He said what we pretty much knew.

Our house inspector looked in the chimney and said it was bricked off.

Much later I was thinking about the pocket doors that were stripped from the house when the PO's were closing on the house in the 1960's, and wondering how a door slid into the wall on the left of the fireplace, since a chimney should be in the way. Which made me investigate. Leading to the realization that the chimney is offset to the right, it connects to the tiny chimney coming up from the basement, and the bricked off looking part is actually open on the right. The cobwebs were dancing in the breeze when I opened the flue. The bricked off looking part had soot on the brick.

Initially the chimney sweep even thought it was bricked off, then realized how it diverts to the right. Then he asked if the old lady that lived here had a day care. He was remembering our neighbor 2 doors down, who has the same wacky chimney. Guess they were only built on our street? He said because of the way it's set up he can't even look in it to tell us anything, and didn't charge us for the visit. He recommended a cap for keeping animals out, which we knew it needed.

But the best part is that he said it should be no problem to put in a pellet stove and vent it up that chimney, a very different answer than the house inspector saying it was bricked off and completely un-useable. And a pellet stove would be greener, which is awesome. He also noticed how perfect our stairs are set up to carry heat from the fireplace upstairs and said we could probably heat the whole house with stove, and that his highest heating bill last year was just over 100$. All in all, perfect. The fireplace is TINY, and could never heat the whole house in the first place.

Unfortunately we have to get over $10,000 worth of electrical work done on our 1920's Firetrap. And raise the porch. And get a truckload off fill to divert water from the foundation. And replace the porch floor.

Then again even with the electrical work and the porch and the stove, the house would still be under $70,000. And being able to resell it with NO knob and tube wiring, or scary spliced parts, or burn marks on the wall above outlets and everything electrical being up to code will pay off with no problem, and so would the stove. (And who doesn't love an un-rotted porch that's not painted with chipping lead under rotted carpet?)

Maybe today we'll go look at pellet stoves...

Wheee! The entry is not finished, but it feels so much better! And we have hardwoods we can see in the bedroom!

The entry was white, with granny curtains, and the bedroom carpet was faded ugly rust colored. But not anymore! We won't be refinishing the floor till the rest are uncovered. The floor in Amelia's room was already exposed, and I've looked at most of them. My craft room has white paint slopped all over the hardwood floor under the carpet because they apparently didn't give a crap when they painted, knowing they were putting in carpet. Not surprising considering the overall condition of everything. Under the carpet in the entry/hall area upstairs and in the dining room the wood looks like it's never been walked on, it looks completely unworn, it is BEAUTIFUL, (then again, so is the worn stuff in the bedroom) but it has some ancient adhesive stuck to it that needs to be removed. And the stairs have 2 layers of ugly brown paint on the top of the steps that has to go.

I'm pretty much ripping the carpet out in sections with a box cutter, rolling it up, and putting it in the basement, then it leaves on trash day. I did the bedroom in a couple hours, but it didn't have the strips of tacks or padding like the rest of the house, so it was faster/easier. The rest is slower to remove, since I'm scraping away at the old adhesive before moving to another section. It's slooooow, but feels rewarding. For now... (the adhesive is under the padding and has NOTHING to do with the current carpet, but I found a piece of ooooold black looking carpet stuck in it. Did old carpet have adhesive?! We just got the internet today, so I'm going to research what it is in a few minutes, but it's OLD, whatever it is.)

The cable got hooked up today, the TV has to be plugged into one of the only 2 grounded outlets in the kitchen, and so do our laptops when charging. But we FINALLY got an electrician to come by and look around. Till today they don't call back or don't want to do the job. He pronounced our house a firetrap. I am quite sure he's right, or why call him in? We need the knob and tube (house-wide) cut off. New wiring throughout, overhead lights in rooms that have none... He quoted us $12,000. Basement, attic, top to bottom, everything. (And he advised me not to get a disposall because nothing should go in the drain, but we compost and have a strainer and things STILL go in the drain sometimes, so why can't I chop it up?!?) There's a lot of creepy wiring that isn't up to code. And things are wired into the knob and tube improperly, and it's insulated around... Basically the house is priced like it is because of the electrical work needed. Joe is talking to the bank to see if a piggyback loan is possible, or else he's spending his day off tomorrow talking to banks about a loan. It will cover the porch too hopefully, which would be awesome.

We did lead tests and almost all of the paint that's chipping badly is the top 2 layers that are NOT lead, and the lead underneath is firmly stuck and not chipping! All good news for prepping the walls and trim for new paint. BUT of course the worst spot that has lead is in Amelia's room, her windowsills reacted with a crazy bright pink lead test, The top layer is apparently still lead, and if you pick at it, it chips. Tomorrow I'm getting to work on it while Joe's off work. I hope the chipping part isn't bad, maybe just the lower part... Regardless, I want her to have lead free windowsills and build a window seat, not put up a baby fence around it forever! For now, she just doesn't realy play up there, she's with us downstairs and barely old enough to really realize she HAS a room. Luckily, I guess, if she was a bit older a determined 2 year old shut out of her room would be a hand-full!

