Tweet
Work? Probably the biggest project I will ever tackle in my lifetime... aside from kids. hahahha
I bought this house (about 100 years old), and it needs a TON of work. So I took some photo's so everyone can see what I'm up against. Over time, I'll add more pictures to this thread to show how things are coming along.... which could be over several years.
The first photo is the front of the house. Note the steep roof peaks I have. Yes... roofing is going to be a pain in some areas. Also see on the right side there, where it cuts off? Nothing really missing in the photo, as it's just an over hang roof, which I'll get to in a minute. See that little dorky porch thing? Thats gotta go! hahahah What I plan on doing is removing that (almost completely), and going with a full porch from the left side of that little box, all the way to the right. I want to put a roof on the porch that has a peak, instead of the slant-style roof that the existing little porch has. Then, where that window is, up top, all by itself in the little peak.... I'm going to replace that with an oval window. This will help ad some 'round' feature to the house... like a nice 'finishing touch' to the front side. In addition, there will be yet another very small roof sticking out from that porch, on the left side where the front door is, to help add depth. Again, that little part of the porch will have a peaked roof instead of the flat thing that's there now. Wish I could find a picture to better explain it tho...
Another picture of the front, a little bit closer. You can see where the paint needs to be done again, but it would be a waste as you can tell the old siding is cracked in several places. All of the siding needs to be replaced, not to mention the windows. The poor ancient windows are not very weather proof anymore, and lots of moisture gets in during the right conditions. Notice those top windows there.... Well, they almost touch the floor in the second story. So I want to completely remove those, and put in new windows that are a bit shorter, and wider. Combined with a new larger, more efficient window on the main floor there, we think the overall look will be real nice. (sorry guys, had to delete this image as the forum only allows me to post four... so onto the next subject)
The next one is nothing special, but you can see yet another set of problems I face. This wall is the North side. The right side there is where the living room is (where the big window is located in that last picture I just posted). The left side is the main bedroom. In the middle, you can see where some siding was patched in, and some concrete 'steps to no where' still remain. This used to be the front door. I think the previous owners plans were correct by moving the front door where they did, as it makes for a much nicer, robust look from the 'new' front. On this side you can see that I'm missing a gutter, and of course more paint is chipping. Also notice that the left side isn't very big (where the master bedroom is). Yes, this is going to get added to, so we can enjoy a normal bedroom size. Gotta remember that back in those days, people didn't usually have large room sizes, unless they had money. So we're probably going to add another ten feet or so to make it worth it.
The next photo displays the back of the house. That part that sticks out on the left side, at one time, was an open porch. Then on the right of that is the master bath, and guest bath. The porch was walled in and sealed to make a more even look to the back. Not a terrible job, however.... that roof on the porch runs rather high, and we're not totally fond of the whole slanted roof thing in the first place. After we make our addition, what we want to do is move the back door (in the next photo) to the middle-left of that section sticking out. Then, install a deck, which will meet up with the new wall coming out from the addition on the right side for the bedroom. We believe this will really flesh out the back side and make it much more eye appealing. Also, need to add a nicer roof line for that lower level, but not quite sure what we're going to do there. Just might consider some small windows for the bathrooms too, as the wall just seems really blank looking. Oh.. almost forgot.... Notice how there is no paint pealing from that section sticking out? Well, in the previous owners infanent wisdom, they figured "Hey, if we're going to put siding on this, why don't we make it permanent siding... and GRAY, just like the rest of the house." Uhg.. I'm so sick of gray, I could shoot myself. So all of that needs to get torn off anyways. (the camera was crooked... the house isn't THAT bad. hahahha)
Next, we have the view from the driveway, to the south side of the house where the existing back door is located. We want to move that back door (as previously stated), so that people don't always come to the... back door. We wanna force them to the front, where we can WOW them when they walk in and see everything we've done on the inside (thats a story for another thread). But besides the back door getting moved, we have the problem of that old basement entry there. It's ugly. A complete eyesore! When we do the front porch, we want to wrap it to this side, just a little. Then wall over that big slant thing. That way everything looks a little more flush. The downside is, we might be coming awfully close to the kitchen window, which would kinda throw things off a bit. But it's the best solution we can think of at the moment. We WISH we could move the basement stairs, but without adding onto the house some where (really expensive), we don't see any other viable options. The inside of the house doesn't allow for the stairs to be moved. And if it did, the old hand-dug basement will have to go under some serious renovations to accommodate the new stair placement. Oh yeah... remember that over hang I spoke of? Well, this part of the roof, up top where it meets the house, comes almost to the bottom of that window. Kind of annoying. So we wanna replace that roof (which happens to wrap around the house to the right), with something a bit more low-key. This will make the second story look a bit larger from the outside. Why on earth the previous owner did this is completely beyond me, but either way... it's gotta go!
Other than that, all I have left is the garage....
Nothing to really tell about the garage. It's fricking HUGE, which makes me happy of course. It's about 30' x 45'. So I'll have plenty of room to put all my toys in the future.
Thats about it... wish me luck everyone, and I'll be checking in often. If you've got some tips on anything that I missed, or something that I could do better on, let me know! Me and the wife have spent a TON of time on trying to figure out what we're going to do here.
