It feels good to be finally starting on my Grandpa's old house. Around Christmas I was finishing up the last few items at my parents house, starting a new job (!) and doing the planning for the bathroom remodel, paint and flooring projects. It looks like I'll be able to start demo on the bathroom sometime next week. You'll see from the pictures that it's going to be...hmm, i don't know if exciting is the best word, but interesting at least. There is certainly a lot of room for improvement, in fact i don't think there are many ways in which it could be worse.
I found some photos of the house in it's early years. The original structure was built by my great grandfather Benjamin Howe in 1920 was and periodically added onto. As he was a carpenter by trade, he just added new rooms whenever they outgrew the house. At first there was only two rooms on the main floor and an attic. They would have used an out house in the back yard as the restroom.
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| Here is the original building prior to the siding. |
A dormer was added later to brighten up the attic bedroom.
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| The house was lifted when the city raised the elevation of the street. At that time my great grandfather added a "sun parlor." |
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| My great grandmother Lillian Howe and a friend in the back of the house. |
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| I had to include this one, simply for the expression on my great uncle Bob's face. |
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| Bob |
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| My grandma Bea and her big brother Bob. A rather menacing pose. Also, a cantilevered space was added to the dining room. |
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| My great grandfather's business records from 1940. He charged $110 to re-roof a house and garage! |
All photos still precede the addition of another bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen. Currently, the house is in really excellent shape, apart from aesthetic defects. Of course I could find some not so pleasant things when i demo the bathroom. I'm crossing my fingers. Here's how things look now:
Yikes, right? And that is not real tile on the wall BTW. Well, here goes nothing....
