When we first saw this house it was early spring in 2008. The apple trees and pear trees were in full bloom. The grass was already starting to look overgrown and the once tended to garden beds were rotting. The place was old and vacant and looked sad, but it told a story. A story we wanted to know about and house we wanted to restore.....
This post and beam cape was built in 1774, or maybe earlier, that was as far back the records went. She's a gem, but a diamond in the rough. The sills are rotting and there are many parts of the house that were not properly repaired. It sags in the middle by a good six inches. When you go upstairs and head into my son's room, it feels like your going uphill. We are use to it now, but visitors always notice. There is a brace in the kitchen to support the middle beam, but the house is still settling. I love it though, its character. I imagine the amount of families who have lived and farmed here. It's amazing to think that this house was here before we were even an established country! I think the beams are the only original thing left in the house. The rest has been fixed as needed throughout the years. The hand hewned beams though, have notches taken out of them, some look charred, and some have roman numerals on them. It seems that they may have come from somewhere else before being used to frame this house, which would make them even older.
The addition you can see in this picture, use to be the wood shed and a previous owner decided to close it in. The 2 X 6's are not sixteen on center and I'm not sure there is much insulation considering the draft is horrible, the floor is freezing and the pipes always freeze in the basement under this portion if it is windy.
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