Since we moved into our house in 1999, we've been slowly remodeling parts of the house. Most of our work has been the 'stopgap' type - done out of necessity. For instance, the first 6 months after we moved in, we reroofed the patio roof (due to leaks), replaced the water tank (due to a pinhole leak) and the bathroom toilet (leaking around the base). The house has been standing empty for about a year when it was up for sale, so we knew there was some resettling that would happen after we moved in - just not this much!

But, overall, it's been a good experience. We've learned some interesting things about our house as we've torn down walls and rebuilt past remodeling work :

• The house was originally a one floor farmhouse and was built before electricity was commonly used (pre-1900?), as we found channels in the plaster walls behind the dark wood panelling.
• The front part of the house was built onto the house around 45 years ago, so the original house was pretty small.
• The chimney, which is currently located in our living room, was originally in the current dining room.
• Being farmers, the previous owners were 'creative' in their use of building materials. We found wainscotting panels under asphalt shingles on a small section of roof we replaced near the front of the house.

Check out the links on the left hand side to see some pictures of our past remodeling projects!

This page was last modified : February 25, 2005