Issues with buying a 1900 colonial home?
 

"Steve" wrote in message
...
My daughter has asked me to look at a house she's considering buying.
An older couple is selling and moving to a retirement home. asking around
$260,000
A couple of things I'm concerned about are the brick foundation with a
dirt floor in the basement.
Someone told her it would be around $5000 to pour cement.
Also two of the room have tin ceilings. anything I should check? I've
never even seen a tin ceiling.

I'll be seeing the house after work this week.

Thanks for any input.

Steve

Pouring concrete is a hefty job. Probably a reasonable cost. OTOH, the
house has lasted 100 years as it is. Tin ceilings were quite common way
back and have a lot of character.

Buying an old house certainly brings potential problems. IMO, you also have
some responsibility with it to maintain the original character. If you plan
to get rid of tin ceilings for something more modern, to get rid of fancy
wood trim for simple cove molding, you should buy a newer house to begin
with.

Wiring, plumbing, insulation should be brought up to modern standards of
course and it sounds like they have been already, especially 200A service.

Brick foundations are fairly common also. If unsure, get a pro to look at
it, but there are still houses around from the 1700's with stone or brick in
good condition.

I hope it works out well for you/them

Issues with buying a 1900 colonial home?
 

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 21:53:03 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski"
wrote:


"Steve" wrote in message
...
My daughter has asked me to look at a house she's considering buying.
An older couple is selling and moving to a retirement home. asking around
$260,000
A couple of things I'm concerned about are the brick foundation with a
dirt floor in the basement.
Someone told her it would be around $5000 to pour cement.
Also two of the room have tin ceilings. anything I should check? I've
never even seen a tin ceiling.

Pouring concrete is a hefty job. Probably a reasonable cost. OTOH, the
house has lasted 100 years as it is. Tin ceilings were quite common way
back and have a lot of character.

Buying an old house certainly brings potential problems. IMO, you also have
some responsibility with it to maintain the original character. If you plan
to get rid of tin ceilings for something more modern, to get rid of fancy
wood trim for simple cove molding, you should buy a newer house to begin
with.

I agree. That the house isn't on the National Register is no reason
to ruin it.

I think there was an episode of Law and Order or something where they
were stealing tin ceilings, because they are so popular.

A dirt floor doesn't sound so bad, but I'll bet there is a way to put
in a nice firm floor that can be removed later if you or the next
owner want it even more authentic.

Also, there must be a forum or more for 100 year old homes. I wish I
had one like you describe.

They have negotiated a sale of the little farm that was only two
blocks from me when I moved here. They used to grow corn, then just
hay, maybe when the owner died. The granddaughter is ready to sell,
and has contingent on the building plans going through, and I plan to
go visit and ask if I can see the barn and the basement especially,
and the whole farm house.

Wiring, plumbing, insulation should be brought up to modern standards of
course and it sounds like they have been already, especially 200A service.

Brick foundations are fairly common also. If unsure, get a pro to look at
it, but there are still houses around from the 1700's with stone or brick in
good condition.

I hope it works out well for you/them

Issues with buying a 1900 colonial home?
 

On Apr 29, 1:48 am, mm wrote:
....
They have negotiated a sale of the little farm that was only two
blocks from me when I moved here. They used to grow corn, then just
hay, ... I plan to...ask if I can see the barn ...

BTW, did you ever go back to the thread earlier containing the
discussion of Pat Head Summit and the barn? I posted a link to a
couple pictures of our barn...

Issues with buying a 1900 colonial home?
 

On 29 Apr 2007 07:04:07 -0700, dpb wrote:

On Apr 29, 1:48 am, mm wrote:
...
They have negotiated a sale of the little farm that was only two
blocks from me when I moved here. They used to grow corn, then just
hay, ... I plan to...ask if I can see the barn ...

BTW, did you ever go back to the thread earlier containing the
discussion of Pat Head Summit and the barn? I posted a link to a
couple pictures of our barn...

No, I intended to reply but didn't see the thread again somehow. But
I did look at the barn pictures. Thank you. It's beautiful. And
sure does have plenty of room

In fact this little farm I refer to above is another reason I didn't
think of a barn as big as yours when I heard Pat Summit on tv. Teh
one near me, (and others I have seen) is 1/4 the footprint of yours
and maybe one half as high. No room for a basketball court upstairs.

But I want to go look at the one near me again.

Another question I want to ask that I hadn't thought of is "How big
was the farm to begin with?" There are some streets here that go back
to the 60's or 50's, but they might have owned all of those
originally. They might have even owned the seconddary street that my
litlte street comes off of. Before my questions were going to be
about architecture and buildings, but now I'm really curious about my
own n'hood. I hope I can find the girl. I think I'll go by this week
and leave a note on her door if she's not home. Even though it is
another year or two before de- and construction starts.

Thanks for making me think of this.

Issues with buying a 1900 colonial home?
 

mm wrote:
On 29 Apr 2007 07:04:07 -0700, dpb wrote:

On Apr 29, 1:48 am, mm wrote:
...
They have negotiated a sale of the little farm that was only two
blocks from me when I moved here. They used to grow corn, then just
hay, ... I plan to...ask if I can see the barn ...

BTW, did you ever go back to the thread earlier containing the
discussion of Pat Head Summit and the barn? I posted a link to a
couple pictures of our barn...

No, I intended to reply but didn't see the thread again somehow. But
I did look at the barn pictures. Thank you. It's beautiful. And
sure does have plenty of room

I thought from your comments you might enjoy that... :) Glad you
did. We're sorta' proud of it, but I can only claim to putting on the
new roof and refurbishing it, had nothing to do with building it
originally...

In fact this little farm I refer to above is another reason I didn't
think of a barn as big as yours when I heard Pat Summit on tv. Teh
one near me, (and others I have seen) is 1/4 the footprint of yours
and maybe one half as high. No room for a basketball court upstairs.

But I want to go look at the one near me again.

Another question I want to ask that I hadn't thought of is "How big
was the farm to begin with?" There are some streets here that go back
to the 60's or 50's, but they might have owned all of those
originally. They might have even owned the seconddary street that my
litlte street comes off of. Before my questions were going to be
about architecture and buildings, but now I'm really curious about my
own n'hood. I hope I can find the girl. I think I'll go by this week
and leave a note on her door if she's not home. Even though it is
another year or two before de- and construction starts.

I'd say it was probably likely at least a portion was although there
may have been one or more other small farm(s) as well. Back there
where it actually rains :) it doesn't take the acreage to make a
paying crop as it does out here. I forget where Pat was actually
from, she was already coaching at UT when we moved to Knoxville area
so I don't know that much detail before then. It was E TN, though, I
believe. There are some pretty nice places there down the Swee****er
Valley and other areas so a decent-sized barn is surely not out of the
question. There are a lot of small barns, too, of course, but
certainly large enough is not rare there.