Well, I Bought a House.

Well, I bought a house. I've been meaning to put up a page about it for a couple of weeks, and today I finally did. I'm not much of a writer, and I don't know who will find this. I like the old-house pages where people show the parts that went wrong and say how much they wound up paying someone else to fix. I can see myself doing that.

It's an old farmhouse in rural Maine, about twenty minutes outside a small town. The listing says it was built around 1890. The previous owner thought some of it might be older. It has two stories, four bedrooms, a decent-sized kitchen, and a basement. There's a detached garage, too. I don't want to lean on it.

The lot is just under three acres. Most of it is weeds, a few enormous trees, and what I think used to be a vegetable garden. I paid $137,000. I was pleased with that number right up until I saw the inside.

The roof needs work, the wiring is a mess, and half the windows won't close properly. There's also a smell in the upstairs hallway that I can't place.

The kitchen has brown cabinets, yellow countertops, and a ceiling fan that doesn't work. It looks as though every questionable kitchen idea from 1975 to 1995 landed in the same room. I like the house, though. I keep having to remind myself of that when I'm in the kitchen.

I've always liked old houses. The floors aren't quite level, the doors don't sit right in their frames anymore, and you can see where somebody fixed things over the years.

I plan to do as much of the work myself as I can. I'm reasonably handy. We'll see how far that gets me. The list grows every time I walk into another room.

First I need to make the place comfortable enough to live in while I work. The kitchen and upstairs bathroom need attention, and I have to sort out the heat before winter. This weekend I'm tackling the basement. It's full of old shelving, broken furniture, paint cans, and about fifty years of junk. I may need a second weekend.

I put the outside picture from the real estate listing on the photos page. I'll add some of my own once I figure out how to organize them. I'll try to update this about once a week, mostly so I can remember what I actually got done.

If you've fixed up an old house, feel free to leave me a note. I'd especially like to hear from anyone who knows old wiring. I have questions.