From 1941 to 1915 - Hiding the new AC

[Nicholas]

Greetings all. Glad to have found this place. I love old homes, and restoring with quality, to the best of my abilities, to keep intact the originality. So this is what happened.

We sold our home in Ft Laud, were renting, and wanted to relocate. We discovered this little town near Tampa full of old homes, Craftsmans, some Foursquares and Victorians. We wanted an older home, and we discovered one that the tax roll said was built in 1941. Its a FannyMae Homepath property, not quite as old as I wanted, but an interesting looking small home. it needed some work. I liked the large lot and the woods in back, the barn, and the house "looked old", there were clues to its age.

We turned it down at first, and the next day someone put an offer in. So we kept looking, hard to do when you are 300 miles away. A month later, the 1941 home is back on the market. We look again and discussed it...there was something interesting about this house that I am not sure about. We decide to go for it, a cash offer. Accepted.

Then I find out from a neighbor that the kitchen is part of the original home, built in the early 1900s. Huh??

I start my research, examine the clues in and around the house, got in touch with a local historian, as well as one of the people that was actually born in the house, who told me it was her grandmothers house. The neighbor had it wrong.

It was the kitchen and back room, as well as the bathroom that was added in 1941. Even the barn is old, it was built in 1920.

The history: The house was built in January of 1915 as a small cottage, sold to a well known area family in 1920, (the grandmother) whose daughter married, and proceeded to raise 8 children in a house that until 1941, had no bathroom, but had an outhouse way in back of the property. Including grandma, there were 11 people living in this house.

Needless to say, I was thrilled. We got a great deal on a house that was undervalued. We did need to stabilize the foundation, and replace 21 windows, and remodel the bath, complete with aqua green 1940s tub....a tough sell for wife, but it was in great shape and now looks good with remodel.

With all of that we still came in under budget. The home has the original tongue and groove wood beadboard for walls, very little drywall. Also has its original cedar shiplap siding. It has had some upgrades, electric, newer roof, expensive hardwood flooring over the original.

Unfortunately it is missing its original interior doors, except for one, a smurf closet door in one of the bedrooms. And the original wood windows were converted to 1970s era jalousies. Half of the porch was closed in sometime in the late 90's, used to be the whole width of the house, to expand a bedroom.

Here are exterior before (the actual real estate ad photo) and after pics. More later.

[nlswitz]

Welcome. Cute house. My house was built the same year and I've spent the last 21 months getting rid of the 50s in the living and dining rooms. I hope all goes well for you.

[Neighmond]

Alooha! Such a house! You'll have fun making it up right!

[Nicholas]

Thanks for the welcome and peek.

Here is a peek inside.

[Nicholas]

Bathroom: The gut, the bad, and the not so ugly.

As I said before, the house was sagging on one side, and we had foundation experts level it up. They told me that when the bath was put in, the walls underneath were not supported properly. So when you went into the bathroom, you were kind of running down hill.

So now with foundation ok, we did the windows first, and the bath which was just finished last week.

The first pic is from the realty ad. we were going to get rid of the green peeling tub, but I spent a whole day stripping and scraping, and discovered it was in really good shape. Keeping it was a tough sell to wife, who still isn't totally convinced, but is happy with the outcome.

The second pic shows the removal of soggy, moldy drywall behind the ceramic tile, a lot of which fell off when the house was jacked up. Also note the soggy, moldy masonite tile board that was under the tile. The floor had peeling roll linoleum.

Finally finished, green tub and all. We removed the plaster and exposed the original wood on one wall on the sink side, to tie in with the character of the interior. I got a tile guy to help me with the bath alcove wall, and for the floor I did the Stainmaster groutable self stick linoleum. Note: The floor tile color is actually more of a gray with a hint of tan, don't know why it came out more tan in the photo.

Total cost for this remodel: less than 700 dollars.

[nlswitz]

Nice job on the bathroom. It's nice to get through something...

[Powermuffin]

I love that tub!!! Looks very pretty with white.
Your house looks a lot like mine. Ours is a 1908 version; roof is steeper, same shot-gun type arrangement of the rooms. Our trim is different, but same cased openings.

Welcome to Wavy Glass.
Diane

[Nicholas]

Diane,

Thank you for the welcome!

I can't wait to tell my wife, what you said about the tub. She hated it, and still may. She was semi sold on it when I showed her what others did online, with the white. She just bought a nice white with silver trim shower curtain, with a sheer top above the liner that allows light from the window.

We were at a party about a week ago, and a friend of hers looked at a picture and said "that tub has to go". So I got a couple of other friends to go up to her and say "I heard about your green tub, I think its awesome"...while I watched from the other side of the room with an innocent look on my face.....

I tried searching, couldn't find a picture of your house, do you have one somewhere?

[Nicholas]

My shameful side:

Yes, I was ashamed to show this side of this simple home. But now I can, because I just finished it today. It has to do with what I now call "The Group Of Four'.

When we bought the house, I saw trouble here, four windows in a row, sagging, a tree practically growing from under the house.

I cut down the tree and other growth, and started investigating, by pulling off the badly damaged and stained cedar siding. I have no idea what was holding these windows in place. The studs on the bottom, and some between the windows, badly termite damaged, as well as the sill plate.

To make matters worse, Mr. CodeInspector, who was supposed to look at the foundation on the other side, decides to take a walk around the house, and says I need a permit. Fortunately, he didn't cite me or put in a stop work order. So I cooled out for awhile.

Meanwhile Lowes was able to do the rest, this side needed too much work and couldn't be measured properly.

To make a long story short, I ordered the four at a generic size, and over this past few days, replaced sill plate with PT, reframed and restudded under the windows with PT and hurricane ties in key places, and installed these four myself, using the tapcon screws per code. I salvaged as much cedar as possible, made up the difference with pine 105 shiplap

So here is the before, what Mr.CodeInspector saw, and the finale. I am now going to mix a Scotch with Alka Seltzer, because I am out of club soda.

[Gothichome]

Nicholas, the good thing is you saved the building, others may have wrote it off. Well done, it certainly looks a lot claener down that side of the home. Removing all that vegetation is also a major benefit. It should never be allowed so close to a structure.