Back to a positive thread subject: Our homes - part of getting to know one another

I will start, since it was my thread. I have lived the past 20 years here in Pickens County, SC, amazing since I have lived all over the US and many places around the world prior. I have lived the past 8 years here in Easley, SC, the largest city in the county with a population of 20,000. It's about 10 miles west of Greenville, SC.

We live in a modest brick house (solid brick at that) in a small quiet neighborhood. Our house is the 2nd oldest on the street, being built in 1953. Totals about 2,000 sq. ft., which includes a finished basement.

House has 3 bedrooms, one we use as a study/library, kitchen, breakfast room, formal dining room, and 2 1/2 baths. Downstairs is a family room, sewing room, another full bath, and a workshop.

What is interesting, is that all of the interior doors are pocket doors, when I bought the house, I thought at first that all of the doors had been removed.

I bought the house out of foreclosure way before it became fashionable, from a banker that owed me a huge favor. It needed a lot of cosmetics, but that was it. I have painted every wall in this house at one time or the other, we redid the kitchen completely about 3 years ago - you know, the granite countertops, all stainless appliances, etc.

Sits at the top of a hill on a corner lot of 4/10th of an acre, more than enough yard for this guy. We sit less than 1/2 mile from the downtown area, and can be downtown Greenville in less than 15 minutes.

Some of you have visited us here before, and anyone is welcome if you are passing through SC, we sit close to Interstate 85 in particular.

Not my dream house, that may never happen. I always wanted a 3-story brick Queen Anne Victorian house, but still out of my reach. However, home is home, and its my safe zone and sanctuary. My wife has made this house of brick a loving and comfortable home, and if this is all we ever have, I am content with that.

It is the newest house we have owned. The previous ones were 1765, 1940, and 1910. We still like and admire the old school construction methods and materials. Couldn't see me owning a house newer than this. Not a fan of flake board, metal studs, and vinyl siding - which seems to be most common in many new homes (no offense intended - just a preference).

Just happy to be in our own home, hoping the mortgage will be free and clear within 2 years, I don't want to leave my wife with any debt when I pass on.

David in SC

We have a modest 3bdrm 2 1/2 bth 2300 ' rambler with a nice covered porch on an 1/2 acre. Bought it in 1985, our first house. Transferred to Sea area for 8 years in 97, did't want the boys to be surf bums, rented out the Ogg house, retired in 2005, sold SEA house, returned to the ogg house, total remodel from profits on SEA home. We will never sell it, our sons would never forgive us. They come back all the time, sometimes together,mostly with friends. This this summer 2 will be home at same time. The oldest works for a private company in Osaka, Japan, teaching english to the Japanese, the second is a phd candidate in sports epidmiology at Chapel Hill, NC., finishing up next spring. The third works PT at a super market recently accepted at the U of Washington as a junior in accounting in Washington state.
I'm hoping he works for the FBI some day. All are single. Hey I didn't get married till I was 37, guess they are following suit. Very independent young men, as different from one another as can be. Sharlyn works 17 hours a week at local elementary as certified teacher helping the kieki's who are slow in math in english. Me, I clock in at the surfspots, then the gym most mornings. Then its the two of us cruising, doing dis and dat. Travel twice a year to someplace in the world, plus we stay at waikiki for a week every thanksgiving, for play tourist . We are blessed, fortunate, whatever word works, and know it. regards Logo

I'm in Massachusetts, but would rather not give detailed location. Our house was built around 1900 and is a constant renovation project in progress. After we bought this place in 1992, I built a downstairs bathroom in what was formerly a back hall, and converted the attic to a master bedroom with recessed sets of drawers and closets built into knee walls. I am now renovating the kitchen which was badly updated in what looks like the 60s or 70s--scalloped trim and birc-a-brac. I just replaced the kitchen ceiling and redid all of the ceiling lighting. This coming winter I will return to kitchen work by stripping and refinishing cabinets and will replace the unfortunate Swedish-modern window and door casework with something that looks like it belongs with the original house. Probably another year before I get around to replacing the kitchen counter and replacing the kitchen floor.

Meanwhile, my summer project is scraping and replacing lead paint -- no more than a couple of hours per day wearing a respirator and changing work clothes in the basement. And I also need to replace floor boards on the most traveled section of the front porch before winter.

An old house is a never-ending project. I've learned from experience that there are theoretical plumb and square, but it is more important to trust my eye to make things look plumb and square.

