this old house

Here is our lifelong project-or unless we go crazy before that. It was built in 1835 and remained in the same family- generation after generation - until we bought it. I did briefly meet the last couple in the family that lived here and loved them!

The wife was the one whose family had always owned it and the husband grew up in the house my ex-husband and I were renovating when we first moved. They stopped by one day and requested a little look around "to remember". The wife told me where they lived. So almost a decade later when R and I were looking at houses we drove through the city and saw this house for sale.

We knew right away that this was the best house for us. I asked the realtor about the couple and she confirmed that it was indeed the same couple. Sadly they passed away and their children could not move back here so sold it to us. They expressed their pleasure that we wanted it so badly and that it had some sentimental value to me as well...that I had even met their parents. There is a painting of the house (I'll post a picture another day) that I saw the first day, and although no one can tell me who actually painted it, in the lower right hand corner is my birth month and birth year. That actually gave me chills! I teased R that it was destiny :)

So we have put our blood, sweat and tears into this house and I mean literally. I have had to have stitches from a screwdriver that I accidentally drove through my chin while working on the kitchen window shutters. I pulled the tool out myself but had to have my teeth and chin worked on. Then I landed in the hospital with what they believe was bacterial meningitis after scraping tar off of the floor (they used it to hold down vinyl tile) . Always wear a mask, always wear a mask and always wear a mask. We've found snake skins, dogs in our cellar (live ones thankfully), heard horror stories about a caretaker who lived here who died in the house and whose body was found days later, etc. But everyone in this area loves this house and we often hear how much it means to people for us to be fixing it up. We love it, too...when we aren't pulling our hair out over it!