Entry Before-


Entry Now-


Entry Before-


Entry After-


After-


Entry Floor-


Functional (unfortunately) K&T Firetrap Push Button Lightswitch-


Ugly Bedroom Carpet, much uglier than you can tell in this picture!


Bedroom Floor Now!






Bedroom Door frame where the door fell off on me in the middle of the night-


Ancient Adhesive in the landing/hallway at the top of the stairs, outside our bedroom-


Awesome drywall job in the bathroom. The ONLY bathroom- (try telling a toddler not to splash the drywall touching the tub when they play in the tub... Can't wait to rip this out!)


Can we say firetrap? This is in the bathroom-


I can't wait till the wiring is done. It makes me nervous.

The less orange entry pictures are more accurate, it was sunset and not really light enough for my camera. Tomorrow I'll try for daylight pictures when it will focus better, and maybe take some pics of our firetrap wiring...

The closing date was today. The sellers attorney called the realtor today, and the realtor told Joe he was "crying on his shoulder" about being so busy he didn't find time to stamp the envelope and send the title paperwork. The contract we have with the seller states they have to send the title paperwork etc. by 10 days of the closing date. The homeowner said they saw their lawyer send the paperwork when they were in his office last Thursday. Never happened. Maybe they were confused, but I still have trouble believing this house is REALLY on the market. If it's really for sale how could they not know their lawyer is doing NOTHING, and has caused the contract to be breached? We are requesting that the paperwork sent by courier tomorrow, and that we get the keys tomorrow, which they were agreeing to do by Friday, as per the early occupancy agreement we've asked for for 5 weeks. Or ANY agreement, well almost, because our lease is up Sunday. Sunday the landlord is taking the keys and giving them to the new tenant.
All I want is the paperwork courier-ed to the title company's attorney, so I will feel like this house really is for sale and it's not all just some weird game. Poor Joe hasn't rented a truck because he can't ever get a date out of these people. Everything has been ready to go but the title search for 5-6 weeks, and we've been waiting around for the papers to be sent be sent to the title company lawyer, and for what? Will we ever get a house?
Ugh. we were supposed to get the carpet ripped out and work on the floors and have grounded electrical work done BEFORE moving in. Now we may move in before we own the house, and can't do anything till we sign papers.
And another one of the Rutger Street mansions is listed now, a pretty Italianate from about 1890. Joe thinks he used to live pretty much next door, and that it's not even divided into apartments. $39,900 and the seller will pay $2,000 closing costs. These are the mansions of the founders and original movers and shakers of Utica, who cares if we could never afford to heat half the house? I do want to go look at it soon, but I also would like to buy my foursquare please.

We still have not closed on the house. Turns out our lawyer was in the hospital for about 3 weeks. I have no idea why someone couldn't let us know this until about a week ago. We went with a lawyer Joe's dad recommended, or I thought we did. Turns out his lawyer friend he recommended has a lawyer brother, and we got the brother. During the last week or so the non-incapacitated brother was supposed to be getting stuff done, but nothing happened on our end.

We were trying to get an early occupancy agreement. The owners were supposedly fine with it and just needed their lawyers okay in case we burned down the house or something. Noone worked on this closing while our lawyer was hospitalized, as far as I can tell.

I am so frustrated. The closing date is Monday. We wanted to get grounded wiring and overhead lights put in and rip out the (fugly) carpet before moving in. Now The lawyer is supposed to call today and let Joe know if we can move in Sunday. That's like the day before the closing date. I wasn't even fully awake when Joe told me this, so I don't know if we are just dropping things off there or if we're actually moving?

About a month ago the only problem was the title search hadn't been done. As far as I know it still isn't... Last week Joe said their lawyer needed to send title paperwork to our lawyer and it would take 2 days from then to get the title search finished. We have gone in circles with Joe sending everyone everything they need, but none of them send necessary paperwork to each other. We pay them, but they don't DO anything. Now I know why people stay in the same house forever, they probably tried to move and no one ever did their job in the closing process...

At least it's a foursquare, and when we need to block off a room to work on it we can still access the rest of the house and get in and out. I'm imagining the worst will be removing the paint from the stairs and banister etc. since the only bathroom is upstairs. The baby is in diapers, so if we all stayed downstairs, she'd be fine. And we could set up some unmentionable emergency bucket in the basement if necessary, I'm envisioning lead paint in the removal process and actually having to seal off the stairs... But other than that most of the rooms can be accessed even if one is closed off for work. If we'd gotten a crazy-mazey Victorian it might not have been that simple...

