Today I took our good friend Quintin, who is in the construction business, out to the farm and had the realtor let him in so he could look around. He looked at everything. We couldn't get the CH/A guy over as he was in the middle of something, but Quintin has a business relationship with him and talked with him on his cell phone while he was looking at stuff. Now, mind you, we have known Quintin for a long time. He's about the age of our son, and we know he cares about us. His parents are deceased and he is kind of protective over us, gives us lots of free advice. He has a solid reputation for being honest. He already owns a place in the country and so has no motivation to discourage us; in fact, he is motivated the other way as we would be hiring him to do the work that we couldn't do ourselves. Quintin suggested a lot of options, all of which required a LOT of money, and that would just be to insulate and install CH/A. He pointed out several areas where the roof was showing a lot of wear and there are two layers of composition shingle over a shake layer, which means that putting on a new roof would require tear-off. Removal of the shake layer would require new decking. That would be doable, though. The bad news is that there is not enough clearance between the upstairs ceilings and the roof to allow insulation. And the crawl space is not deep enough under the kitchen and bathroom to allow CH/A ductwork. It would fit under the rest of the house, but he said when it rained if we got water under the house at all, the duct work would get wet and we would end up with mold in our ductwork, making the entire duct system "sick". The ductwork might fit between the ceiling of the bottom floor and the floor of the top floor, but of course that would make the ceilings not very high on the bottom floor. The height of the upstairs already feels "squished". Quintin said, "You can fix anything, as long as you can keep on writing checks." He knows how much we have in the bank and how much our other real estate is worth and he thinks it would take as much to fix these three glaring problems as it would cost to build something new. He finished off by saying that, in his opinion, we should pass on this one. *BOO HOO* The realtor found out that most of the land is in the flood plain, even though the owner says the house and the rental mobile homes have never gotten water in them. The two mobile homes that would provide rental income monthly are nearly or just barely over 30 years old and no insurance company will write liability on a trailer over 30 years old. If there was a fire and someone didn't get out, the obvious tragedy would be compounded for us when the renters sued. We could buy the place for a little less without the rental trailers and the tracts of land they are on, but without the rental income, we would be living on Social Security only, with our inheritance spent on the property and the improvements to the house having to wait until we sold our house and DS's house. If for some reason it took a long time to sell them, or they didn't bring in what we expected, then that would drastically change everything. If they did sell and we ended up having to spend most of the proceeds on fixing the house, then we'd have no "nest egg" and no supplemental income. The thought of that just scares me to death. If we had an unexpected expenditure, I would end up having to go back to work in order to make ends meet. Quintin reminded me I must think with my head, not with my heart, and DH says that we must be realistic and not be making an emotional decision. He is ready to tell the realtor that we pass, and he told me that he is comfortable here. I suppose if I wanted a bigger garden, I could rototill up the entire yard. And I might. *HONK!* (blowing my nose in a kleenex). It is true that we have big rooms in our current house -- almost every room here is double the size of the rooms in the farm house. Our CH/A keeps us comfortable, our roof is 2 years old and we have James Hardie siding and new vinyl windows all around the house. It does make me kind of tired just to think about moving into a house and starting all over again. Fixing this house up was such a lot of work. And right now is not a good time to be moving. DH goes in Monday for surgery on one knee. A month later he will be getting the other one done. So there would be a big burden on me if we would be trying to get fixed up and moved in by winter. But I can't buy any chickens... I don't have a safe room or a garage... And I'll still have my awful neighbor. *sigh*. --Ilene

