Getting To Know Our Young Victorian

Building a Dream Home

In my last post, I mentioned that I would get into the backstory on Annabelle’s Place. While she is only 20 years old, she does have some interesting history that’s fun to share. This house was originally built as a dream retirement home for a Michigan couple planning to move closer to their daughter. The original plans for the house were modified along the way. Things like moving the master bathroom, making a guest bath into an upstairs laundry room, that sort of thing. Fortunately, we have all of the blueprints that were later adapted by a local architect, which is something that has helped us more than once during our renovation project.

We were told that the original owners did all of the finish work in the house themselves. This definitely explained a lot about the inconsistencies we uncovered during our work on the house. We’re not sure why the owners chose to do the finish work, but we suspect it may have been a money issue unfortunately.

Some Things We Loved; Some Things We Didn’t

What we loved about the owners’ work were features like the handcrafted wood trim throughout. And details like the hand-turned staircase spindles where each spindle is slightly different. And there was loads of old school character not usually found in newer homes. But then there was the clashing Victorian floral wallpaper in every room with the wood trim painted to match the paper in that room (think purple, pink, yellow, green, burgundy).

Sadly, by the time we first saw the house, many years of neglected maintenance had already prematurely aged this Victorian lady. While most of the Victorian decor (like all of that wallpaper) and issues like water leaks, a bad roof design, questionable electrical changes and shoddy siding have all been removed or repaired, we have happily kept much of what makes Annabelle’s Place seem like a much older home.

She still has a beautiful stained glass window that the original owners brought with them from Michigan, her namesake newel post light, a touch of Victorian “gingerbread” in the dining room, fancy brass door hardware throughout, a reproduction stove, and antique kitchen and bath fixtures. Oh and a really big antique vanity in our master bath that just needed a little makeover.

Making New Look Old… Again

We completely appreciate the vision that the original owners had for this place. And we have chosen to embrace the whole concept of having a newer home look as if it could be over 100 years old. We chose to install wood flooring that looks timeworn, old-school black and white tiles for the bathrooms, and even added additional character like a living room fireplace, a laundry chute, and a kitchen-island counter-top made from distressed wood.

We like to think that we have incorporated a wonderful combination of both the original owners’ vision and our own vision throughout this renovation! She’s quite unexpected for this little mountain community but full of fun and interesting details!

We’re Almost There!

So that’s a little bit more about Annabelle’s Place. We’ll pick back up on the renovation next time. Keep in mind, what I’ve covered so far on the project only takes us up to early 2016! We just finished the last bathroom last month so this ends up being a 2 1/2 year project for us! And while we still have some smaller projects inside we’d like to tackle, a little work in the basement, and improvements to our property outside, she sure feels like home and we now have time to breathe and simply enjoy our surroundings!

Thanks for reading!
{Shelley}