I live in Utah and bought a house in 1993 that was constructed in 1946. Our entire subdivision was built by wonderful people that had come home from the War. When we moved in, many of the original homesteaders were still alive and amazing people with great stories and contributions to not only our neighborhood but state politics. it was a L shape home on a 1/3 acre and we had a large family with five children so we needed more space so we knocked out the exterior of the L and added a great room off the kitchen and two beds and a bath below. The fighting among the kids stopped since they had their own space. I am a sucker for red brick homes and we have loved it.

It is a true neighborhood, everyone is close, with street parties in the summer, going to church on Sunday, serving those who need help and unfortunately, it was my turn two and a half years ago when I was DX to be served. We just went to a neighbor's home last night to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary and most of the neighbors were there and stayed for hours enjoying a beautiful summer evening together. Most of us have raised our kids, and we are seeing many young families coming in and buying up the homes, some update and remodel while others tear down and big the larger homes to meet their needs.

We live three minutes from the mouth of one major canyon and can be skiing in 25 minutes in great dry powder in the winter, hiking, biking, camping, fishing when it isn't a frozen tundra. Downtown takes about fifteen minutes to get to and we have many amazing hospitals and care givers. We have mountains on our east and mountains on the west along with the Great Salt Lake.

Amazing landscape settings in the State. The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is just south of the State line, Moab and Arches National Park in the southeast corner, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park on the Southwest corner, and amazing mountains in the northern part of the state. We have the Uinta Mountains (the only mountain range that runs east to west) in addition to the Wasatch and the Ouqquir Mountians.

It is a great state and I don't work for the Chamber of Commerce, so everyone find time to come to the CrossRoads of the West (I-15 and I-80 intersect in Salt Lake City).

Summer has arrived and we will hit 100 degrees this weekend so most people will head up to the mountains where it is 20+ degrees cooler.

Wow. Many of the words used in this thread, perhaps more than any other here at HW, make me realise I am not an American. So many of the descriptions made me pause long and hard to work out what was being talked about. So to get my own back this will all be in English English:

I live in the Netherlands in The Hague (aka Den Haag or 's-Gravenhage) So we live below sea level. The population of the Hague is about 500,000, it's not the capital, but it is where the government, the parliament and all the ministries are based, and where King Willem-Alexander works. The King currently lives in a house just outside the city boundary in some beautiful woods where we often go for a walk. (At present the King's mum, Princess Beatrix, the ex-Queen, also lives in the Hague in an old palace in the woods near the main railway station, but contrary to myth she does not cycle round the place on a bicycle.)

The UN has lots of things in the Hague including the International Court of Justice. Big companies like Shell also have their head office here in the Hague.
The city is a strange mixture of very old and very new buildings.
(I've deleted a link, but try googling "the Hague" and images)

We lived close to the city centre in a 3-bed appartment for over 25 years then bought a brand new 4-bed house with garden about 2 years ago, but we're still only about five minutes by bicycle from the city centre.
It takes my wife 12 minutes to cycle to work and we're about 15 minutes by bicycle from the sea.
We're on a street that just goes round in a loop, so no traffic goes by except people who live here, but there is a main road about 200 yards away to get places, and there are also several trams as close when you want or need to use public transport. Ten minutes by tram to the main railway station And only ten minuites walk to the main city hospital!
Next to our street is a small park, with a canal running beside it and things like tennis courts you can use for free, skate park, play ground, football pitches, and even horses!

Our ground floor is just kitchen, WC and under-stair cupboard plus the living room with big glass doors that open onto the garden where there's a shed for bicycles and a place to park the car (there's a private road at the back to access the car space and shed - having private parking is not usual in Dutch cities).
While there is a crawling space under the house along with loads more insulation under the floor there is no cellar as the water table is very close to the surface.
The first floor and second floor each have two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Our house is part of a terrace of about a dozen houses, and it's built on deep concrete piles. The walls between each house and all the floors and even the (flat) roof are made of reinforced concrete, the exterior walls are timber-framed panels with red brick facing and a massive thick layer of insulation in between.

The whole terrace is thus a bit like a skyscraper lying on its side, and this is to provide as stable a construction as possible as the whole thing is built on sand. (The bible had it wrong, building a house on sand takes a builder who is anything but lazy!) One reason the water table is kept high is to keep the sand wet and firmer so hence the road can be constructed of red bricks laid straight on the sand. All this sand also meant that the garden was just sand when we arrived so we had to add a very large amount of soil to be able to grow anything.

The trick now is to stay alive and enjoy it all!

