An unusual visitor

Yesterday I was in the front yard getting the stroller packed up for our afternoon activities when a man and woman approached the house with a camera. They introduced themselves, and the man told me he had grown up in our house during the 1960s. The house had been in his family since 1904. He's lived in Chicago since 1971, and was in town to visit his old haunts. Since we have lots of questions about our old house, we invited him in to have a look. Unfortunately, the place is a chaotic mess because of the renovation going on, but he still got the tour. We were surprised by a few of the things he told us:

*The addition on the back of the main floor was there when he lived here. We had assumed it was more recent. My big complaint about this room is that there are no windows looking out onto the back yard. But when the addition was built, that space wasn't being used as a yard. There was a warehouse next door housing the family plumbing business (this we knew about), and our current yard wasn't all fenced off from it or anything. So the lack of windows makes sense now. I still don't like it, but it makes sense.

*The bathroom we are currently renovating was a bedroom when he lived here. So we couldn't hold him responsible for the incredibly shoddy work that was performed in converting it to a bathroom.

*The addition on the back of the second floor was his bedroom. And the little bathroom off that room was the house's original bathroom. Very interesting. Again, we had assumed the addition was a more recent vintage.

*The floors were already sloping in the 1960s.

*The closet and storage spaces under the stairs were there when he lived here. It's clear that the original entrance to the basement was under the main floor staircase, but it must have been changed a long time ago.

*The kitchen sink was where our fridge is now. That explains the tap coming out of the wall.

It was a short but interesting visit (I was gone for most of it--I'm just reporting what Tom told me later). The great thing about old houses is the layers of history you uncover. The bad thing, of course, is the decay and the layers of shoddy renovation you uncover when you're fixing them up!

(The bathroom is coming along. I think there's at least a week's worth of work left.)