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| About Me: In 1997, after a prolonged stint in Eastern Europe, I took a job in Dallas, TX and started looking for my first real house. I had owned a 640 sq. foot condo in the Phoenix suburbs for years, but had never owned a house with a yard and a garage, where I could dig in the garden and play at refinishing furniture in the basement. That house hunt was a sort of voyage of discovery. I spent countless weekends looking at new construction all over the Dallas area, but couldn't quite get comfortable with the idea of spending a gazillion dollars for a house and then still having to shell out big bucks for landscaping. That led me to start looking more closely at established neighborhoods, and I soon discovered that the areas and structures that really appealed to me were the older neighborhoods with big old trees and early 20th century homes, many of which were being actively rehabilitated after years of neglect. Ultimately, I bought a mostly-restored 2-bedroom Arts & Crafts bungalow in the Historic District of McKinney, TX. But within days of closing on the house, and before I could even move in, I was offered a job in Moscow that was too good to pass up. Off I went. Two years later, after the Russian Ruble crashed, and with an 8-month detour through Johannesburg, RSA, I was back in the states looking for housing again - this time in Southern New England. The house I settled on was a 1915-ish 3-bedroom colonial in Milford, CT that had been carpeted in baby blue and had the most dilapidated, termite-eaten one-car garage ever seen. I had great plans for that house, but didn't get much further than ripping out carpet and painting the kitchen before the internet bubble popped and my day job found itself on very shaky ground. In September, 2001, immediately after 9/11, I was offered a nice stable job in NYC and found myself again looking for housing - this time within commuting distance from Lower Manhattan. Now, real estate in this part of the country is completely insane and trying to afford a single-family property on one income is a huge challenge. In order to afford to live close enough to work to have an actual life, I knew I would have to take on a house that needed a lot of work. Since that first house hunt in 1997, I've had visions of a grand old house with lots of charm, cool architectural detail and original windows. There's no doubt that I underestimated the amount of work that I was signing up for with this one, and there have certainly been times in the last couple of years that I've been ready to throw in the towel, slap a coat of paint on everything and call the nearest realtor, but then there are the times that I step back and really see the progress that's been made, and I know that I wouldn't have done a thing differently. |
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| About The House: The house on Coudert Place is a 4-bedroom, 2-bath cedar-shingled Colonial Revival built sometime between 1915 and 1920; local tax rolls don't have exact dates back that far. ... one of these days I'll get to doing all the title research to dig up names and dates. The house is unusual in this area as it was built with two full baths, and a 2-story side porch/sunroom - typical layout in this area was a 3- or 4-bedroom with a single full bath on the second floor and a single-story sunroom. The house was originally lit with both gas and electricity, and remains of original gas lines keep turning up as plaster is broken for electric work. The original six-over-one double-hung windows are nearly all still in place, and the third-floor bath contains the original claw foot tub and pedestal sink. The Dining Room is one of the few untouched spaces on the first floor, and still has elegant 5-piece ceiling moldings that hint at a much more formal time. At some point in 1963, the then owners (who shall remain nameless, for their own protection) saw fit to embark on a massive Remuddle that included closing up existing doorways, paneling entire rooms, ripping out all the trim, moldings, french doors, and fireplace mantel, a half-baked upgrade to the knob & tube wiring, and an extension of the then back porch to double the space in the 8'X8' unheated kitchen. Those responsible for the The Great Paneling Project of 1963 finally sold the property in about 1991 to the POs who sold to me in 2001. Again, their identities shall be protected, as they appear to have been responsible for covering most surfaces in every room but the kitchen and the second-floor bath in all manner of godawful hideous pink. While I fail to see the appeal in their decorating choices, they didn't do any more really bad stuff to the house. They also didn't believe in preventative maintenance and only fixed things when they broke - if they saw the problem. At closing, the light fixture over the front door was missing several panes of glass and contained a single yellow bug-away bulb. gah. As of this writing, the house still contains far more pink than I would choose, but it appears that the bulk of the damage has been identified and is either reversible or repairable. Progress is being made. |
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This page last updated on March 28, 2004. © 2004 PGE, Ltd., All Rights Reserved. |
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