Second Home Tour

The second house we bought is also a fixer upper, but to a lesser extent than our first house. (It mostly just needs updating, but the mechanicals are all solid and it was built in 1970, so hopefully it’s a little easier!)

Here are some quick facts about our second house:

It was build in 1970 and is the classic, 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom house, brick on the bottom, siding on the top.
It sits on almost a half an acre, but most of it is in the side yard.
There is aluminum wiring in the house. All of the outlets & switches have been updated … but I’m probably still going to be hiring out all electrical work. (Even though Patrick keeps saying, “we didn’t die updating and re-wiring stuff in our 90+ year old house that for sure has who-knows-what running through the walls, it’ll be totally fine.”)
The lady who owned the house before us was really into gardening and outdoor work. We are not. And landscaping is expensive. This could get interesting quick.
They put in real, oak hardwood floors in the 3 spare bedrooms upstairs, but no where else in the house. Not anywhere on the main level and not in the master bedroom (insert sad face).
The house is totally efficient with a air conditioner/heat pump/furnace combo. There is mega insulation in the attic, a whole house humidifier, dehumidifier, water softener, and this electrostatic filter system that clicks and clicks and clicks and can be heard clicking through all of the vents. It “zaps” the air making it hypoallergenic I guess. (We will not be using it.)
We get to park inside now.

1 Year Later …

And, now that’s it’s been a full year since buying and renovating this house, here’s how far we’ve gotten – pictures only! If you want to read about each renovation, you’ll have to flip through the blog … but if you just want an bird’s eye recap, you can find that here, on our 1-year update post.

We’re pretty happy with it … starting to like living here … and feel like we’re over the hump, rolling downhill, with less-demanding renovations to finish putting our stamp on this house.