I took on a new job in a city about 100 miles away from my home,so I have been looking for a new home closer to work.I saw an old,and I mean old house,all boarded up,with a for sale sign posted on the front.So I call the number.An old man answers the phone and tells me that he was born in that house in 1912!I ask him if I can see it inside,he says sure,but be prepared because nobody has lived in it for over 30 years!I meet him there,he opens the door,and we take a step back in time!First,into the kitchen,where he tells me to look at the new stove,yup its new looking,but its 40years old!He says his dad bought it for mom,but she hated that new contraption and rarely used it!Then we go into the formal dining room,which looked like something out of Gone with the Wind!Kind of spooky too,table and chairs all sitting there with an inch of dust on them,just waiting for someone to come to dinner.Then on to the parlor,when was the last time you even heard the word parlor?The old man tells me,I remember when I was a little boy,the preacher would ride up in his horse and buggy and mom would invite him into the parlor where none of us kids were allowed to go,and dad would go hide in the carriage house!I look at the windows in the parlor,two are busted (stupid kids with rocks)They all have pictures etched into the glass,some just around the border,but one had this beautiful picture of a scene with a couple of deer on a hillside.The old man tells me,his dad had a guy come all the way from chicago in the 20`s just to etch the windows and that he stayed with them for a couple of months while he did his work.Alot of them were lost from kids throwing rocks after the house was abandonded.BUMMER!Then we go down into the basement,which he called the cellar.He says he remembers when he was little,his dad,who made cement block for a living,didnt like the small cellar that was originally field stone,so he lifted the whole house 8ft in the air,dug out under it,and put in a cement block basement!This is amazing!We are talking about a huge,two story farm house,back in the days before heavy equiptment was even heard of!While in the basement,I look over and see a huge square block about 5ftx5ft and about 4ft high with a lid on it and a pipe coming out at the bottom.I ask,what is that?He says,Back in the days when it was illegal to have booze his dad would make his own beer,and this is his storage container,he had it all rigged up so that if the revenue man came knocking while dad was anywhere in the house or barn,all dad had to do was pull a lever and 60gallons of beer would go down the drain.He said his dad was real popular with the local men folk,wonder why?Hehe.The whole house still has the original trim with 10in baseboards that are solid wood with not one knot in them.The house is full of antiques,like an old pinball machine that was invented long before electricity!I went through the whole house attic to basement,the superstructure is fine,but there are a couple of bad spots in the roof that leak and ruined most of the wetplaster so naturally a regular mortgage is out of the question.But if I can get past that hurdle I am going to buy it.If I do,I will figure a way to make a photo library of before,during,and after I restore it.I gotta have it!!!!!!

 

Excellent description...I felt like I was walking through the house on a tour!
It sound VERY exciting!!! Best of Luck with it...

Regards,
Scott

 

SWEEEET. I love old houses, just so much history in them and they always make you wonder, "what happened in this room?" or "I wonder if anyone was killed/born, in this room", stuff like that. I think you should get it and restore it.
How much land is it on? What about the barn? If the barn is still there you could make an AWESOME wood and auto shop in it.

 

Sounds like a real find. Start watching HGTV, This Old House, and all those fixer up shows, might give you some help on the renovations.

.....How about a FTE fixer up weekend. Everybody from the forum comes over and starts cleaning, painting, hammering, spackling, floating, sanding.......... etc.

 

Very good story, can't wait to see the photo library.

Jens

 

Are you crazy?

I'm to lazy!!!!


OHHHHH, Its for King Triton? OK, I'm game!!

 

tha sounds awesome. Ive always wanted to live in an old house but that doesnt go well with the parents. Man that would be fun on haloween and after dances...

 

That sounds like a lot of work King. A mobile home on a couple of acres comes to mind.

 

I looked at a house like that. Built at the turn of the last century. Tin ceiling in the kitchen, walkup attic, basement with two horse stalls. It was an estate sale and it looked like you were still there in the 30s. All the furniture was still there. Everything was neat and clean. I wanted to make an offer but it had no yard. It had 13 feet of land surrounding the house and that was it. Later I bought another 19th century farmhouse on 3/4 acre.

 

You're from Michigan, right? Whereabouts is this joint? (so I can sneak in ahead of you and buy it!)

 

My life is an episode of "This Old House"... 1831. We have the history of our house on my home page www.bentheyre.com Right now the front half of the house is just recovering from new windows, new front door, totally gutted the dining room and installed radiant heat in the floor. The heat in the floor was one of these bright ideas (after a bottle of wine) that it would be really cool to make the dining room look like it did in 1850. And of course there were no hot water baseboards at that time soooo they had to goooo!! Little did we know it was going to take a 30 yard dumpster to get rid of the plaster and lath from the walls and three layers of ceiling.

 

Nice house,and real cool website!Wish I could afford 6,000,000 acres!Even with a partner!

 

Vansoutriding (Ben),

Very Nice Life...enjoyed the website and love the history!

Regards,
Scott

 

I tore out the plaster and lathe from the two bedrooms and hallway upstairs in our house.
That was a mell of a hess!
I recommend getting a full face respirator if you have to tear out plaster.
The easiest way I found to do it was to hit the walls repeatedly with the broad side of a hamer to break the plaster 'keys' holding the plaster to the lathe, then it would come off in big chunks.
It took FOREVER to get all the little nails that held the lathe!

 

The best thing I have ever used to remove plaster from lathe is a shingle stripper.I can strip a whole wall in a few minutes.And yes I wear a respirator and I put a hi powered fan in one of the windows pointing out to help with the dust cloud I create.