A Diamond in the Rough

This blog will tell the story of how our 83 year old home was brought back to life.  I love all the charm and character that old homes have to offer, however, our family of five was in need of a more modern, open floor plan.  Some historic house lovers would probably balk at our renovation, but if we were going to live in that 83 year old house, it had to work for our family. We didn't painstakingly salvage each and every floorboard in our home, nor did we restore all the plaster walls.  Instead we hauled away seven, yes I said seven, giant dumpsters full of rubble so that we could start fresh.  I don't want to jump ahead of myself so here's how it all began.

After completely remodeling and adding onto our current house, we had been on the hunt for another house to renovate. When we first looked at this house (a year before we bought it), we loved the location, the space it offered, and the bones of the house.  However, the asking price was not so lovable.  The house needed a lot of attention.  Fortunately, it was the beginning of a buyer's market. Unfortunately, we still had a house to sell.  So after a year of waiting, we ended up snagging our dream house at a great price.  Nine months later, we sold our other house at an okay price.  Hey, you can't win them all, right?

For the next six months, our contractor and his team worked on bringing the life back to our old house.  Here are a few pictures of the house before.