This Old House

I accidentally bought a new house. “Accidentally” because we really weren’t looking. But we ended up finding a cool old house, or maybe it found us? I am telling a lot of stories about this house lately, and we will be doing a lot of work and having a lot of work done on it, and I want to keep track of what we’re working through and getting done. And also learning a lot in the process. So for anyone who is interested, or is looking at doing similar things, or even for “Future Bruce” to remember what we did, I want to track some of the bigger and/or interesting bits in a few blog posts.

The house was built in 1923, so she’s 97 years old, and yes we should have a 100-year-old party in a few years. We’re in the northeast side of the City of Grand Rapids on Plainfield AVE. Interesting name “Plainfield” as there is nothing approximating a field anywhere near the road anymore. But if you look at aerial photography from the 1950s there were some nice fields and farms in the area, and this house was right on the edge of them. Even before the I-96 highway came through, the house was nestled in there next to Lamberton Creek, which is why you really access the driveway most of the time from “Brookview” Drive — so is it a “creek” or a “brook” and I honestly don’t know the difference?

We’re starting to move in, but there is some work to be done before we can really sleep or stay there. In the early days of electricity in houses, really up to World War II, “knob and tube” wiring was the way you installed outlets in a house. So one of the first projects is replacing that in the house (more on that in a following post). We’re also replacing a furnace from 1975, and some iron and galvanized plumbing that is not running water. Beyond these “life and safety” things there are a good number of projects that we’ll also be taking on, and just fun facts and finds in the house, including a locked door with no key, and a full-height safe as old as the house, and a variety of mystery objects we found in different parts of the house.

So stay tuned, and I’ll get some more pictures to tell the stories better.

Also want to thank some people who are helping us along the way. The first one will be Dan Stegman who has been our realtor through getting into this house and now putting our previous house up for sale — next week! More on that too. Dan has been really great through the process of the new house and got us into the house and helped us go back and forth with the sellers. It’s good to have good people helping you, so I want to highlight them as they come!