perforated pipe in a trench with a slight pitch toward the back yard, covered with landscape cloth that can be penetrated by water, then covered with pea gravel, road base, or the like. right along the fence line. the rest of the concrete walk just break up and replace with new, but slope just slightly from the house (up side) out to the place where the pipe lies so water will run away from the house rather than pool and run down the sides of the foundation. you may need to do something like a French drain at the back where the water from the pipe will flow. if you don't like the look of regular concrete sidewalks you can get them molded or stamped to look like almost any surface, get them stained, imbed things in the concrete, etc. best wishes

Thanks everyone! Thanks for the information on the dormer, that gives me something else to research. We had toyed around with the idea of razing the 2nd floor altogether and completely redesigning it but nixed that idea (for now anyway). The kitchen is down to the studs right now, I hope to have a working kichen by the end of January :) I posted a thread on the kitchen forum with pictures of all my ideas and linked it below if you're interested. I have also changed the landscaping to more of a cottage garden. I love continuous color all season and various textures so I'll work on adding some of those pictures as well. I have considered naming the house but haven't really come up with anything yet. I'll have to give it some more thought :) I'll see what other pictures I can get off the external hard drive this weekend to give you some other images of the house. I truly enjoy this house and we love giving it our own personal touch!

Oh, how I wanted my natural bluestone patio...well, it now looks anything but "natural." It's a hot mess! Original landscaper installed and used polymeric sand because that was "best." He recommended not sealing it. Or, as he said, "Let it sit a year and then seal it if you want to." Very shortly after installation, stones started turning orange or had deep orange/rusty spots developing like a rash. The polymeric sand grout started popping up like worms after a rainstorm by year two. Hired a new hardscaping/landscaping company who--at year three of the patio--power washed it, swapped a few stones and tried to remove some stains, installed a new type of polymeric sand (which is supposedly better for the larger gaps the earlier landscaper used), and sealed it. First, the power washing did leave what looked like swirls of gray "graffiti" on some areas, but that seemed to go away with sealing. Until it rained, I wasn't sure they had yet sealed it, but it was evident when water beaded up and remained on the surface. After it dried, white patches appeared all over the stones. Reading how this can also occur with sealing concrete pavers, I'm now wondering if that composite deck idea was better! All I wanted was a beautiful, natural bluestone patio. I've stepped on countless university and college walkways that do not have these issues, and that is the look I was going for. How do they achieve such beautiful patios and walkways without the issues we homeowners face? I know they don't use polymeric sand and their "deep pockets" must be able to afford the best stone and best installers.

If it were me, I would go low impact. You're not crazy. The charm of an old house is that it doesn't look like a new house. You just have to make your own call as to where the line is between "old house charm" and jankiness. A good floor guy can do magic to patch a floor. We have a large patched area which is invisible in our kitchen. Can you buy reclaimed flooring to match what you have from anywhere locally to use for patching, or can you salvage any flooring from any of the other work you're doing on the house? You might need to do some legwork but in most areas with a lot of old homes, there is someone. Another note...you absolutely do not need to tear out the old plaster to rewire if that is a concern. We just had our entire 1914 bungalow rewired, and in many places brought up to code, as part of a larger project. Basically the only holes to patch are where the old outlets and switches used to be, if we are not reusing them. They dropped in the new wires and left the old ones disconnected but still inside the walls. There are other reasons you might want to open up the walls, like if you want to add insulation inside the wall cavities (because of the need to install a vapor barrier, not bc of the wires), but a good electrician would not suggest it just for wiring. The vast majority of the plastering we had done was from reconfiguring the floor plan and moving our upstairs ceiling up 7". You can see the latter below. The texture of our old horsehair plaster (rough surface) does not quite match the new, but we don't expect that to be an issue once it's prepped and painted. I'm sure the availability and cost of doing blueboard and plaster varies by location, but here in Boston it is fairly standard.