Buy a historic home and restore it, or not.

By badbadivy

It has always been my dream to buy a really old home and restore it myself. One of the things that keeps me from it is how expensive it can be, and the other thing is the three rugrats running around my house that make any remodeling project a nightmare, much less a total rehab.

Even so, I spent several hours perusing this site that lists historic properties. They have ones that need total rehabs and houses that have already been restored, like the gorgeous Queen Anne pictured here.

The site led me to a far more interesting site that lists homes in North Carolina that need to be rehabbed and are (mostly) selling very inexpensively. It fueled my dream even moreso. The nifty thing about Mr. Ivy's and my respective careers is they are careers that can be picked up and moved anywhere.

So, will we do it? Probably not for several years, since we still do have the rugrats. But kids get older, and hopefully in that time we'll get richer. I might be able to make my dreams come true after all.

You tell me: What is your favorite time period for architecture? Me, I'm a sucker for Craftsman Bungalows, but I also really dig the Southern Antebellum mansions. How cool would it be to have a house that you could tell visitors, "Yes, the Civil War was fought in my backyard and my house was used as a headquarters." Ghost stories would abound!

Tagged:
historic-properties-for-sale historic-preservation