1989 I sold my Mom's house. My dad built it and he built hundreds of houses and other buildings so it wasn't a flake job. Preping and selling that house was an adventure. I was 2500 miles from home, took time from work, time was evaporaing fast.

Had to rewire it - took one day - The line to the garage hung so low you could reach up and grab it - since 1920 - they buried that. I think the oil tank had to be removed. A radator was removed from the bathroom - don't understand that. A toilet was removed from the basement - don't know why, "That has to go." etc etc. Replaced a lot of iron pipe with copper. The trash burner.

What scared me most was going upstairs you went up turned right up 3 more stairs into a dormer then right again about 8 feet into the big upstairs room. Well the inspector said that dormer wasn't high enough but he'd let it go. Good grief my brother was 6'2" and had no trouble. Can you imagine raising that 1920 dormer a foot? With the original shingles still on the house?

I just kept my mouth shut and stuffed $20 bills in pockets whenever the opportunity arose. Overall cost about $5000. Not too bad.

Well here's a couple things might be fun reading:

I got back there with snow on the ground. It melted some and a sheet of metal came to light. I tossed it. Turned out my mom had had the trim aluminum clad and this was a piece that blew off so had to be replaced. An outfit came out and guv me a price of $400 to bend and fab a new 6' piece. I told the guy flat out that was a standard roof shape and he was robbing me cause I was in a bind. Well!

He said come outside. I did. He said look at all the houses around - do you see any 2 that are alike? I did not. He said look at my truck with 2 guys working the job did I think that was cheap? I said come on in and have some coffee while I write you a check. :-)

I had the locks changed. Called the nearest locksmith just a couple blocks away. An old guy must have been 85 come over. Well the house originally had the old 3 tumbler locks what you'd call skeleton keys but had subsequently had Corbin locks installed.
This old guy told me he had put those locks in and it had been his first job as a locksmith. He further informed me that changing the locks today would be his last job as a locksmith cause he was retiring as soon as he got done. About 65 years full circle.

There was plastic tile around the tub in the bathroom circa late 1940's. Some tiles were gone. I found one outfit in town that had any after all these years and gottem. Rong color but I gottem. I juggled around and devised a symetrical replacement pattern then had to glue them on. Not so fast. The plastic tiles need special cement. I called all over town and found one guy that had some left over after all these years.

He showed up with a 5 gallon bucket with a tiny ammount of glue in it. He managed to scrape enough out of that bucket to JUST get those 9 tiles mounted. He told me that was the absolute last that he knew existed.

Upstairs there was a small rug about 2' X 4' Grey colored I used to stand on while getting dressed. Winter floors are cold in MN don't cha know. Well the broker took one look at that and said, "Hide that thing!" Why? it's just a damned old rug? Well it was a lime washed rug (what ever that means) and it sold for $1000. Not a typo - One Thousand Dollars.

I was born and lived in that huose the first 24 years of my life. At the end it sure looked different with nothing in it.

This post was edited by mxyplx on Tue, Aug 19, 14 at 0:37