This story starts somewhere in the middle. Or it might still be early yet. I’m not sure.
I grew up in an old house and always imagined having my own old house to fix up. In 2011, I finally bought one in the Pittsburgh neighborhood where I’d been renting for five years. When I first saw this house my heart sank. I wanted an interesting old house, and this was just shabby and plain.
A lot of houses in Pittsburgh look like this. Two story wood frame, plain and boxy, covered with asphalt shingles and Insulbrick. Picture window. It was hard to tell how old it was.
But when I stepped inside, there was a vestibule, all wood trim and paneling, with a transom window.
There was very nice stairway woodwork.
… which continued up to the second floor landing, where things miraculously came into sharper focus:
… all the way up to the attic.
There was a tin ceiling in the downstairs kitchen
And a fine marble fireplace in the front room, which was being used as the bedroom for the first floor apartment. Three other rooms had simple wood mantels.
So this was an older house than the outside might suggest. Bigger, too. Like a lot of Pittsburgh houses, it’s on a hillside. What looks like a two story house in front is closer to four in back.
It was old, big, and needed a lot of work. The thought of taking this on was intimidating, but it was in a neighborhood I loved, the price was within my very low budget, and it had a lot of original details. So about two months later, I bought it.