We went to view 42 again yesterday. Now that the buzz of awesome discoveries was faded, it was time to embrace the reality of things that sure will need fixing discovery. We still love the house, but I'm trying to make sure spouse will be able to live with living in construction. It's weird trying to mentally prepare someone for that. We've started playing negotiation games between us. "Ok, so we agree to not move in until D, X and Y are done, but everything else we'll try to room by room after we move in, with 1/2 floor rooms being the priority, right?"
The plumbing is worse than I thought, but not as bad as I'd feared. The first visit, we just had looked for evidence of puddling, this time we brought the good flashlight. We spent most of out time there examining it more carefully today, and the long term corrosion is evident in a few places. I found myself peeling back "patches" of duct tape, cloth, I'm not even sure what one of them was to see the bigger sibling of whatever pinhole leaks grow to be, evidence of long ago worn out washers not being replaced, and concerns about if there will be more waiting when the water gets turned on or not. There was one very small section of PVC replacement we spotted in the basement under the tub close the to the drain trap, but everything else is still copper or galvanized. I suspect what little copper we saw was earlier replacement to galvanized. Oh, and the basement floor is slab for certain.
One other thing we were bothered by is that the sump apparently has stopped working. It's warm to the touch, but not pumping, unlike our last visit. The standing pool of water was much wider this time, and we'd had much less rain recently than our prior visit. The only good thing about that is I had talk to someone in engineering at City Hall, and we both agreed the in ground terra cotta pipes that are where the gutters dump into probably just need a clean out, which he suggested may be why the basement is damp. He hadn't seen the place, this came up when we were discussing building patterns of the time. He thinks we have one, possibly two, dry cisterns that the terra pipes feed into.
One interesting discovery is that inside the kitchen cabinets, I saw baseboard that is identical to the other living areas. So it seems the cabinets were added later.
It does seem that the lavender toilet and tub are original. The tank lid appears to have been dropped at some point, and the broken corner glued back on. I did forget to look for a maker mark. The bottom of the toilet is art deco detailed instead of the usual softened corners, which is why I'm fairly confident they are original, and again it points to the home being built before 1940. At some point, I need to go back over the deed records and see what was what with that. The sink/cabinet, though, as remembered, doesn't match. What I found odd is that in both the kitchen and bath is what we thought was tile actually seems to be a composite sheeting that is stamped to look like tile. And it was obviously added later, because around the tub, it goes over the edge, instead of lines up like normal, making the edge on that side barely there. In the kitchen, it's one of the later layers in wall covering. The lino in both kitchen and bath seems glued down on wood, but it looks like subfloor wood strips, not regular wood flooring (thinner). The good news is I found no mold whatsoever, even when I peeled back a few bits where I thought I might. My bigger concern is still that the home wasn't winterized in time, and what a mess that could be. I've temp lived a home where such happened. Fixing pinholes with a cheap kit you bought as a temporary patch until the plumber the owner hired can do it right is no fun at all.
We also tried to take a look again at what seems a sewage pipe next to the sump (the one you can see in the fuse picture from before in this thread), and what we can't figure out is what it is for. There's an identical one near the laundry area, which is right under the kitchen/bath area. So was the kitchen formerly in the front of house? I can't imagine they had a bath in front of house. When we looked at the plan I got from town, it is right next to where the city water intake enters the home.
The windows overall are ok, some sash cord issues, very few cracks. The glass doesn't seem as old as what I'm used to in 1800's places, but it is true divided light for certain. One nice find was the linen closet in the hall my brain kept wanting to remember but I didn't remember actually seeing. It was an odd "all is right with the world" moment. I think I needed such after some of the plumbing discoveries.
Although the first floor ceilings are definitely plaster and seem in very good shape (no droops I could find), the 1/2 floor ceiling is likely asbestos tile.
We still are trying to find a way to get past the weird sticking point with the Selling Agent over either having the water turned on for inspection or handing over a disclosure as to why they keep refusing to do it. The latest excuse was they didn't want to pay to re-winterize it after, but as one person I happened to talk to that's also a realtor commented, "Why would you need to re-winterize it if the house will be sold based on that anyway?"
I am convinced the Selling Agent only wants an all usuals waivered cash buyer. I just need to figure out how to work around that.
Good Luck; I hope this all will work out for you! 
Thanks!
