbandHalf lived here for a year until we got married, I lived about ¾ mile down the road.
Over the years we :
Painted the outside and fixed the soffit where it was bad because we had to do that to get back our $3000 escrow back from the bank.
Replaced the antiquated septic system which was probably the original. At the same time we put drainage tile in the 1 acre yard, all the way back to the creek (another maybe 500 ft.) My Dad was a drainage contractor at the time and helped do all this.
We put insulation all over, because it had none. I think there are 30 inches in the attic
We removed a lot of trees from the yard.
We hooked up to the gas line that ran by the front, so we could replace the oil furnace with one that used natural gas, the water heater and stove we switched to natural gas too.
We replaced, and updated the electric and plumbing, and added a central vacuum
There is a bedroom off the kitchen which the invalid owner used, and had a toilet put in the corner. So, we walled off the toilet and made a half bath, and used the rest as a laundry room and pantry.
We kind of redid the enclosed front porch.
TheHusbandHalf built a garage that has a separate workshop with a single garage door, a space for 2 vehicles with a double door, a 20’ wide space, and a back garage door so we can drive straight through to the back yard. I remember when he was staking it out, we kept in mind that maybe we would someday add on to the house and hook the 2 together. (The original garage was Model T sized, with an obvious 2’ ft addition to accommodate when cars got longer.
The house had original oak woodwork, NOT PAINTED! It’s probably one of the reasons we bought the house. That, and no one had come in and remodeled. We wanted to start fresh and were very lucky to find this gem.
About 1992, our financial situation was such that we cold add on. The original was 1200 sf, the addition and the garage added another 2400 sf.
That’s when we finally hired someone – he put up the shell, we hired him to replace all the windows in the old. I know lots of people look down on vinyl siding, it’s was perfect for our situation, so we hired the same guy to side the whole thing. TheHusbandHalf had experience with building and siding, so as is our way, we kept an educated eye on things.
Then we hired a different guy to pour the driveway
I should add, the mortgage on our original purchase was paid before we started the addition and we had the money saved up to pay for the addition. We try to buy things when we can, not borrow and have only borrowed when a car dealer has a ‘0% loan’ for our vehicles.
So we did the HVAC, electric, plumbing for the addition as well as finishing it inside. Rather than replace the ac/furnace, we just added another. Now that the kids are gone, this comes in handy when only heating what were using. Plus, one time the old furnace needed work, and it was nice to be able to heat the other part with it’s own furnace.
The addition was built with 2 x 4 walls, but we made each a 2x6. (we had done the same for the old part) So, all the walls have the 6 “ ofpink stuff, there is 2” foam and Tyvec wrap on the outside.
I’ve left 5-6 envelopes in various hidden spots in the house, with our house’s history, in case the next owners remodel, a kind of ‘time capsule.’
Last year we decided to hire a guy to do our kitchen. It, too, was 45,000!
There’s just too much of ‘us’ here to not make this our forever home. I have both maternal and paternal grandparents (and their siblings) that live to their mid 90’s, so it could be another 35 years here. It’s a big house, but the utilities are certainly manageable, so we’re going to be herr awhile.