June, 2011

In June, 2011, I finally found an end to my frustrating and disappointing 6 month long house hunt.  Most of this information is copied from my thread over at www.oldhouseweb.com since that is where I started documenting my progress before moving to this blog.

I looked at 2 post-war homes (both built in the 1940s) - one super classy but out of our price range and the other was cobbled together and dumpy.

Then here's an example of another "special" place I toured:

A turn-of-the-century brick house in Hawthorne, Pennsylvania.  Needed TONS of work.

It looked fine on the outside but man was it a mess inside.  It didn't take long to decide not to pursue that house (the price was listed at $49.5k and eventually came down to $45.9k before someone eventually bought it).


There was a house for sale just down the road from my apartment that had been listed with a Realtor for quite a while, but hadn't sold. I looked at it online, but didn't really think too much else of it because the price was higher than what I was looking for (and it also looked kind of modern). The seller was an elderly lady who had known my dad's side of the family for many years.

Anyway, my mother ran into the owner in town one day, and the owner said she had some issues with her computer she wanted me to look at. So I decided to make it a dual-purpose trip: fix her computer and get a tour of her house. And as it turns out, her one-year contract with the Realtor was over that very day!

I'm not kidding, the second she opened the front door I was in love. I saw plaster walls and wide old trim and was SOLD. We sat and talked for hours that night, about the house and its history and all kinds of things - and she gave me "the tour". At this point, I hadn't been pre-approved for a mortgage yet so I couldn't make any kind of offer or commitment, but I said I was very interested and would get back in touch once we were pre-approved.

Later that week, I was pre-approved for a mortgage for just $4900 shy of her original asking price ($79.9k). I made my offer of $75,000 and she accepted!

To make a long and boring story short - fast forward to the present and I am are about a month away from closing. Our sales agreement states I must take possession by 30JUN but her moving company comes 13-14JUN so I will be moved in sooner.

Here are just a few of the extremely awesome facts about the house I bought:
- 3 bed, 2 bath, ~1500 sq. ft. (our apartment is 1 bed, 1 bath, 753 sq. ft.)
- Current owner moved into the house with her late husband in 1955. Apparently it was starting to get run-down but they got it for cheap and brought it back to life.
- Current owner is only the 2nd family EVER to live in the house since it was built (she estimates 1880).
- A huge cistern and an old well with an antique well pump are in the basement.
- The house underwent a huge renovation some time before 1921 when the "master bedroom" and living room were added on, and the back porch was enclosed into a kitchen.
- Some of the original baseboard, door trim, and window trim is still present through the house.
- The current owner renovated the old kitchen in 1955 when they moved in, and all of the 1955 cabinets are still present. The cabinets were built in-place and they wrap entirely around the kitchen (even above the doorways). There are something like 47 doors in that kitchen, and it's not all that large. Some of the vintage chrome hardware is still on the cabinets.
- Gas lines are still located in most of the downstairs rooms (from gas lights). Unfortunately, no fixtures.
- Two of the original turn-of-the-century 2-over-2 windows are still present in the living room.
- Modern plumbing (all copper and PVC) and no asbestos coated plumbing.

The house also has all sorts of modern amenities like 200A electric, city water & sewage, 6yr old HVAC with central air. Includes all appliances, and some furniture.

There are a few negatives, but they're things I'll have to live with for a few years.
- Vinyl siding, asphalt roof, and cheesy looking exterior window trim w/ shutters makes the house look very generic.
- All but 2 of the windows have been replaced. Some are Andersen insulated wood windows and some are cheap vinyl.
- Wallpaper all over the place.
- 1970's paneling in 2 of the bedrooms and the room which will be my office.
- Wall-to-wall carpeting everywhere except the bathrooms and kitchen (no hardwood).
- No interior access to the basement (this is both good and bad).
- Some of the outlets are still 2-prong ungrounded but there is no Knob & Tube.
- The upstairs bathroom was completely renovated in 1993. The old cast iron tub is still there though - and it is a decent '90s bathroom - just not period-appropriate.


