We began looking for a house late in 1997, knowing that we wanted to move in late 1998. We scoured the Bucks County area, looking for a house with some character with all the conveniences. Since we aren't exactly Dean and JoJo, we knew not to look at "Handyman's Specials". We looked at the house that we did eventually purchase early on (it was one of the first houses we looked at), but never pursued it because we had never heard of the realtor. So, we searched and searched, and we eventually ended up making an appointment to see "our" house. It looked great on paper - 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, kitchen, formal dining room, living room, on .75 acres on a dead end street (the street dead ends into a field). Our first impression as we drove down the street was good - it was a small grouping of homes (only about 15) in a cross shape with three streets dead-ending into fields (we are surrounded by a farm) and one street letting us on to a main road.

The house, however, was a different matter. A small ranch style house, it had been owned by an older woman for over 50 years, and when she moved, rented to a family member for about 5 years. Unfortunately, from our first close up look at the exterior, nothing had been done on the house in the 55 or so years of its existence. The bushes surrounding the house were so overgrown that they covered the windows on almost all sides of the house. No attempt at landscaping had been made during this time, so the lawn and flowerbeds were a complete mess. The best of the exterior was still yet to come - her sons had planted 80 or so yew trees along the back of the yard at least 10 years ago so that they could sell them during the holidays. The sons all moved away, but the trees remained, so overgrown that they covered the entire back of the yard. They are at least 10 feet tall and have grown together into a giant block of greenery.

So, after this shock we went inside to realize that the yew trees were the least of the problems. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, had been done in terms of maintenance to this house since it was built. The windows (old crank style awning) were in VERY bad shape - you could see light through where they met the sill. The living room had the filthiest carpet I have ever seen and was painted (50 years ago) yellow. There was a brick fireplace which seemed to be in good shape. The dining room and kitchen were a real blast from the past. Pull downs chandelier in the dining room and a circle fluorescent light in the kitchen with shiny orange lacquer doors on all of the cabinets. The washer and dryer were in the kitchen (not in a cabinet - just in the kitchen). The bedrooms were about the same - bad carpeting, 50-year-old paint on the walls, 1950's light fixtures, and orange lacquer closet doors. It did have a garage, full basement (leaking), and a full attic so at least something was positive.

As soon as my soon-to-be-husband heard the words "no air-conditioning", he was out the door. I convinced him to stay, because I felt that the house had potential. The realtor was delusional in his asking price so we gave him a bid way, way below and ended up buying for a lot less than the original asking price. We knew that this would leave us some money for "renovation" and that our extremely handy family would agree to become slave labor for the summer.

ince we moved in, we have added central air conditioning, replaced all of the bathroom fixtures in both bathrooms, re-tiled the bathrooms and kitchen, painted the kitchen cabinets, added recessed lighting in the kitchen, added a fire place screen with glass doors, repainted, glazed, and repaired all the windows, painted every room and removed the carpeting to expose the hard wood floors underneath. On the exterior, we have removed all of the overgrown bushes, created flower beds with new edging, patched the grass, replaced the driveway light, replaced both of the water spigots, and have begun to plant new flowers and bushes.