As if it will be simple...

I need to find houseblog friends doing DIY with a toddler living in the house, for inspiration. We just got Amelia her first lead test last week (at 1 and 1/2) and she's all good. So we know if anything happens it's the new house, or us that caused it.

Since writing that when I woke up I have talked to Joe a bit more. He called our lawyer and it turns out THEIR lawyer STILL has not sent the abstract of title to our lawyer. It's been what, at least 6 weeks? The other day our neighbor made a comment to the effect that he thought there was a problem with one of the kids about selling. Our house is being sold by the 5 kids of the deceased owners. There was no will. I am now wanting to ask the neighbor what he heard or over-heard. (at the time he made the comment I didn't know there was any problem other than our hospitalized lawyer, and didn't think it was relevant....)

Our lawyer has been calling their lawyer for weeks now, about the title. He has never gotten a response. Part of the time their lawyer was supposed to be on vacation. We found the house pretty much immediately, within a few weeks of the owners death. Within the first week of the ad being online. The realtor had said they wanted to sell asap because they don't want to pay to heat it in winter etc., but I really wonder now what the heck is going on. I think all 5 sons were there the day we met them when they were moving their parents stuff out and we were having the house inspected. Supposedly they're all on board. But I really wonder why we can't even acquire the title info, if they want to sell so badly. With a motivated seller, why would they let their lawyer stall forever unless there's some problem!?!?!

Why put it on the market and then not do your part in the process of selling? We could close 48 hours after their lawyer sends it. This makes no sense to me...

it is BIG. and Square.

our foursquare has an offset door with an entry on the right, the smallest downstairs room, then the whole rest of the front of the house is one big room, this large room in the back left part, then the kitchen is long and skinny on the back right, because between it and the outside wall of the house are the basement stairs. Our scanner is broken or i would draw a picture...

the mystery room has a sad story behind it. we're buying the house from the 5 sons of the recently deceased owner. the sons grew up there, their parents bought it in the 60's. when we were there with our house inspector the sons were there moving stuff out, so we got to ask a few questions.
when their parents were buying the house this room was a library with floor to ceiling bookshelves. their son told us it had beautiful glass pocket doors between this room and the large front room. it explains why there is no window to the backyard, and why it seems like it's so big when you stand in it, if shelves stuck out from the walls it would definitely not seem so strange for a dining room, which it was when we saw it.
so what happened to the room, you ask? where are the beautiful glass pocket doors and all the supposedly beautiful woodwork?
while their parents were closing on the house, someone stripped the house, and stole much of the original woodwork. I'm amazed we have the matching glass doorknobs throughout, and the old doors that match at the entry and the top of the stairs. maybe they weren't worth as much then? all we really have now is the original doors, and beautiful glass doorknobs, and the banister/stairway. covered in white paint, and presumably lead clad. (removal+baby=nervous mom.)

but back the the question, what to do with this room? eventually the ideal would be to knock out a wall and enlarge the long skinny eat in kitchen. and maybe a downstairs bathroom. and an addition out back, first floor laundry (currently basement)... completely altering the back of the house. but at move in we will be at a loss as to how to treat this space. well, the carpet and wallpaper and light fixture will go! but then?

and if anyone ever reads this who has a similar room in a 20s foursquare that hasn't been stripped, i would love to see it. but if you show me glass pocket doors i will cry.



doorway where the pocket doors were, shown from the front room. sorry it's fuzzy, these are all i have, from our first walk through-

(yes, we hate the siding too)

note the slope from water eroding the ground under the porch and around the house, and the lovely green carpeting. the railing will just get a coat of paint for now, as we need to raise the porch, fill in the dirt, and get gutters on the house and just deal with water/porch issues first. Before winter and next snow-melt. And the skirt part needs to be ripped out without disturbing the peeling sure-to-be-lead paint, and then replaced. On the other hand, the only larger expanse of original wood currently visible on the exterior is the porch ceiling. And the soon to be visible porch. So We will be happy to at least have mostly wood there very soon after moving in
don't get me started about the landscaping. that will wait till next spring, since we'll move in in late summer, almost fall. And REALLY don't get me started about that siding. And the horrid shutters that go with it.

We have a foursquare next door, and 3 across the street, possibly more, and we're constantly comparing them to ours and wondering what's under our siding... someday...



under the front porch which we need to re level-



Does anyone know where any floor plans for foursquare kit homes are online other than sears? It doesn't seem to be any sears kit i've seen, and it'll be a couple weeks before i can check the frame for marks. i'm so curious to see if it's a kit house.