For documentation purposes, here are the Google Maps photos of the property:

The seller said other "potential buyers" who came to look with the Realtor disliked things like the small kitchen (not an eat-in kitchen because there is a formal dining room), and the fact that it does not have an open floor plan. People also thought the price was steep for this area for such an old house, but what they didn't realise is that it includes appliances, HVAC, and furniture.

I absolutely LOVE the small kitchen, in fact, I prefer a non-eat-in kitchen and formal dining room. I love the fact that it is NOT an open floor plan, and I love the old house charm that some of the rooms still have.

She said that underneath the vinyl siding, there is a layer of foam insulation, then a layer of Insulbrick, then tarpaper, then wood clapboard. My vision of the future exterior is painted wooden clapboard, grey metal roof, and grey/off white trim. Probably no shutters. I want to keep the simple, clean, and sturdy look that this house was meant to have.

02 June, 2011:

I got another "tour" of the house and had time to study all of the little details and things that I didn't get to focus on before.

Bad news first... there are a couple of cracks in the plaster in the living room where the plaster has come off of the lath (it is a bit loose). I saw the cracks before but didn't thoroughly inspect them. There is also a similar section in the dining room, though I'm not sure if the plaster is loose or it is just the 100 layers of wallpaper. Won't be too bad of a fix though, I hope. Time to learn how to do plaster repairs!

Good news now-

1. She decided she is leaving one of her nice china hutches in the dining room, including some wine glasses and another type of glass.  Here's a shot of said piece:

2. The railing in the upstairs landing is original to the house! The balusters have a coat of white paint on them, but they're old and they're oak.

3. I explored the crawlspace a bit and found some old plumbing still under there which used to connect to the cistern. Some of it goes up toward the front of the house, which is odd because there is nothing in the front of the house requiring water. Further investigation required.

4. In the basement, there is a table which was part of the ORIGINAL KITCHEN !! It is very sturdy wood, painted white, with an enameled metal top. It has at least 2 drawers, one of which was stuck and the other opened. She is leaving it with the house!

5. Also stored in the basement, an old basement window with wood frame and (I think) wavy glass - appears to be in great condition. Not sure if/where it would be re-used but a good find nonetheless.

13 June, 2011:  CLOSED ON THE HOUSE!

14 June, 2011:  First pics!

The house is now mine and I have already begun cleaning, removing wallpaper, and removing the PO's junk!

I have taken quite a few pictures so far, but I'm going to post a few of the key ones for now - the rest will come later.


Walk in the front door.  Note the unique angled wall to the right.

This is the casing around the doorway to the office.  This is the only place in the house with this trim.

Here is the living room.  I have new paint for this room (grey) but have a bit of plaster repair to do first.  The beams are false, and I learned today they are actually foam, not plastic.

This pic shows the detail in the window/door casing.  It only seems to be present in this room.

The living room also has the two remaining original windows (w/ storms).

A very old gas line - yes, this is actually a WATER valve:

These are some of the features of the dining room.

Built-in closet under the stairs.

This stain on the wallpaper seems to be caused by condensation/moisture coming from the old chimney (it is cut down and capped off at the roof).  You can tell where the flue was from an old stove.  This whole room is something I want to tackle very soon after moving in.

Moving on to the kitchen!  This will be one of my favourite parts of the house, for sure.

View from the back door.  These cabinets were built in-place in 1955.

This is the ugly wallpaper that is in the kitchen.  It is a thick, rubbery product and it has to go!

Started scraping the wallpaper.  What I found beneath it was a huge surprise...

This is the product underneath the wallpaper.  I believe it is Formica.  Check out the retro pattern.  Not really sure what is beneath this, so I am not going to remove it at this time.  This will all be painted red.

Very sweet vintage chrome hardware:

And an integrated double-stack recipe card file!

This is the small downstairs bathroom and a cool old casement window with interior screen.

