We have found our building dept of the city/county has records of work done with a permit. I'd start there.
Diane

Very interested in your new old house. It was built about a year later than my hubby's Cape up in MA.

Tell me, which of the pictures shows the front entry? The second photo looks like it might be the back door, but I'm looking for the garage. That difference in elevation makes it appear there was once a driveway to the house and maybe a garage under the house.

However, the wedge shaped room makes me think that is the area which once had a kind of stair up from the garage, and had wood storage in that room.

To my knowledge, only if there were building permits taken out on the work would you find an official record of improvements. And maybe researching the taxed values through the years. It can get pretty interesting, and also you will get to know your neighbors if you go to them with your questions. Maybe they have photos which show your home from different views. Seek out the neighbor who has lived there the longest, and ask.

I see the location of at least one chimney in your home makes it a real Cape: opposite the front door. Your house seems to be the opposite to my hubby's house, since his kitchen was on the same end as the garage. But he also built a room over the garage, and then built up to create two bedrooms with a bath at the head of the stairs, and two small dormers (one in each bedroom) facing the street. He added a sunporch on the south end of the house, and there is no basement under that. But the rest of the house (except for the new 12x34' family room across the back) does have a fully finished basement.

Here is a recent photo I took after replacing all the foundation plants.

And this one shows the elevation from the garage/drive. The large window in the set-back room, now a dining room, was where the utility area and steps up from the garage were located originally.

More photos of our work on this MA Cape can be found in my Webshots album which I link below.

I think you have an exciting future in this house, as you turn it into your home.

Here is a link that might be useful: Massachusetts Cape Redo

Dian57, when I was learning about Capes, I discovered a really fantastic book which I recommend to you.

By Jane Gitlin, published by The Taunton Press in 2003.
Title: CAPES: DESIGN IDEAS FOR RENOVATING, REMODELING, AND BUILDING NEW. 218 PAGES, HARDCOVER.

It is a part of the Taunton Press' series called UPDATING CLASSIC AMERICA.

I bought my copy from Amazon.com Good bedtime reading!!
I asked hubby your best chance of finding the building history, and he said the same thing as powermuffin.

Another forum you may find helpful is THE SMALL HOUSE.

Moccasin: the top picture is the front of the house. Your house looks nearly identical! The garage door is below the main level (note the plywood doors) with the master BR above it. The garage and room are at an angle to the main house, hence the wedge room.

The second picture is the back. The wedge room has the white plastic on it. The PO dug out the yard against the house, perhaps to add an outside entry to the basement.

I've got a contractor all set to start fixing things up to code and a little bit of former grandeur.

There are two large rooms upstairs with enough room for a bathroom at the top of the stairs but, alas, no bathroom. Just one small bathroom (window to the right of the front door).

I have "before" pictures I can send you if you're interested. Thanks for the book referral. Your picture was the best treat of all--like looking into the future for the house.

Can't wait to get started.

Dian57, thank you for the compliment. My DH has lived in this cape for 45 years and they've grown old together. He has an abiding affection for it, since the improvements were done mostly by him personally.

One thing he contracted done was a replacement of the radiator heating system, and now it is a new baseboard heating system with several zones, but still oil fired.

I'm from Alabama, and folks tell me that the cape has a decided southern feel to it these days. But I love the style, in which I see the same look as a Cajun cottage minus the front porch. Nothing, to me, is quite as lovely as a well loved cape.

The PO may have had some ideas for a walkout basement, plus a deck or a real workshop back there. Is there a finished basement down near the garage level?

I would be interested in more pictures of your house, if you have any albums online. My albums are at Webshots.com but photobucket or tinypic.com is where lots of folks on Gardenweb go, so they can easily upload to the forums.

BTW, if your master bedroom has cold floors, due to an unheated space beneath it, when you have a chance to add insulation I'd put it there first thing. Or those heat strips like they put under bathroom tiles.

Be sure to indicate which direction the front door faces. Then I can work out the exposures in my head. Our front door faces WEST.