Alf

(edited to delete a url link that was messing with the layout)

Post Edited (English Alf) : 6/27/2013 10:38:03 AM (GMT-6)

I've lived all over the country and have owned 5 houses. Although I've had some wonderful experiences and met many facinating people, I sometimes envy you folks with real "roots". Anyway, right now I live in a two story, 4 bed 4 bath brick home in a suburb of St. Louis, across the street from the high school my step-son attends. Great neighborhood, and although I'm the "new" guy, people have been great. I've done a lot of cosmetic work on this house (stripping wallpaper must be a penalty for sins of my youth!). Although I'm an east coast born and bred guy, I do love the midwest, and think the people in the "heartland" are rock solid in my book. All that being said, the day the boy graduates from high school, the house is going up for sale and I'm moving closer to the ocean, in a condo or townhouse. Although I've been told I'm good at it, I hate yard work! LOL

Mike

mike, been to st. Louis a few times, nice city. too far from the coast, lol. mostly been anan eastcoaster, and generally never liked living more than 4 hours from the ocean.
another brick house lover. wall paper, removing it? geez, lots of work, I believe in the school of painting it over if its in good shape underneath.

david

David it was what I think is called a duplex appartment, so quite a lot of space and with bedrooms upstairs and with a staircase it also felt like a little house, and in fact the kitchen in the appartment was bigger than the one in our new house.
It was only a couple of years old when we arrived, but the location was superb, as it was surrounded by old Dutch houses.
It was walking distance from the children's primary/elementary school, walking distance from bank, post office, dentist, doctor, shops, stores. Even when the kids went to high school they were close, and our son carried on living there when he was at University as that was also only about 20 minutes away.

My daughter was actually born in the appartment, so that kind of made us want to stay, but it was at the top of three flights of stairs with no lift/elevator, and after surgery and SRT we realised that we would have to get away from those stairs before we found ourselves unable to cope with them. (we got that right as my wife hurt her knee last year and was very glad not to have those stairs. We also wanted a garden, even though the appartment had two balconies.
And with the housing market going bad we decided to try and sell, as we were really lucky to be able to sell.
People were actually surprised we wanted to move (even the real estate folk, but maybe that was why someone else was keen to have it.)

Post Edited (English Alf) : 6/28/2013 12:31:03 AM (GMT-6)

we live in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo on the golf course near lahaina on maui, hawaii. neither of us plays golf but we have a nice relaxing view and we are a 10 minute walk from the beach. we have been here for about 9 years. we decided someone had to make the sacrifice and live in paradise so it might as well be us!!
our kids all live in cities on the mainland that have non stop flights to get to them.
we do not get island fever since we are travelaholics. we are in la as the first stop of our summer trip - we came for our dgd's high school graduation. we will be gone for 4 months this summer.
we moved to maui from oregon.

Viv, lets get together, the 4 of us and have lunch. Hows Cool Cat cafe at the wharf best burgers on maui and some icy cold's on tap. you tell me a good time for you. As we are in summer , you may be very close to going. I f so it'll be the winter, when we can. But don't forget your woolies, you know how Lahaina gets in the winter, tee hee.

Oh yeah, MaunaKea is snow peaked every winter. Hey you like see beauty. Look at MaunaKea from sea level, with a perfect rainbow topping it. Only thing to add then would be the song , The Snows of Mauna Kea, by Jay Larin in your ear. Ive seen the rainbow, just imaging the tune.

Purgatory said...
bohemond,

So you are doing all this work yourself? If so, you must have some serious skills there. Lead paint removal is some serious stuff, makes me glad I am in a brick house currently.
david

I'll tackle most things on my own but I (I think) know my limits. I hired an electrician to do the re-wiring before I put up my new kitchen ceiling. And there's a window my wife wants put into a load-bearing wall that I will hire a contractor for. But otherwise I've do most carpentry work, sheetrock, tile, etc. -- e.g., converted a back hall to a bathroom, etc.

As for lead paint removal -- I wouldn't recommend anyone trying it without doing a lot of research -- absolutely no sanding! In this state homeowners are allowed to remove their own lead paint, but the rules may be different in other locations. I've painted over the old lead paint in the past, but now that I'm retired, I'm gradually stripping all the clapboards down to bare wood and repainting. I use an infrared heater that softens the paint so I can scrape it onto a plastic dropcloth below and then bag all scrapings at the end of each work session. I wear a NIOSH P100 respirator and change out of my workclothes in the cellar and head straight for the shower.