Original house

The Beginnings

The Beginnings

When we purchased our house November of 2007 the house was owned by a young woman who was selling it because she was getting married.  Her family had helped her fix it up a bit by adding green plastic shutters, painting the exterior a pale gold and carpeting the upstairs, living room and dining room.

house purchased

They also had put in several replacement windows.  Otherwise the house was fairly untouched when we bought it.  The kitchen remained much as it had been since the early 1900’s, the woodwork in most of the house was unpainted and lovely.  It also had original wood siding.  I found this picture on the assessor’s website of what the house looked like prior to her owning it.
Original house

I loved the gold color but wanted it a bit more intense and really wanted the shutters gone so that it looked more original.  Also the roof was in pretty bad shape so we knew the shingles would have to be replaced the next year.  I loved how untouched the house was and since we knew there was nice oak flooring in the office and what was to become the second bathroom we were fairly confident that the rest of the downstairs had nice wood floors as well.  When we moved in we had two dogs, Doux, a husky/border collie cross and Scooter, a lab/hound mutt.  They were both getting up there in years and accidents happened so I knew the carpet would have to go in short order.   If you want to do the ultimate in recycling an old house with good bones is a worthwhile challenge, especially if you are able to do much of the work yourself.   This challenge has become our major hobby over the past eight years and we are still going.  Much slower now than at first but still going.  With every change we make the house becomes more filled with our personality.  We have really taken our time making decisions to preserve the integrity of the home however, in paint choices as well as opening up the kitchen.

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