"jim rozen" wrote in message
...
In article , Harold and Susan Vordos says...

It sounds like a very nice place. Any chance you could send me a picture
of
your place, Jim? If you're comfortable doing so, please send it via
email.

LOL. It's awful harold. It has nasty faded pink siding and the
landscaping
could best be described (charitably) as a varied mix of industrial and
weedy.

These were city houses put up at the turn of the century for working folks
and while they had some nice touches (we found hand-inlaid parque wood
flooring
under the carpets in two of the downstairs rooms, and there are two nice
stained glass windows downstairs) the rooms are small, closets almost
non-existent, and the former owners, while well-intentioned, were strapped
for cash and moderatly incompetent in all their efforts at renovation and
maintenence.

The roof is original, with the odd construction of horizontal lath
strips over the rafters, which were then covered with cedar shakes, and
top of that went slates. This was a common local construction I think
and the cedar shakes take the place of modern plywood underlayment. Labor
costs were insignificant at the time. :^)

It's balloon frame construction because at the time one could find trees
tall enough to generate two-story tall 2X4s. There are no fire
stops, no insulation in the walls, and the thing will burn to the
ground in an instant if it catches on fire.

It needs an entire new kitchen, it still has the claw-foot bathtub in the
single bathroom upstairs, and I suspect it was one of the very first
houses
in the city to have indoor plumbing - it was originally owned by a plumber
who did the work himself I think. With the idea that he'd go back and to
it right later on. Which never came to pass. The house directly to the
south had a barn and outhouse behind it, and still has a hand-pumped
dug well in the backyard. This was probably the first house in the
neighborhood.

We put a new porch on the front a few years ago because the old one was
in rough shape, so that kind of dressed up the property a bit. I'll
see if I can find a jpg of the place to put in the dropbox.

Jim


Yep, please do post the picture. Very interesting! It's hard for me to
imagine what appears to be a common home that has a slate roof. It would
likely be impossible to have such an amenity today unless one was quite
wealthy. When you talked about slate *and* copper, visions of a grand home
came to mind.

Is property expensive where you live? Here, it's been almost free, but
that's changing rapidly now. In '90, when we purchased our 5-1/2 acres, we
paid only $17,500, and that included an approved, new septic system. The
previous owner had cleared a small portion of the fully wooded parcel, where
he'd installed the septic system in anticipation of his retirement. He
died before he could build, and his daughter, living in California, had no
interest in the property. We were shocked to discover, after the fact,
that we paid less for the property than the standing timber was worth.
For once in our lives, we hit a winner.

Harold