Three Overlooked Things in an Old Home Purchase

It’s been nearly 13 years since we purchased our old home. The local property appraiser’s website claims our cottage was built in 1955. However, it’s clear, given that the house was added on to without any official record, that the home is probably older.

When we bought the home, I was naive about what owning an old home would entail. I assumed that we would fix it up. But as the years have gone by and our family has grown, there are a few things that we didn’t really fully take into consideration on closing day.

Are you an old home lover? Read on for a discussion about three things not commonly discussed when purchasing an old home.

Storage Space

Many old homes lack the kind of storage space modern homes typically enjoy. Much of that is because the amount of things we own has exponentially increased.

Each bedroom in our cottage does have a closet, but each closet is rather insignificant in size.

We have no pantry or linen closet either.

We’ve had to get creative with with furniture storage, as a result.

Our bed in the master bedroom is raised in order to allow old file cabinet drawers on casters to fit underneath, adding more clothing storage. In our master bedroom closet, we split it in half vertically to allow space for two sets of clothes.

And we are swimming in cabinets. Cabinets for linens (times three). Cabinets for our pantry. Cabinets for extra kitchen storage. Cabinets for board games. And thankfully, a loft above our sunroom where we throw our seasonal decor and keepsakes.

“Interesting” Construction Tactics

Nothing in our house is square. Stare at any point long enough, and you’re bound to notice your head start to cock off to the side to account for the tilt.

Each of our cased openings are crooked. Doorways and window casings all have a “lean.” We even giggled this weekend attempting to install some shelving into the playroom closet when realizing that the old shelf brackets also aren’t level.

Hanging curtains was hard, given the slant of the ceiling. Installing our vintage built-ins in the library proved difficult. And we had to entirely dispose of our screen door because it just couldn’t survive its crooked installation.

Most of the time, it’s a funny problem. But every now and then, we have to make the decision when working in a space that isn’t level whether we do it “right” and risk whatever we’re working on sticking out like a sore thumb because the contrast between level and not is so significant. Or do we do the project to the lean, ensuring that even if it’s got funky angles, it will at least appear at first glance to be done properly.

The Time Investment

I was well aware on closing day just how much work our old cottage needed. But I was incredibly naive about the time commitment.

Here we are 13 years later, and we are just wrapping up our final infrastructure piece of the cottage: a new roof.

We’ve updated the drain field, the wiring, the plumbing. We’ve had to put in a new AC unit, shore up a damaged bathroom. Not to mention some of the other “cosmetic” fixes we’ve done over time.

We made a decision not to get too far into our house for more than we could afford. With that mentality, the renovations have been slow-going.

I think people watch renovations in our DIY-era and think it all happens fast. And for those with deep pockets and large financial resources, that’s true. But for those of us with modest incomes and very real lives, living in a home that needs updating is a constant work-in-progress. We will probably never be done, and it will always take more time than we imagined it would.

Do you live in an old house? What do you wish had been talked about more before purchasing?