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This is my first house, purchased in 1984 and sold in 1999 in Montville Township, New Jersey. When I bought it, the house was a wreck; leaks everywhere, broken plaster, even a dead rat in the toilet. It looked good when I left after working on it for ten for fifteen years...even BETTER since the new owner added the handsome fence around the property! I've learned so much since then...like not using a metal "power stripper" on nineteenth century clapboard! The house originally had a veranda on the driveway side.
Now, the next two house projects in the Village of Arlington Heights (we still own both of them) are all the dogs' fault since they chose to do their business in front of the deteriorating structures as I walked them down the street.
#1 Here's our Elliott Avenue house, which appears in the 1880's maps of Hamilton County. When I purchased it, there was a large tree leaning on the back of the house.
The house has three bedrooms upstairs with an oversized claw foot bathtub, a "mother in law" room in back of the kitchen and incorporates this handsome staircase...one of the spindles has been replicated...can you tell which one?
Two years ago...we had a freak windstorm "Hurricane Ike," that tore off several of the old asbestos roofing tiles. Except for a deductible...Ike gave us a brand new $10,000 roof!
We have been fortunate to have the same good tenants in this house since buying it in 2006 for $50,000 and it certainly has not required the labor and money that our other houses have demanded.
#2 Our Glen Rose Avenue house; though our smallest house, it has a unique architectural style (half a dozen in Arlington Heights...I've not seen any like them elsewhere) and a colorful history. A salesmen named Menuez purchased the house ca. 1890 and left a tin full of letters in the attic. The house remained in his family for eighty years (local legend: a young great grandaughter died in the back bedroom during the 1950's...her father locked the door and it remained locked until his death in the late 1970's.)
Before:
After:
We've also had trees removed, the driveway paved and found a root had replaced a drainage pipe...under the basement concrete! I think I should paint the bricks on the front porch...what do you think?
Neglected as this house was...THERE WAS NO TERMITE DAMAGE!!!! Sadly, the house is vacant and we are currently looking for good tenants (we're two and two on tenants so far: two good; two bad).
I hope that in some way we've improved the communities in which we have lived but I'm also reminded of the temporary nature of "things" in this world and the need to hold them with a loose grip!
Our goal for the next couple of weeks...painting upstairs, finish laundry room, put up ceiling tiles, get appliances working...then to move just in time for Spring!
