Anyway. I’ll recap briefly now, and once the house is complete I will publish before and after photos of each room.
I moved to this state from Staten Island and lived on this very same country road with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins for four years while attending college and getting my stuff together. I used to ride past This Old House frequently and it had me at “hello”. Little did I know I would one day call it home. It took us two attempts, alot of frustration and five years to buy it, long story short it finally became a reality a year and a half ago.
The house was originally built for a Deacon of the Congregational Church in the 1830’s, completed in 1835. The Deacon carved his name in one of the supporting beams of the roof and it is now displayed with lighting in my daughter’s bedroom ceiling, it’s original place. We found his original headstone on the property, and he rests in an old cemetery up the road from the house with a newer headstone – added when his wife passed away some years later. When we purchased the house it was no longer liveable. The building inspecter said he wouldn’t be able to give us a C of O. The house sat right on the road, so we made the decision to move it back about 40 feet on a new foundation using the old stones from the original foundation and walls on the property. There was an addition and greenhouse dating back to the 1940’s which we removed. Then Mike bought an already dismantled 1800’s federal from Jeff Klausen as well… using that house ( aka the Chester house) as a family room/loft addition. What you see now is really two old houses joined at the hip.
Below are some of the “before pictures…. we had already done extensive brush clearing to make the fields in the back visible. You can see the old dog kennel-apartment-garage and chicken coop on the right. Those buildings had no historical or architectural significance and were in need of much repair. It was determined that it would be cheaper to take them down and make a smaller structure instead.
