It's going to need a new basement and the addition, I think, is going to need to be replaced. The addition houses the kitchen, bath and a little entry porch. Anyway the roof has been leaking, it was covered with new steel roof and the leak continues. Now mold is an issue so off it comes. Doesn't hurt my feelings, I was planning to move the bathroom and gut the kitchen anyway.

The new addition will be on a slab not on a basement. So the whole layout inside will change. I'm going to reuse some of the cabinets that are in the kitchen now and then I will be looking for some old primitive cabinets for dish storage and display for "the look". The floors will be wood, likely eastern red cedar. The new ceilings will be wainscoating and the walls drywall.

The dinning room of the house has the original plaster walls and I will replace them because the textured skim coat is starting to crack and fall off. The lower 3/4 will be wainscoating and the top 1/4 will be drywall. I want a little plate edge on the trim work between the two levels for my collection of old china plates.

The little parlor has already been redone but the large picture window has a bad seal and will have to be replaced.

The room that will become my sewing/quilting studio has this weird wall board for walls so that will be replaced with dry wall. I'd like to have one one wall of built in book shelves in this room to hold my book collection as well. This room also has one of those tall, narrow windows that was original to the house. Since the house already has new steel siding it will have to stay (charming) but I may have to have a custom, energy efficient window made to fit the space.

A very small bedroom will become the bathroom (it also has an original window). I'm thinking hexagonal black and white tile on the floor and white subway tiles for the walls around the tub/sink. The house comes with a claw foot bathtub and I'm going to try to incorporate it but will also add a nice glass shower enclosure to the bath. I have a tall back china toilet with elongated seat and a pedestal sink all picked out to replace the 70's updates.

The attached two car garage will be converted to two bedrooms which will allow two rooms about 10x18 and a 6ft. wide hallway at one end for access to the rooms. I'd like to add windows across the eastside of the hallway to look out on the back yard and maybe use french type doors to on the bedrooms. That would give each room a nice view of the garden and there is also access to the garden there since the original walk through door of the garage is right there. The rooms will each have a fairly large walk in closet for additional storage.

The patio door that you can see in the pictures enters into the dinning room. I will be replacing those sliders (yuck) with a door and sidelights (plain not fancy). The little makeshift patio cover will hopefully become a full fledged porch too.

The rest of the systems of the house were new in 2000. Furnace, Central AC, Wiring, plumbing, sewer etc. I'll be back on city services...no septic or well...and couldn't be happier! Country living is less expensive but when your well pump quits, as ours did a couple days ago, all life comes to a stand still. Stress I don't need.

The seller is going to have all of his stuff cleared out by the 15th of NOV. After that, I'll get some pics of the inside. I know my restoration won't be as fun and interesting as Leesa's has been but I'll try to keep you all up to date as I go along on my journey to making a Cottage of my own.

MeMo

You are going to be busy!

The house is 24x24, the addition 10x25. Maybe the pictures make it look bigger than it is. The garage almost doubles the size at 20x24. The main part of the house was built in the early 20's. These little houses are very prevalent in this area of the country and are very scaled down versions of the American Four-Square. This house is still just four rooms inside the main part of the building.

I'm not going to busy a bit. I'm hiring a contractor and others will be doing all this work ;) I'll just be standing back to the sidelines with the big stupid grin on my face.

MeMo

While you're replacing all that plaster & drywall, I'd add insulation of the exterior walls/ceiling to the list. That helped a lot in my fire-damaged fixer upper.

When you re-do the porch, I'd consider extending it to the addition if possible, with entry at the dining room door. A path from mailbox walkway with flower beds on either side?

Have fun supervising! Making decisions is work, too.

Ana

Love and hugs ~ FlowerLady

Love it, Memo - right on~~~

Annette

Ana, I will be stuffing insulation in every crack I see, believe me, I know first hand how cold and drafty old houses can be. I love your idea of extending the porch all the way down the length of the house and I'll keep that thought in mind while I play around with pencil and paper. I was thinking though that maybe I would move the back door around the corner and using some nice french doors so I can watch the sunrise from my kitchen table in the mornings. So many ideas my brain is swimming ;)

Thanks Flowerlady! Thanks Cyn!

Nancy, you are a gal after my own heart! The views out the windows were exactly what made me fall in love with this house. I find each view very pleasing and relaxing, even in winter. If not the far off views than the view of the things (plants, shrubs, trees) within the yard it's self. I Googled your Sun Mat System and it does look very simple to use. I bookmarked it for future reference. Thanks for the tip!

Keesha,
I have wanted this house for two years but others in my family kept telling me to stay away from it. So I did. I looked at lots of others and I prayed a lot. Then the other day something just told me to do what ever I could to try to get it. And I got it! Now I feel very peaceful that my prayers have been answered and I'm not worried about the work it needs or anything else about it. Just happy.

Thanks, Skibby!

Annette, I've worked my fanny off on every house I've ever lived in to make it into a home, even one that someone else had worked very hard on and considered done but I had to make it mine. This one will be no different and I'm quite comfortable with that. I love the planning, the execution and have always been happy with the end results. I can't wait to put my touch on this little cutie!

MeMo

GGG

MeMo

MeMo

I'm looking into other homes now. I've found one that I love which has already been completely updated on the inside. On the outside it needs new shingles and also to be sandblasted and repainted. It is built with cinder blocks. Only the top half is framed and that part is sided with vinyl siding. All of the upper trim is vinyl covered also. The furnace and water heater are both new and it has a wood burning stove in the dinning room (also new). It has a library/office on the main floor with french doors. The drawback to it is that all three of the bedrooms are upstairs (2 fights of stairs) which will work for me at this time but may not work in the future. It's been on the market for two months and I was the first person to look at it. I don't feel rushed to make a decision. I'll be searching for other properties this weekend just in case I can find something better to rule this one out. It's really nice though and needs no work from me to make it livable. Even the wall paint colors are really nice but I would rather have a different color in the kitchen. I'd also paint the kitchen cabinets just because I have had my fill of dark cabinets here at the ranch. Here is a link, below. Let me know what you honestly think of what you can see of it.

Hey, the "Big white house" looks nice tho! Three bedrooms - that's alot, it doesn't look big enough from the outside to have two flights of stairs. Are there many steps? And the library/office is a plus. Good luck.

Annette

Merry Christmas - Nancy.