I know this string is from some time ago, however I am trying to get rid of mine with 3 basins. We are in Chicago. I love it and its in real decent shape with legs but we need the space in the basement to make a bathroom and bedroom. If you are interested im at whitedress2006@yahoo.com

I love questions with easy answers.... 1. If you have an opportunity to buy an Arts & Crafts house, do it. You are buying a uniquely American gem. For more information about these houses see Arts and Crafts Styles: Craftsman, Prairie and Four-Square Houses. 2. Keep your existing windows if at all possible. There are many good references on the web and in books detailing how to rehabilitate old windows. If you are deterred by the old sash weight balance system, there are a lot of replacement balances, including those that permit the window to tip in for easy cleaning. Blain Window Hardware is your source for all things window. 3. Recent DOE-funded studies show that a properly rehabilitated single glazed window with a storm window is just as energy efficient as a new double-glazed window. For historically correct wood custom made storm windows with sliding screens, check out Spencer Works. 4. Steam or (more likely) hot water radiator heat is the very best kind of heat. There are no drafts such as are created by forced air systems. You be amazed at how little dust you will have in your new house. To add cooling, I suggest a split sytem with one unit for the top floor run through the attic, and one for the bottom floor run through the basement. You can now get condensers (the outside part) that hang on the outside wall. Not the prettiest things, but they work. This dual zoning allows you to separately control cooling on each floor, so you can turn up the cool at night in the bedroom area, and dial it down in the day time. Vice-versa for the living areas on the first floor. This should be in the range of $8,000 or so for a 13 SEER high efficiency system. It's the duct work that adds cost. By splitting the system you keep ducting to a minimum. If space is very right, try a high velocity system with 4" ducts. These can be located nearly anywhere a water pipe can go. 5. To locate cat urine, use a black light. To eliminate cat urine stains and smells, call a cleaning service such as Service Master. These guys have the heavy duty equipment to make sure the job is done right. Good luck. A house this old is a continuing adventure.

By 1875 there would likely have been solid fuel (probably coal rather than wood) burning stoves rather than the, by then, old-fashioned fire places. This would be particularly true in western PA where coal was plentiful and where access to cast iron stoves would have been cheap and easy through canals or the Great Lakes. My northern NY house built before the Civil War never had a single fireplace, only stoves for both heating and cooking. The earliest stoves were wood-burning; then there was a coal phase, but by time we bought it in the 1980s all the heating and cooking had gone back to wood burners. With stoves you need only chimney stacks not the massive masonry that a fireplace needs, so you may not find large voids where hearths were. Keep an eye out for circular marks on walls about the size of gallon paint can lid. These are evidence of stove pipe thimbles as they passed through walls. If you can get up on the roof, you may be able to detect places where chimneys have been removed to below the roof surface. Look in the attic for circular holes in the attic flooring. It was quite common to have long (by modern safety standards) runs of nearly horizontal stove pipe from one room to another to get the chimney. It was also common to remove the stoves seasonally, and only keep in the house during cold weather. L.

Thanks for the input lov_mkitchen. That is what I was thinking. I keep hearing from everyone that taller is better, but I do so much baking that I am not really convinced. I think I will stick with my instincts and go a bit shorter on my island rather than the standard. My "kitchen" table is actually my dining room table in another room, so a bit of a pita especially when you have a nice smooth counter top to work on instead. I have nothing against laminate, had it in our last place in the city, however in this house with as old as it is we are trying to stay with more "natural" looking materials. With that said, I am not a granite fan and would never do marble or any other material that I couldn't be kind of hard on. I don't like having to tip toe around my counters. I use my kitchen and use it well, reading about people in the kitchen forum wanting to plastic wrap their counters before parties so they don't get damaged is a little laughable. That is a good tip on tomato juice. I have yet to make tomato juice. Usually I am too sick of peeling tomatoes to invest any more time in tomato juice but maybe next year if I don't have to peel I will try your trick. I also learned at the END of this season that if I freeze my tomatoes (didn't know I could do that another reason to love GW) that when they defrost the peels come right off and are ready to can in say Nov when you have less to do. I think I will try that next year with my new large freezer. Of course with a finished kitchen next year AND an actual dishwasher hooked up canning my tomatoes will be a breeze compared to this years harvest ;-)