"Front" of house. No door, garage with no driveway. Driveway/path runs on the left side of this picture

"Left" side of house, entry door leads to living room. Gravel area is a turn around, i guess?

"bacK' of house, i plan on ripping up concrete porch, tearing off all single story roofs, digging a crawl space foundation from the right of the house back, to meet up with the garage foundation on the left. framing a new first floor and then framing a whole second floor.

big barn with woodshop attached on the back, plenty of room for hobbies and my auto collection. the real reason why i want to buy the property, but dont tell my wife

part of the 24 acres, you can see the pond in the upper left, room for pastures, crops and some animals to eat, i mean pets for the kids.

This is my first time posting, so i also wanted to say hello and give an advance thank you to anyone willing to give me advice and their 2 cents. Thanks.

A very nice property. I can see why you like it. Have you been in the basement? Stone walls? What is framing like in basement: rough sawn, hand hewn or combination of those? I ask as the shape of the house doesn't seem 1870s. Could be much earlier.

Zillow says 1870's, i haven't asked the owner yet. We are buying it from a family friend, he is in a nursing home with dementia and the house has been vacant for several years, but maintained by the nephew. The basement is stone foundation, but i don't know about the framing. when i looked at the house, my kids went in the basement but i didn't, because i just figured it would be somewhat of useless space due to stone foundation and dirt floor. I know i can use it for storage and utilities, such as hot water heater and HVAC's. My mother and grandfather remember in the 70's when the second floor was added.

That explains somewhat the house shape. I suggest you measure everything, or hire someone to do that, and create an accurate floor plan, both floors of the house. Then you'd have something to start with. Do you know where well and septic are?

The land looks lovely. I don't have any advice except to share my experience. Our house has a kitchen extension that was built on a crawl space in the '50s. We are in the mid-Atlantic, so our winters are milder than yours, but the kitchen floor is VERY cold in winter. We had to have the crawl space winterized because the water pipes/dishwasher kept freezing.

I'm in Syracuse area. Any crawl space needs to be well insulated. We just finished addition onto our 1850s house. We have a crawl space with concrete floor and concrete block foundation walls. I insulated with 3" styrofoam on the exterior. Keeps everything warm.

Did you have to make the crawl space with a concrete floor or did you have any other options? Our current house in Virginia is on a crawl space, no basements down here, and the floor is sand. It seems like it would cost a lot more to make the crawl space floor concrete instead of just putting a good layer (inches) of sand down.

Concrete is nice and clean. I store stuff in there and it makes it easy to work on plumbing or whatever if need be. I have a rolling stool I use to move around. Sand or gravel is ok, but it is essential to have a good vapor barrier like 6 mil polyethylene under the sand, lapping up the walls a few inches. Even dry sand will let a lot of water vapor through.

i dont know where the septic is yet, i dont know if it runs to the front, right or back of the house. The location of it will play a big role in the location of the addition. The well is just to the left and forward of the garage, i did see it, but i dont know if it currently works. I will utilize the well as much as possible for my garden and livestock. For the past ten years i have been using city water from my outside spigot to water my garden and lawn and i can tell by the bill when summer time rolls around.

Big thing down here now is to have the vapor barrier installed, crawl space vents closed off and a automatic dehumidifier installed that drains outside of the foundation. I have opted not to pay the money to have it done on our current house because its not our forever house and i dont think i will see a return when i sell. We just have about 6 inches of sand and i dont find moving around under there that hard. I have spent a lot of time under there with installing new insulation, new HVAC duct work and replacing all the polybutylene piping with pex. I have about 10 vents that i open in the summer to allow airflow and shut them in the winter. I like the idea of the concrete floor and using a creeper to move around and also using it for storage.

It's good that you have experience with remodelling DIY already. I suggest you go out there on a snowy day to see how the long driveway works. Maybe you'll need a snowplow on a regular basis? My main comment is to get a very thorough inspection by an experienced person including a septic test and a well test. The fact that it is owned by someone who's not lived there in several years means that all kinds of things could have happened despite the best will of the nephew who has done the maintenance. For one thing, there's a big difference in the load on the plumbing when you are doing laundry for 6 people compared to 1. The usual thing is that the plumbing is overwhelmed and clogs up within the first week or two after move-in. Planning in advance to have the Roto Rooter out is a good idea (and set aside that $100-$200).

I have some experience with DIY remodeling after doing 3 houses. I have never done roofing, siding or masonry, which is why i would contract that out. The property comes with a big tractor, every attachment for the tractor that you could think of and a brand new zero turn lawn mower. My grandfathers 400 acre farm is less than two miles away, so i have access to other tractors, backhoes, dump trucks, etc... I can imagine that the house might need a newer bigger septic tank with going from one guy who has lived in the house for the last 50 years by himself to a family of 6. Im guessing i will need to have a lot of $$$ set aside for this and that as we start to remodel and add an addition.

Yes, checking basement should be a priority. Stone walls and age tend to rot out sills. You should be able to gauge the age and condition of the chimney there. Wiring, heating unit, it should all be there to see.

well I drove all day from Virginia to NY and I will hopefully get to do another inspection of the property, way more thorough, without the kids running around, as I am up here by myself, within the next week or so. it's funny that you mention bodies buried in the basement, our current house in Virginia has two people buried in our front yard. When we closed on our house in VA, we had to sign a waiver, allowing family members of the two deceased, to come visit and lay flowers if they desired. The previous owner traced their heritage, they were buried in the early 1800's, were only children, had no children of their own, as they both passed away at an early age, so basically their family tree ended. How the developers were allowed to build a house, or even several house, less than 15 feet away from my front door is beyond me. I will have more details of my current prospect farmhouse within the next week or so. I appreciate all the responses.

I hope you return from the upcoming trip with stories as good as the one regarding the bodies in your VA front yard. My friends live in VA and their house was used as a hospital during the civil war. Talk about a lot of dead bodies around a house. My husband likes to joke that Jimmy Hoffa is buried in our wall, but he has an overactive imagination.

This visit would be a good time to take photos so you have them while discussing repairs and improvements in the next few months. I suggest taking a photo of each wall, the floor, and the ceiling in each room. Basement, too. Attic as well. Roof and exterior walls. Also take photos of the well head, septic tank access port, HVAC, and all the doors. Then do the barn and outbuildings. So much easier than finding someone to go over and take photos for you in midwinter.

If you have time to check at City Hall for any permits they may have issued, this trip is a good time to get copies.