Friday, March 03, 2006

Good bone structure, bad makeup

Well, to get things started, we are buying our first house. Escrow closes next Thursday, and we have worked out an agreement with the current owner to get started on the restoration ASAP.






We think it might be a Sears kit, probably built in 1916 or 1917. The coal bin in the cellar is papered with newspapers from both years. It was remodeled slightly in the 1920's to provide interior cellar stairs, a bay on the dining room, and a larger kitchen and back porch.






It's a great little house, 2 or 3 bedrooms depending on who you talk to, small but servicable bath, nice sized kitchen, closed in front porch, large living and dining rooms, etc. Gorgeous woodwork, which is, mostly, unmolested. Great hardwood floors which have escaped wear mostly by virtue of being hidden under the VILEST of wall-to-wall carpets ... and an inspired abuse of "wood" panelling (six kinds. Of the variety that is real wood made to look fake. The world is a strange and dark place sometimes).






The bathroom is a case of fabulous 1950's plastic-tile fugly. Out it goes, though we're trying to salvage it for someone who may want it for a 1950's house. The adhesive used on this stuff has mostly let go, which means I can scrape it off with a putty knife, but it also smells like essence of vomit. Yay.

1 comment:

  1. When you get that layer of bad taste out of there that place is going to be beautiful, it looks like alot of the original stuff is still intact. We were curious if our place was a sears kit too, but still haven't found any hard evidence, it's just similar to some plans that were built in the 30's. Really nice wood work.

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