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#1
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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 |
#2
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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 |
#3
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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... |
#4
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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. |
#5
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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. |
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