Introduction

After a decade in Texas it was time to move home. Before moving I searched online for homes but by the time one was listed on Zillow it had long been sold. After moving we used a Realtor, but every home I asked her about had sold a week or two earlier. One Friday a new house popped up in the listings and I made sure we saw it the next day.

As we approached I saw it needed some work on the outside -- siding, trim, windows -- but it was a beautiful Second Empire with a large entry porch with gingerbread detail. The front door opened to a grand serpentine staircase and I was hooked. Nici, however, was less than enthused. The house was extremely, dusty, musty, dirty and cluttered. The kitchen hadn't been updated in 60 years and smelled like sewer gas. Every room in the house was packed full of junk, antiques, hospital beds, nursing equipment from the first and second world wars, a wheel chair, a pile of coal in the basement... There were signs of water damage, hideous wallpaper in most rooms, dark blotchy linoleum in every room that could have asbestos, lead paint, crumbling plaster, bizarre faux finishes. The upstairs bathroom was unusable, there was a non-functioning sink in the bedroom, and the downstairs bathroom was cramped with a shower stuffed in a doorway. The plumbing was not up to code and brass in places, most electrical was 2-wire with a 100 AMP fuse box, there were only 2 outlets on the entire second floor and 0 on the third and no lighting or plumbing on the third floor either. Many rooms had lights that didn't work, but the whole house did have heat... but no insulation and large gaps in the windows.

We returned Sunday with a contractor who told us it had great bones but needed a lot of work, like $150k to redo the kitchen and $80k to make a master suite out of the third floor/sorta-finished attic, plus whatever else for the rest of the house, 38k to dig out the basement... Concerns were some droop in a beam, possible sill rot, and a leaking roof.

Despite all this we worked up an offer, wrote a heart-felt letter to the seller about how we had experience restoring antique homes and that we wanted to keep it a single family, and sent it in. Even though it had only been on the market one weekend it was one of three offers made on the house, but our's was accepted!

Photos from our first visit and the listing:

Snapshot of the gingerbread trim on porch

I was in love

Kitchen needed some touch-ups. 
Note the oil stove to the left and the painted slate sink to the right.