Measure 432 times, cut once….okay twice.

We spent a lot of time and looked at a lot of houses when we decided to buy a home. We never really considered building and we didn’t look at more than two or three homes that were built after 1940. One of the disappointments we had were how many older homes had been, basically, gutted of their original architecture (and charm) and ‘modernized’. Kitchens and bathrooms were to be expected, but the number of built-ins and woodwork that had been dumped was depressing.

We stumbled upon this old four-square by chance; as we approached the front porch, we saw the original porch floor and columns in tact. Then what appeared to be the original door. Too good to be true, we thought. We were expecting the home to resemble the Jetson’s interior, I swear. Not at all! The original woodwork, stained glass in the built-ins, windows…everything. Pretty close to the way it looked in 1920. Of course the kitchen and bathrooms were right out of 1950, but that was okay. We could work with that. We knew the original flooring was underneath the wall-to-wall carpet.

The fact that the original family was an elder brother and sister who had built the house in 1919 (moving into town after selling the family farm), and the second family had lived in the house for 60 years indicated that both families (rumored to be extremely, ah, frugal) had maintained the house, but not really updated it.

One of the changes that had been made was the second family had turned the butler’s pantry into a 3/4 bath. Lucky for us, they had moved the original 8-foot built-in to the basement. It was still in remarkably good shape.

As we stripped paint off the wall in the bathroom, the outline of where the pantry original stood became apparent.

One of the things we vowed to do, was put that pantry back. We had hopes of extending the family room, adding a 3/4 bath there and a closet (we have NO closets on the first floor), but that is not what ended up happening. Because, I don’t know, that would have been too simple. We don’t do simple here. We make a plan, go over it 9,000 times, discuss it for months and then, just as we begin a project, we throw the plan to the wind and wing it. Yeah, yeah….

Coming in Chapter 1: Measure 472 times, cut once.

By the way, Roxie says hi! She looks like she’s guilty of something…I better go check.

Technorati Tags: American Four Square, Bathroom, Butler's Pantry, free standing kitchen, kitchen, Monitor Top, Napanee, Pantry, Renovation, Renovations, Tappan, unfitted kitchen