To Build, Remodel, or Rebuild a House

When my husband and I decided to buy a house, we both agreed that we didn't want to borrow money to buy or build a house, or remodel a house. It took us a few months to find the best possible location. It's true what they say: location, location, location!  We wanted to be close to our grandchildren and a little out of town but not so far out of town that we had to drive a substantial distance. We found several older homes but the prices were more than we were willing to pay because each of the older houses that we looked at needed huge amounts of work. We finally settled on a pretty large piece of land that also had three small buildings and one house.  The buildings were in bad shape and the house was in such a mess we had considered just plowing it down.

Another reason we bought this particular piece of property was because we got it for 13000 dollars, and the land was well worth that much.  We thought we would repair the house enough for us to live in long enough for us to build another house on the property.  A friend of ours, who is also a structural engineer, said that even though the floor was weak in places, the walls were solid wood on both the inside and outside and that the wood was good wood. He said if we decided to demolish the house, we could probably get a lot of money for the boards because he said they were probably over 150 years old and from what he had seen after we removed the sheetrock were in excellent shape. It was the first time I had ever heard the name ship lap and tongue and groove. He thought ours was tongue and groove.  The wood underneath all the coverings is beautiful. We learned that it had been salvaged from an old elementary school and that the school was built in 1901 and torn down in 1960.

It's been two months since we began the remodeling or rebuilding, depending upon who is describing our venture, and we are about ready to move in.  We have rebuilt the floor from the floor joists up, and we have added some support to one of the load bearing walls by jacking the walls up a bit and putting support boards underneath, we did put heavy sheets of plastic in the crawl space to keep it all dry, rewired the house, added new pipes, and have tiled the bathroom and fitted it with new sink and toilet. Of course we did buy new windows, doors, and have put a temporary siding on it. After we move in, we are putting the foundation down for the new kitchen, washer/dryer room, craft room, and  new bedrooms and bathrooms.  We set an amount of money that we were willing to invest into this old house and so far we have stayed way under budget because we are doing most of the work ourselves. The last phase of this project will be to brick it and then do some much needed landscaping. But, for the time being, we will be living in a 700 sq. ft. house with three cats....this will be a total piece of cake.

The picture is one of many that I've taken and I'll post the before and after when we are finished.