It's coming along

14 years ago

I bought an old house from a house mover's lot. It had been sold six (or maybe more) years previously, but it never got moved because the guy who bought it, went to prison. We bought it from the convict's sister for $15,000...probably could have gotten it for a lot less. The moving had already been paid for on it.

This is it from the house mover's website. They called it a 1900's farm house. It was the foreman's house on a large ranch near here, built out of debris left over from the 1900

Galveston hurricane that more or less wiped out the island.

Here it is as we cut out and rebuild some of the rot that occurred when the original porch was torn off, to move the house from the ranch to the mover's lot.

Considering that it was somewhat warped from being cut in half for so many years, they did a good job of putting it back together. This is the ceiling.

Here it is with the front porch added on and ready to be roofed. The old shingles (4 layers!) were removed, down to the wood, repaired wood and put on tar paper.

They are putting up the soffits today.

We also added on a large sunporch in the back and a mud room off the kitchen. It is a lot of work and lots more to go, and maybe my friend was right when he said that when you buy a house to be moved, you are just buying someone else's floorplan....you have to tear out and rebuild just about everything...but it is a very solid old house. Most of the floor joists are 3 x 12's. It looks bad now...but it's coming along.

Comments (8)

marilyn_c
Original Author
14 years ago
Some of the things I love about it...the divider between the living and dining rooms. This pic was made before we removed the old drywall and wallpaper.

Also love this glassed in pantry. The kitchen is being enlarged, so this will be moved across the room from where it is now.

It's a plain, old house, so it doesn't have a lot of distinguishing features like many old houses. It does have very good wood floors tho.
kimkitchy
14 years ago
What an undertaking! I like the divider and the built in pantry too. Also, I like your windows and it looks like it may have original light fixtures. So did our house, which I've always thought was fortunate. We found a wiz of a restorer who rewired the fixtures and buffed out the old finish beautifully. Good luck with it and thanks for posting here. I love to look at other people's projects. Keep us posted and hang in there, it will, without doubt, be a long haul.
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concretenprimroses
14 years ago
What an interesting project. It looks like a very nice house. I like the features you have pointed out and the double windows as well.
kathy
sunnyca_gw
14 years ago
Love the porch!! The divider between rooms is just like 1st house we rented when we got married. Put dining table on 1 side & double bed on other side(for guests) $60 a mo. ladylady charged us. We raised it to $65, taxes had jumped & she didn't raise anyone's rent. We were both working, other folks that had the little houses (6 of them & landlady's large house at back)they were all retired & in poor health, 1 lady had so little that we actually set carefully wrapped "garbage" for her so she could get it out of trash can & eat it. They were neat little houses & she begged us to stay there when we wanted to start a family. We didn't & bought a new house. Enjoy your house.When you put so much into it it means a lot more. We insulated ours & stained mop boards etc so we got closer to what we wanted in a house than builder provided.
jaybird
14 years ago
Girl it's lookin' good!!!! I am so happy that you finally got what you wanted and it is working out for you!
J
plantmasterm
14 years ago
Hi Marilyn...love what you're doing with the house, are you doing all the work yourself? I too have an older home that needs renovation work, but I've had the worst luck with contractors trying to take advantage of me..I said renovation I should've said total rebuild..Im really at a point of trying to do most of if not all the work myself
marilyn_c
Original Author
14 years ago
My husband isn't very good at carpentry...(plus, he works on a towboat, so he is gone for two or three weeks at a time) so we are hiring almost everything. The guy doing it tho, came highly reccommended and remodeled my friend's house. The metal for the roof is due to be delivered tomorrow. Once that is done, and the siding (Hardi), we will have to stop and save up another chunk of money to do the work inside, but at least the worst part should be over. We have already removed all the old drywall and wallpaper and refinished all the windows.

Just before the house was moved, I fell and broke my arm, and I have had a very bad result with the way it healed. It has left me unable to do almost anything, except with one hand. I can use my fingers, somewhat, but the bone shifted and it looks like my hand was cut off and sewn on crooked.
It is extremely painful. So, I can't do much, and that is
a real pain!
plantmasterm
14 years ago
OMG you poor thing..sorry to hear about your mishap..I had plaster walls and they've just about all been taken down.. now I wonder if I should've left them standing, I made the dicision based on the fact that I had no insulation at all