The seller countered our offer with one that is 98% of the present asking price - rather considerably outside our budget. This does not bode well. Our offer remains open for a couple weeks, so there's still a chance. I don't think there's a huge chance, with things as they are right now, that there will be a better offer, it's just a matter of whether they'll actually take the best offer when the bidding period ends.
We're still looking elsewhere, but not nearly so hard. The question in my mind is only as to whether I can convince my wife that we really want to take on the enormous project of doom.
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A contributing structure in the Shaker Village Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places historic district.
Built 1926 by Richard U. Collier.
Designed by architect William A. Bingham.
Fixing a house in a city where the idea of a fixer-upper is a foreign concept. Navigating laws that seem to ignore the possibility of owners doing their own repair work. Illustrating interesting homes for sale in the city. We'd planned on buying a major fixer-upper, and then the house of our dreams appeared. There will still be projects, yes, but they'll be more of the "detail" type and less of the "how are we going to make dinner without a functioning kitchen" type.
Our house
A contributing structure in the Shaker Village Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places historic district.
Built 1926 by Richard U. Collier.
Designed by architect William A. Bingham.
Our Vegetable Garden
House Parts Want List (any condition, any time)
- birdbath basin, for exterior garage wall
- faucet handles, Republic brand or historically approprate mixer valve for master bath shower
- Faucets and handles for sinks, porcelain, wide spread mixer, 1920s vintage, three sets
- Fireback to fit fireplace
- Garage doors, wood, similar to original
- Glass push plates for swinging door
- Hinges, standard, to match existing for French doors in library
- hinges, wide throw, Stanley "sweetheart" for French doors
- kitchen cabinets, steel, Lyon - especially trim pieces
- Radiator, tall and skinny, for master bathroom
- Sandstone, to replace broken on front sidewalk
- Screen and storm doors for front and back doors, wood
- Shower door, historically appropriate, for master bath, or appropriate shower curtain rod
- Sink, corner, for basement bathroom
- Spouts and handles for tubs, two sets
- Telephone nook
- Tile, white, 4x4, flat glaze, to match existing in guest bathroom
- Tile, white, 6x6, flat glaze, to match existing in bathrooms
- Toilet, Trenton Potteries (TePeCo) SiWelClo, circa 1920
- Windows, steel casement, to match existing, for parts
About Me
- Christopher Busta-Peck
- I'm a children's librarian at the Cleveland Public Library in Cleveland, Ohio. I have one lovely wife, three awesome turtles, a cat, and a son, Everett. I will be chronicling my adventures in fixing up a Tudor style house in Shaker Heights.
Followers
Other houseblogs I read
- 1620 Timber Frame
- 1889 Bay-and-Gable Victorian
- 1914 Craftsman
- 1920 Foursquare
- 1928 Tudor
- Area House
- Box House, The
- Bytown House
- Chicago Two-Flat
- City Homestead
- College Hill House
- Comedy of Errors, A
- Damn You Stickley Bungalow!
- De-Victorianization on Division
- Degrees of Gray
- Dreams and Dust
- eMpTy Bungalow
- Enon Hall
- FarmHouse Poor
- Farmicology
- Finger Lakes Notes
- Four Mile House
- Foxcroft
- Front Porch Indiana
- Fulmer House
- Hauser Haus
- Healy House, The
- House in Progress
- House of 42 Doors
- House on Red Hill, The
- houseblogs.net
- Imirie's Landing
- Irvington Bungalow
- Keepin' It Real
- King Street Farm
- L. Norris Hall House
- Little House That Needs a Lot of Work, A
- Making of a Craftsman Home, The
- Oh, Bungalow
- Our Big Yellow House
- Over North
- Pecan Place
- Perpetual Renovator
- Petch House, The
- Plain Jane Victorian
- Rural Renovation Records and Revelations
- Seven Ten Clark
- Shane and Casey
- South Side Craftsman
- StuccoHouse
- This Decrepit Victorian
- This Old Crack House
- Westview Bungalow
- Woodbury House
Resources for future reference
- Buffalo ReUse
- Menyhart Plumbing
- Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit
- Dargate Auction House, Pittsburgh
- Toledo Architectural Artifacts
- Dalys - custom stain matching!
- Subway Ceramics
- Bathroom Machineries
- Historic Houseparts
- Plumbing - Pasadena Architectural Salvage
- Vintage Plumbing
- Guttersupply.com
2 comments:
Good luck!
I always thought when I was younger I wanted to rehab an old Victorian. But age -- and all the experience with this Cape Cod bungalow has convinced me otherwise. :-)
A Victorian? That would be nice. But the work, oh the work - Victorians must be the most expensive style of American architecture to work on. (Or at least most time consuming.)
If we did get the rehabber, I'd hire a general contractor to do a bunch of the work before we moved in - replacing the missing plumbing, electrical work, and a fair amound of the structural work involved in joining the two halves.
I feel that I only want to put this insane amount of work into one house. At this point in time, I can actually afford a house that is big enough that I could live in for the rest of my life (the rehabber), so why not?
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