I haven't seen a bad book come out of Taunton press.

Dian, your pantry addon faces south, and that, to me, is a prime spot for something pretty to happen. Since it is adjacent to the kitchen, perhaps a builtin row of floor to ceiling closet-depth cabinets across the west end of this room would work for a pantry, and allow you to make a nice sunny breakfast room with a place for some container plants. If not the windows, then a good skylight could give a lot of light there. I realize most older homes up north are not air conditioned so an opening skylight could help remove heat from the kitchen area. And, if it should by chance leak, the damage would not be as critical to the entire house as a skylight over the main living areas would.

I think the wedge shape gives you home a distinctive quality, and it could be a very nice place for a desk and a reading chair. Of course, its use depends on what room the wedge leads to as you leave the MBedroom. And where are the windows on the MBedroom? I see none on the front wall and none on the back wall, so that means the windows are only on the Northern end? Is that a little cold? Of course it is true light, and artists like that, but this light gives very little warmth to the room. If you do not have closets on that back wall, I'd think about putting two separate windows in there. Space them apart, so you could maybe build in storage drawers on each side, in between, and under the windows, to give yourself a pair of window seats. This kind of project would depend on where the doorway from the wedge is located. Hopefully not right at the corner. :)

Slateberry, the Taunton Press did a fine job with the Cape book. I again read parts of it last night, as I thought about the similarities in our Cape and in Dian57s cape.
The fun in having a cape (if you keep your sense of perspective) is to not redo and get it over with, but to do and to do and to do again, in a progression of steps which fits the house around you as your family grows or changes.
Hubby built the two upstairs bedrooms with a bath at the top of the stairs when his two daughters started growing up. The room over the garage, a couple of steps up from the dining room level, turned into his son's room. Then he added the 12x34' family room across the back when the 3 kids were teens and needed space for their friends. His wife wanted a fireplace there, so he added that. He wanted a place to get away from the bustle of teens, and added the porch off the bedroom which we are now turning into a master suite with a walkin closet (already built) and a 3/4 bath which is not plumbed yet, but is adjacent to the original only bath on the main floor, at the head of the stairs coming up from the basement.

I would like to see a shed dormer extended toward the backyard, to make the upstairs larger, but with just the two of us, that is not a real objective. The tiny doghouse dormers on the front make the house look very authentic to the cape style. Not authentic is something I want for the front entry, which would be a covered entry, same angles as the gables of the dormers, just enough to give the entry some presence. To get the idea what it would look like, I've taken some digital photos of the house from the street, and then drawn the ideas over copies of the photo. I use PaintShopPro (not Photoshop, but that would work very well too).

Dian57, when you have more photos of your house, present or past, please link me to the album online or upload them here. There are so many options for these houses, depending on your needs and priorities, and it is exciting to work through it all.

What a sweet home!

I love this forum but for a really knowledgable and fast paced old house forum you can't beat the old house web. you might want to join :) We'll welcome you with bells and whatever else we've dug up in the basement...

Here is a link that might be useful: Wonderful resource

The true skinny on these houses plain and simple , they suck.
This was the precursor to the ranch, raised ranch or the the tri-level. There are a ton of them in my area, these were cheapos with no fore site. The only thing you can do to these for expansion is blow the roof off. The builders were allowed to balloon frame this structure, to build a small house.I'll be honest I live in a 50 year old house, not a cape . I would easily trade for my old 125 year old house any day(sans neighborhood). Seems these people knew a little bit more about functionality and practicality.

Love cape cods, i Just bougt one this past 2010 spring, and gutted it, 7-20yard dump boxes... all is new now, no wasted space, plenty of room for My wife and 2 little girls.. mine wasent soo old 1962, but sure needed some TLC, and it got it ...anyone want to see pic's drop me a note.. I rebuilt this house in 7 weeks...

Bob, I would love to see before, during and after pictures of your house. Please post as many as you can.

Our Cape is nearly done except for some exterior cosmetic work. Once the snow melts I'll take some pictures of my own.