We were charmed by its history when we bought our little 92 year old house. The building was a mail-order "kit" built by a new husband as a wedding gift for his wife. As the family grew, changes were made, including a family summer project where parents, children and relatives hand dug a basement. Half was finished to create two small bedrooms and a half bath; the rest was left rough-hewn and was used for storage.
The minute we saw it and heard its story (the real estate agent was the daughter of the original couple), we put in a bid to purchase it.
Like all DIY construction and the wear of time our house has some "uniquenesses" that we adapt to or change as necessary. The future White Dog Army would not have liked the narrow, uneven height concrete steps from the backdoor to the yard nor would Lilly be as lithe as Siku was when we first installed the bedroom doors and dog door. For nearly a week Siku chose to use the two planks the workers used to go from ground level to the room as they cut the wall and added glass sliding doors. Now we have a lovely multilevel deck and a dog ramp in place of one set of its stairs to get to the yard.
The dark side of vintage charm is that things just get tired and new technology depends on replacing rather than just repairing. Some of those things, at least in our house, sends my architect husband into his "Sometimes you just need to hire a professional" rant.
After years of bandaiding and calling on favors from the Lords of Cosmic Jest, the drainage pipe for the washing machine corroded away. It quickly became a conversation with the plumbing company about how much of the plumbing needed replacement and while we were at it, which parts really OUGHT to be corrected (like the right-angle turn and upward flow of a connecting line. Thank dog for the basement and all the revealed pipe layout.
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