Re: Old farm houses

Posted by Bret4207 on November 28, 2012 at 04:11:34 from (64.19.90.196):

In Reply to: Old farm houses posted by Ralphwd45 on November 27, 2012 at 17:48:08:

Our home is an 1890's story and a half farm house. Part is a sort of post and beam and part is plank and rafter. It's floors have settled out of level, it moves and cracks sheetrock every year. The stairs are steep and narrow, the rooms are small and the foundation needs work in one section. We're eventually going to strip the vinyl siding off, which covers the metal shingle siding which covers the plank siding, and seal it up since it's a drafty old girl. The previous owner put a deck off one section of the windward side and didn't add a water cap to the fieldstone foundation, so the water ran into the foundation and tore it up and water sat against the sill and rotted that too. The wiring isn't bad, but the leech field is a straight run of pipe from the septic tank to the ditch and culvert under the town road a couple hundred feet downhill. Even I have problems with that idea! There's not much we can do about the floors but they aren't terribly out of level except at the corners. I imagine a previous owner did some leveling somehow. I've done most of the windows over, fixed a lot of plumbing, redone both bathrooms, re-roofed it (shingles as my wife wished rather than steel as I wanted), fixed a lot of areas that had absolutely no insulation, etc. It's a giant pain in the butt. SWMBO still wants me to move the tiny galley style kitchen out into what is mow the "foyer" as she calls it (where you come into the house by the front door) and build an L shaped kitchen. The "foyer" will then go into the present kitchen and I'm supposed to move the steep narrow stairs into that section too and make them modern. The funny thing is, old timers tell us that's how the house was laid out back in the 40's!

The biggest thing that bothers me is that a previous owner added a porch, a "veranda" actually according to my wife, around half the house. The idiot made it 5 feet wide. That's too narrow to even get by someone in a chair sitting on it. So someday I'd like to rip it off and rebuild one 3/4 the way around the house about 10-12 foot wide. If you're going to have a porch, it should be wide enough to be used!

There are lots of new "old farm houses" going up here. They are 100% Amish, well built, well insulated and attractive. They don't have wiring and plumbing, but when an Amishman builds one, it's means he plans on staying for the rest of his life and passing it one to his kids. The number of new English homes is tiny and they tend to be either McMansions or double wides.

This post was edited by Bret4207 at 04:13:13 11/28/12.

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