A total gut would be very expensive. Like one of the above posters said, many people do it and go broke. Maybe you could have someone local look at it and determine if there are things you can do to save costs. Is the plaster in half way decent shape? Can it be repaired? There are lots of people that do that and it's not overly expensive, at least not from what I've seen. Also, an experienced electrician can rewire the house without making holes everywhere and save some money. The plumbing is probably going to be expensive to update, but adding a bath and probably updating the kitchen is well worth it, especially in a house that size. I have no idea what you are paying for it but I am in sosuthern New England and $100,000 for rehab is pretty realistic, but if there are structural repairs to be done, you can probably at least another $50,000 depending on how much needs to be done. Someone I know just spent about close to $35,000 in repairs just to fix powderpost beetle damage on the first level of her house. That was treatment and fixing the floors and some of the sills. They were looking at about $160,000 in total repairs of a house that was probably similar to yours but here in CT and I believe they were looking to do some of the work themselves. Those figures I'm sure would be different in NY but you get the idea. It can be spendy. If the house is done close to period and the trim and other architectural features saved, the house will probably look great when you're done. Get estimates from local licensed insured tradespeople and see where you end up. Don't forget, there is always the "I didn't expect it " cost, like the totally rotten sills or whatever you have to keep in mind too. It's some Murphy's Law thing that it always happens. A remodeled old house is great though and can be very beautiful. Either way, good luck whatever you decide.

There's going to be no way to lighten it up. It's basically what was the attic of a Cape Cod style house and it has a very small living room that's all chopped up (like a big walled-off bumpout that was built around the chimney). No windows in living room. There's maybe like 2 feet of wall on top of this wainscoting and then the walls curve and/or angle in this rest of the way, so it's not really 8 foot ceilings throughout the place. I'm really not going to be able to hang pictures or mirrors or anything because there's nothing I could hang in that small of a space. As far as lamps, plants, I'll be honest I don't know how I'm even going to be able to see in this place. I will probably be able to get a small sofa and TV in the living room and that's about it. There is no room even for end tables on each end of the couch. So lighting is a problem, and there's going to virtually not be many places I can even set up lots of my things to try to pretty it up because what furniture I stuff in there will be needed for utilitarian purposes. There's basically no kitchen storage. There's a stove, 48" sink base cabinet (which wouldn't hold a lot and it's so grody, I wouldn't put anything but cleaning supplies in it), and then a refrigerator. That's it for the kitchen. No island, no upper cabinetss, nothing. I've got a "commercial" look shelf unit that I'm going to take to put my food on and I'm going to have to get a cart to put a microwave on and then I'm looking at portable kitchen islands so that I'll have somewhere to prep food. Oh, and the "lovely" refrigerator has a strip of Velcro holding it closed. My husband wants to buy an apartment size fridge to put in its place. I'm going to go get some cheese for my whine now! LOL. Sorry for the whine-fest.

Thanks everyone! Yes, right now it is a combination. Kitchen, baths, bedrooms are all painted. It is the main hall, living and dining rooms that I would change that are stained now. Because they will be ripping everything out, we can put back whatever wood we like and either paint or stain it. Doors will all be stripped and redone too so that they could be whatever we want as well. I'm pretty sure that even if we paint, we will do some sort of hardwood. Insurance is prepared to cover it and even though I had a momentary thought of saving money and doing something cheaper so we could use the money to upgrade elsewhere, I just couldn't do that to my house. I would hear it crying everyday. I also know that people swear by MDF, but the few places I've used it, have always ended in disaster when water gets mixed in (not sure why but water always seems to find it). It sounds like I am not the only one who would have a hard time with this choice (foxes pad, our houses are quite similar and I knew you would express similar feelings! what is it with those DHs and their stained wood?) Kswl, I do have a call out to a good designer (if it's good advice, keep screaming it at me, I don't mind). I really hope she can take me on as she seems like someone I can work with. It is difficult to find someone who shares your aesthetic and has time. Especially here in the sticks where it seems most want everything to match and be made of leather or polyester. If I could afford to fly Lauren Liess in even for one day, I would. I'm just trying to get a vision clear in my head, so that no matter what the designer says, I can either comfortably accept or reject as I am the one who will have to live with it. 10 years ago when we redid our kitchen the KD had me ready to sign to order dark stained cabs for the kitchen when I had a sudden realization that I hated dark stained cabs and wanted light painted. Here is one pic from the where to put the piano thread. How lucky I took those pics right before the fire. Another garden web bonus is that I did a "finished bathroom" post after our reno listing all the paint colours, fixture names, etc. I would never remember them otherwise and it will make it easy to redo. Thanks again everyone. Really appreciate the input.