I bought this house (about 100 years old), and it needs a TON of work. So I took some photo's so everyone can see what I'm up against. Over time, I'll add more pictures to this thread to show how things are coming along.... which could be over several years.
The first photo is the front of the house. Note the steep roof peaks I have. Yes... roofing is going to be a pain in some areas. Also see on the right side there, where it cuts off? Nothing really missing in the photo, as it's just an over hang roof, which I'll get to in a minute. See that little dorky porch thing? Thats gotta go! hahahah What I plan on doing is removing that (almost completely), and going with a full porch from the left side of that little box, all the way to the right. I want to put a roof on the porch that has a peak, instead of the slant-style roof that the existing little porch has. Then, where that window is, up top, all by itself in the little peak.... I'm going to replace that with an oval window. This will help ad some 'round' feature to the house... like a nice 'finishing touch' to the front side. In addition, there will be yet another very small roof sticking out from that porch, on the left side where the front door is, to help add depth. Again, that little part of the porch will have a peaked roof instead of the flat thing that's there now. Wish I could find a picture to better explain it tho...
Another picture of the front, a little bit closer. You can see where the paint needs to be done again, but it would be a waste as you can tell the old siding is cracked in several places. All of the siding needs to be replaced, not to mention the windows. The poor ancient windows are not very weather proof anymore, and lots of moisture gets in during the right conditions. Notice those top windows there.... Well, they almost touch the floor in the second story. So I want to completely remove those, and put in new windows that are a bit shorter, and wider. Combined with a new larger, more efficient window on the main floor there, we think the overall look will be real nice. (sorry guys, had to delete this image as the forum only allows me to post four... so onto the next subject)
The next one is nothing special, but you can see yet another set of problems I face. This wall is the North side. The right side there is where the living room is (where the big window is located in that last picture I just posted). The left side is the main bedroom. In the middle, you can see where some siding was patched in, and some concrete 'steps to no where' still remain. This used to be the front door. I think the previous owners plans were correct by moving the front door where they did, as it makes for a much nicer, robust look from the 'new' front. On this side you can see that I'm missing a gutter, and of course more paint is chipping. Also notice that the left side isn't very big (where the master bedroom is). Yes, this is going to get added to, so we can enjoy a normal bedroom size. Gotta remember that back in those days, people didn't usually have large room sizes, unless they had money. So we're probably going to add another ten feet or so to make it worth it.
The next photo displays the back of the house. That part that sticks out on the left side, at one time, was an open porch. Then on the right of that is the master bath, and guest bath. The porch was walled in and sealed to make a more even look to the back. Not a terrible job, however.... that roof on the porch runs rather high, and we're not totally fond of the whole slanted roof thing in the first place. After we make our addition, what we want to do is move the back door (in the next photo) to the middle-left of that section sticking out. Then, install a deck, which will meet up with the new wall coming out from the addition on the right side for the bedroom. We believe this will really flesh out the back side and make it much more eye appealing. Also, need to add a nicer roof line for that lower level, but not quite sure what we're going to do there. Just might consider some small windows for the bathrooms too, as the wall just seems really blank looking. Oh.. almost forgot.... Notice how there is no paint pealing from that section sticking out? Well, in the previous owners infanent wisdom, they figured "Hey, if we're going to put siding on this, why don't we make it permanent siding... and GRAY, just like the rest of the house." Uhg.. I'm so sick of gray, I could shoot myself. So all of that needs to get torn off anyways. (the camera was crooked... the house isn't THAT bad. hahahha)
Next, we have the view from the driveway, to the south side of the house where the existing back door is located. We want to move that back door (as previously stated), so that people don't always come to the... back door. We wanna force them to the front, where we can WOW them when they walk in and see everything we've done on the inside (thats a story for another thread). But besides the back door getting moved, we have the problem of that old basement entry there. It's ugly. A complete eyesore! When we do the front porch, we want to wrap it to this side, just a little. Then wall over that big slant thing. That way everything looks a little more flush. The downside is, we might be coming awfully close to the kitchen window, which would kinda throw things off a bit. But it's the best solution we can think of at the moment. We WISH we could move the basement stairs, but without adding onto the house some where (really expensive), we don't see any other viable options. The inside of the house doesn't allow for the stairs to be moved. And if it did, the old hand-dug basement will have to go under some serious renovations to accommodate the new stair placement. Oh yeah... remember that over hang I spoke of? Well, this part of the roof, up top where it meets the house, comes almost to the bottom of that window. Kind of annoying. So we wanna replace that roof (which happens to wrap around the house to the right), with something a bit more low-key. This will make the second story look a bit larger from the outside. Why on earth the previous owner did this is completely beyond me, but either way... it's gotta go!
Other than that, all I have left is the garage....
Nothing to really tell about the garage. It's fricking HUGE, which makes me happy of course. It's about 30' x 45'. So I'll have plenty of room to put all my toys in the future.
Thats about it... wish me luck everyone, and I'll be checking in often. If you've got some tips on anything that I missed, or something that I could do better on, let me know! Me and the wife have spent a TON of time on trying to figure out what we're going to do here.