This is the only mostly-untouched bedroom upstairs (also the smallest).

Two built-in closets.

And a creepy outlet in the floor.

There are quite a few of these creepy surface-mount outlets and light sockets around the house.  They look cool, but I will most likely be replacing these as soon as I can.

15 June, 2011:


Well here are a few more pics from today.  Nearly all of the wallpaper is scraped from the kitchen.

I'm not all that happy about the Formica on the walls (yes it is glued on with construction adhesive) but I am not in any kind of position to pull everything and re-drywall.  I peeled back one of the sheets of Formica and it started pulling the drywall apart...

But I think once we glue the Formica all back down, sand, prime, caulk, and paint - it won't look TOO bad.  It will at least hold me over for a few years.  Was this product on the wall a typical thing to use?  My parents' house has a bathroom that is covered in the stuff, but I've never encountered a Formica kitchen.

And here's a shot of my laundry room.  It was packed full of junk and shelves and had about 100 nails/hooks in the walls.  This room will eventually be re-painted white.  The only thing worth saving in here was her stash of leftover paint.

17-19 June, 2011:

Caulked all of the seams and cracks last night so it will look much better once primed and painted. There is evidence in several places that water was getting through some of the gaps, and I don't want this to continue happening.

Also last night, I skimmed the two drywall wall sections in the kitchen to smooth them out a bit. The wall behind the fridge needs another skim coat.

I will be priming all of the Formica walls tonight!

I also am going to start mapping out and documenting the electrical breakers and trying to figure out where to put a GFCI in the kitchen. Hopefully the refrigerator is upstream of the outlets, but who knows. I did test the outlets in the kitchen last night and they do all have a proper ground!

A few updates:

Kitchen all in primer (yesterday).  You will also see one of the three "old" doors left in the house, and yes they are exterior doors in the interior of the house.  I don't know how old they actually are, but they are in excellent condition.  The one on the laundry room has a "cat door" cut into it though.  I like the doors - very industrial.

Also yesterday, came in to find this mess in the basement!

The 8 year old hot water tank had sprung a leak.  It was leaking somewhere out of the bottom, not from any of the plumbing connections.  I also realized that the old tank was vented WAY improperly.  Since it was so tall, the vent run actually pointed DOWN instead of up.  Either way, my dad and I installed a new one that day.  Unfortunately, not tankless, but definitely more efficient than the old one.  Vented correctly, too.

Here is what I got done today - 3 coats of red.  Needs a little touch up in a few places.  The plastic and tape comes off tomorrow so we'll see the finished product then.

Pulled all the tape and plastic off the kitchen this morning.  The curtains were left by the PO but we are going to use them since they match.

I also took some time to clean up the old outlet covers and reinstall them (for now until I get GFCIs) - before and after.

Next, I started on one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Before (floral print paneling):

Tinted primer:

After one coat of paint (you can also see the other old door in here):

Finished up that upstairs bedroom today.  Next step here is to paint the ceiling white.

And then got started on the living room!  Masked everything and then filled in all the nail holes in the walls and smoothed out a couple of the cracks.  I will do the actual plaster repair later, after we are all settled in.

Before:

In primer (tinted):

Already we can see that the grey makes the ceilings appear taller and the room in general appears larger.  Much better than the PO's light lemon yellow.  She said the room has been yellow for 50 years.  Paint comes tomorrow.



Got more done today.

Living room painted and it looks great!  Also replaced 4 receptacles because they were loose and scary.  Now they are safe and blend into the baseboards much better than the old ones.

I then started to clean out the closet under the stairs.  It was like peeling back the layers of time.  First, I removed the PO's latest piece of sheet vinyl (not attached) to find this linoleum.  It was pretty cool, but it was also not attached to the floor and it was in bad shape (torn up/cracked).

This was what was underneath - the original 1880 pine flooring.  Great shape in here.  There is a linoleum border around the outside of the closet, and it actually appears to be in half decent shape.