our old house

This is our old house. The original structure was a cabin built in 1830, then a 2 story house was added to it in 1860. Sometime later the original cabin was taken off except for the common wall between the two.  Then a kitchen was finally added and later an additional room and bathrooms added. For as much as it was built in pieces it looks pretty uniform. What you see here in this picture of the house part built in 1860.  This porch was probably added in the 1990′s.

We have lots of plans for this old house but we are in no hurry.

house make over view

My friend Marcia from ehomebody.com has a great post on her blog about moving into their new home. In it she uses a picture of her house as it looks now and then another picture that she has altered to look like some of the changes she has thought of making. Here are her now and then pics.

Very cute huh? You need to read her article, it was great, here is the link again. Welcome to Our New Home

I thought that was a great idea and decided to try it with my house. we have thought about changing to a red metal roof and maybe adding shutters to the windows upstairs. we might even one day make dormers of those upstairs windows but for now I just kept it simple. This is just a quick alteration by way of MS paint. Took about 15 minutes while doing other things at the same time. Here is my now and then pics.

So what do you think?

salvage materials

We have a friend who works in a warehouse and they always have extra packing materials. He brings us everything from bubble wrap to 2×4’s and recently wood pallets. If you have an old house you always have a need. The pallets have OSB board, which is a type of plywood on one side. We always have uses for plywood, and 2×4’s for that matter. When you take them apart you are left with a whole ton of these little wood blocks that are about 5 inches by 5 inches by 5 inches. We gathered all of those up and filled the wood box, since we use wood heat. They will make great fire starters for next winter.

Think creative. Who do you know that works somewhere with stuff they throw away? It needs to be within close driving distance to make it worth wile.

moving in help

old house wish list

This old house needs new ideas. Some of the things we want to do with this house.

• replace the roof with metal
• redo the front porch
• replace some of the floor joists
• new hardwood floors throughout our downstairs
• add a mudroom, utility room
• something with the bathrooms that look like an after thought
• as ugly as they are, gutters
• replace windows
• rewire original structure
• some day I would love a wood cook stove in the kitchen
• storm cellar
• rebuild the bridge over the creek
• fix the leak in the pond
• ok, I am getting outside the house   time to stop

Many of these things will actually make the house look like it used to. 

an old barn