Our Dream Home
We have been dreaming of our own home for years now, and even in the latest year, we’ve felt like the time was coming closer. We’ve found several homes of interest and one I had even fell completely in love with, but the time wasn’t right, and we’re still not able to walk into a bank and walk out with a mortgage. But… that dream has a new fire under it. Not only is it the dream of owning a home, but we’ve found the home we’ve always dreamed of. Chris has literally dreamed of this exact home since he was about 12 years old.
It was built in 1896 on the top of a hill in the small town of Cordova. It has a full basement and garage, a full first floor with two formal rooms- one having a grand fireplace, kitchen, dining room, half bath, pantry and sun room. The second floor has four bedrooms, two full bathrooms and another living area with a fireplace. The mahogany staircase that is in almost new condition takes you up to the attic that has storage and one more usable room with windows overlooking the courtyard. There’s an old butler house and a maid house. We’re unsure of their condition, but the big house is solid as a rock. There has been almost no updates done to it which is great, because it can be restored easily. The 9 foot doors are all in great condition, and every last inch of mahogany trim and molding is still in place, ready to be cleaned and polished. The major things that need to be done are a central cooling unit and duct work installed, fix some of the windows eventually replacing them all with storm windows, and putting in the kitchen, since the old one has been completely gutted. Other than that, it just needs cleaning, polishing and painting, with some minor fixes in the bathrooms. Of course, we would really want to take our time and do more than just “fix it up”, but restore it and improve it to all that it could be.
Here’s the link to the listing with some photos:
http://www.realtysouth.com/Listing/ListingDetail.aspx?Listing=31335200&Image=1&edit=
Here is a shot of the dining room I took as it stands now:
And here is what I’ve done in photoshop to reflect some of the things I imagine doing:
This house would be more than enough room for the big family we want, and the girls are already excited about it. You could almost let it spook you like a haunted house from the movies, it’s so big, and so old.. but all we see is room, glorious room!
“Wainscoting” thats my vote for the dining room and similar decorative molding added to accent areas on the upper side of the wall.
Look - there’s room for us to have our own place when we come.
My question would be - “Is the Butler and Maid quarters livable?’ If so, you could live there while working on the main house, you would probably be amazed to see that it has the same amount of room that you now reside in.
Mom - 06.14.08 - 8:37 pmOh yeah, we’re already planning big thanksgiving and Christmas get togethers!
As far as we know, both of the other houses are in pretty bad shape. We will most like just strip them of whatever materials are still usable and then knock them over. But it’s out hope that we can at least salvage the maid house. The butler house had a tree cave in the back side of it. It would be great to retain one for a guest quarters, or like you said, to live in while we fix the big house. We’d already discussed the possibility of finishing the first floor and just setting up beds for all of us on the music room while we fixed the rest.
We’ve made so many plans it’s ridiculous, but we’re excited! We’re really praying that God makes a way for us to be able to get it. The current owners suggested we stick with the bank that it’s on right now because they are small and hurting for business. So that may work in our favor. I wish we could do it on income based and throw our credit out of the window completely. :/
Momma - 06.14.08 - 11:40 pmSounds like you will have a great place for guest and an office as well.
Jenn - 07.07.08 - 9:52 pm