Introduction

This will be my house project blog, where I can keep things straight and post plenty of pictures without clogging up my main blog, DisOrganization.

My house is:

--located in a small town in Southern Ohio
--frame, with a stone foundation
--over 100 years old--it shows up on the 1904 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
--currently home to me, my sister and nephew, five cats, an English Bulldog, a baby ball python, a hibernating box turtle, and a hedgehog

I decided to call the blog "House St. Clair" because that's the title of my website, and it's all connected anyway. (And I've been meaning to make a blog for my house for a while now.

The story:

In December of 2002, I got a divorce, moved back in with my parents and spent the next year and a half paying off credit card debt while also saving to buy a house. My parents own an 1850s Colonial Revival-style brick farmhouse, so I grew up in old houses and could not imagine myself in anything that was in any way, shape, or form, cookie-cutter-ish.

In truth, I envisioned myself in a cottage or a bungalow. Instead, I ended up buying (a year early, too) a four bedroom, eleven room white monster.

In August of 2004, my dream home was put on the market. Since I had always been partial to this particular house (and stone houses in general) I bit the bullet and went to the bank, despite knowing that I would never be qualified for the loan. I wasn't, but my credit looked good enough for me to qualify for something, so thus started the mad race of the next month as I decided to try to get a house a year before I had even planned to start looking.

(I had never really stopped looking, but once my dream house was put on the market, I decided that I might as well try.)

My current house was the third house I looked at. It was billed as just needing the final touches of restoration--it needs a bit more than that--but the house is sound, the woodwork is unpainted except for three doors, and the stained glass window in the dining room was (to me, at least) to die for. And I have a front porch. And a porch swing. Among other things!

There are eight layers of wallpaper in my dining room.

The old lady who lived in my house had lived there since 1978. Her husband had died a few years earlier, and she just couldn't handle such a big place on her own. (Not to mention she kept the thermostat cranked up really high, so she had some major gas bills.) Before that, as far as I've been able to tell, the house was owned and rented by the Shafers (haven't been able to find anything about them yet.) The courthouse burned down in the 70s and most of the property records were lost, so I don't know if I'll be able to go back any further than what I have already.

At the moment, my house is covered by aluminum siding (white and peeling.) As far as I've been able to tell, the original wood siding is underneath. Eventually, finances permitting, I plan to remove all of that, but I will paint the aluminum siding first, because I can't afford it at the moment.

While I like cottages, my high ceilings and huge windows are growing on me. I sure can't complain about the nice oak floors we found under the carpet (that didn't have to be refinished) but I can complain about the state of the house when I moved in (filthy.)

I got the keys to my house on December 11, 2004. Two weeks later, an ice storm raged through town, knocking out the power for 48 hours. That was only the beginning!