What a fabulous house! You have truly landed a gem, what with all the furnishings, wallcoverings, architectural details, and other historical trappings. Congratulations!

Hurray for you! I hope you spend many happy days in your beautiful new home and add your own joyful memories to it.

Yah!!!!!! You are blessed to find such a gem! Along with the furniture. Seems that the PO took decent care of the house, so I guess fixing up would be less than most of us with somewhat messed up houses. Well, we love our homes regardless :o)

What a find! I am thrilled for you and DH! The rooms look like they are a decent size which is a plus. Love the transom lights over the door and that great old stove. I would give that box of buttons a good home if you don't want them!

And how lucky the house is to have found someone who treasures it the way it is. Congratulations to both you and the house!

Dayle Ann

The minute we walked into this house, we knew it was the "project" house we'd been wanting. It is old enough to have charm and to need work, is well-built and well-maintained so it doesn't need massive structural work, and has not been updated for many decades (excepting some fixture replacements...not all...and a few things here/there...all perfectly acceptable!).

A blacksmithing family built the house in the late 1800s--we have a photo dated 1890 in which the house figures prominently, so it was built at least by then--and five generations of the family subsequently lived there. The folks who sold it to us were doing so to settle the family estate. They are the last of the family line and live very far away, so they cannot live in the house themselves, but they wanted to ensure that the "right" buyers purchased it. Apparently it has been in limbo for some time and they have turned down flat several offers to buy the house/land because they feared the house would be torn down or unappreciated. My DH and I wrote a letter to accompany our purchase offer: he is a planner with an architectural background, and I recently graduated with my MAHP, so historic houses are just our thing. :)

It's the funniest thing...when the realtor was showing it to us she was very apologetic about the kitchen/bathroom and how dated they are. To me, the kitchen is one of the best rooms in the house because it hasn't been gutted of any of its 1940s-50s charm. It's an addition that hasn't changed much since it was built, as far as we can tell. PERFECT! I had to tell the realtor after the closing how much her apologies had fallen on deaf ears.

Every time we walk through the door I'm struck by how it feels like home. We have an electrical crew rewiring right now (fishing new wiring into the old K&T chases), but once they're done it'll be ready to move into. I can't wait. As we've explored the various trunks, dressers, hutches, etc. that are there we've found some fascinating family history as well as some great house history. I have shivers just writing about it.

Of course, there are a few problems. At one point the upstairs bath (a closet with a toilet and the tiniest sink in the world) had a minor leak. We'll need to do some probing to ensure that there's no rot or fungal problem lurking. And, probably because of the moisture and heat, the kitchen plaster walls are not in the greatest of shape.

However, the plaster in the other rooms is lovely, and from what I could see in the attic, at least the second-story ceilings are remarkably well keyed. Woohoo! The woodwork has not experienced the dozens of paint layers that frequently accompany old houses. There's no real wood rot, even on the exterior wood, that I can find. We'll need to strip off the steel siding to reveal the clapboard underneath, but that will wait until spring, after we've gotten a few other things taken care of.

I know this is the longest post EVER, but I can't resist telling the story of this house to some folks who will appreciate it! Most of our friends/family seem to fall into the camp of "Are you nuts? You must be absolutely nuts!!"

Gina,

How wonderful and what a rare find and to be able to buy the contents as well as the house. Is there a local historical museum that would accept some things (any you might not want to keep) in the name of the previous family to exhibit the history of the house and family?

The reason I ask is that someone in our family has just purchased property from an original homestead from the end of the 1800's. Sadly the original house is gone, but many of the old sheds, root cellar, shop and outbuildings from succeeding years are still there. There is a foundation never built on that they hope to put up a small bldg to house the 3 generations of family farm memorabilia that they are finding, as there is still a granddaughter/daughter living in the area, and name it for the homesteading family. In fact the property was sold to them for the same reason yours was to you, they were willing to take all and everything that was still left on the place and the owners didn't have to clear it all out!

With the expertise of both of you, it should be a real joy.

Oh, I wish there were houses/contents like yours in our area!!!! What a great find and how much fun can a person possibly be entitled to in one lifetime! Congrats, looks like it's going to be a great place to call home.

It's just beautiful!

NWesterner, we do have plans to return some items to the family (we think they maybe did not know some of these things existed), and there are other things we plan to donate to the local archives. We haven't been there yet but have been told they're pretty darn good for a small city like ours.

We can't wait to actually move in. :)
Gina

Hi Gina.

Congratulations on finding such a great old place, and on wanting to preserve its rich history, instead of gut it. As soon as I saw your second photo, I instantly thought of this 193Os watercolor of a strikingly similar Victorian-era room by the great room portraitist David Payne. Hope you enjoy it.

Regards,
MAGNAVERDE.

Oh my GOODNESS! That could almost be our parlor! I have goosebumps.

Thank you so much for posting that. I truly cannot believe how similar the two rooms look!
Gina

About that costume jewelry ... carefully identify it! Taks a magnifying glass and a good light and find the marks and names.

Some "costume" stuff is now worth big bucks, and could help with the renovation. Check the library for books about identifying it.

We plan to go through everything with a fine-toothed comb. Where on jewelry are marks typically located. I'm serious when I say we know nothing about costume jewelry.

Part of the problem in getting appraisals is finding people who are knowledgeable about very specific types of items. We've got furniture, pottery, china, jewelry, buttons, ephemera, and everything else, including the kitchen sink! :)

I guess I will start with the library to see if I can do preliminary assessments of some of these beautiful items.
Gina

Gina, what a gorgeous home!!! If you decide to sell let me know! LOL

If, when you remove the steel siding, you find the clapboards to be too costly to renovate DO NOT cover it with textured vinyl siding... I made the mistake of covering my 40 foot dormer with it and it's totally ruined the look of my cape cod home... First of all it doesn't come in 40 foot lengths and it looks like it's patched... And the only thing the texture does is hold the dirt... A total waste of $7000.00... If I had it do it all over again I would have re-finished the old steel siding...

But back to your beautiful home... I wish you the best of luck in all your decisions, an extremely good contractor who'll work for peanuts and enough money to handle all the costs and a few extras... lol

Rita