HOUSE TOUR: Historian Pays $18,500 for Victorian-Era West Virginia Home She Is Restoring

hi welcome to my home in wheeling west virginia i'm betsy sweeney come on in you're watching homeworthy where we believe every home has a story like and subscribe for more hi betsy you are in east wheeling west virginia where you're restoring a house from 1892 is that right that's right um tell me all about this restoration project uh well almost a year ago may of 2020 i purchased the house and it was in pretty bad shape um definitely not livable but good bones and i've been working on it pretty much since i closed on it so there's a lot of a lot of water damage a lot of deferred maintenance things like that and uh we're finally starting to kind of round the corner where i've stopped taking things out and fixing them and i'm actually putting things back into the house which is really motivating so of all the homes that you looked at when you were in the home purchasing process what drew you to this particular house this property had the great location it had an extra lot um where a house had formerly stood that was torn down so that came with the parcel and then architecturally the house is just so so cool because it's from the victorian era but it's not your typical like flowery romantic kind of victorian it's a little bit more eastlake in style so it's got a little bit more of a geometric influence on the decoration and it's just really cool it's unique i haven't seen anything quite like it you have things like incredible fireplaces um stained glass windows are some of the things that i've seen was this a surprise to you when you entered the house yeah so um particularly on that street a lot of the larger homes are italianate in style and just a little bit earlier so you have a passage and then like formal rooms on one side or the other typically my home is a little different in that the stair hall room is an actual room so it's this very grand entryway with this sweeping stair and there's a fireplace underneath the stair in this like little nook which is really like just really sweet it's just an eclectic style house there's no other way to say it um and the fact that so much of the historic character of the property was still intact was shocking because 30 years ago i think was the last time a family lived in the property full time and then it was abandoned for several decades and then the couple that i purchased it off of had started to make improvements but they essentially saved it from the demolition list so this is a house that's been through the ringer and the fact that stained glass was still there all five chimney pieces were still there not a single um not a single piece of wood work on my staircase was broken or missing like stuff like that it just the things that are almost irreplaceable were actually still intact and that was so special for me have you had sort of an uh oh moment since you've purchased the house where you've thought what have i gotten myself into with this restoration everyone asks that and truthfully no um i'm in a fortunate position that this is kind of what i do for a living so that crazy messed up house was in about the best hands it could have ended up in but there are certainly some days where i think like okay i need to write down a list of everything i need to do in the next week and i look at that list and i'm like i i still have a full-time job like this is a lot how do you make sure it doesn't turn into a money pit due diligence is really important so um a lot of times when people see something that's like down to the studs they think oh my god this is a shell there's nothing like there's nothing to this sometimes it's better because if you walk through an old property that hasn't been maintained that hasn't been inhabited and you walk around and you think oh that looks like maybe it could be salvaged don't think that way just expect that everything that can be broken is every number you get add 20 and like if you really just set yourself up for a worst case scenario you will never be disappointed and the process will be shockingly stress-free because you've already anticipated all the things that could go wrong so interesting um what has been sort of your favorite part about this restoration project um i really love when i have the time to work on the house myself with my own two hands because i have i do have that knowledge and background but most of my day-to-day job is more of a consulting role where i'm helping people work with their contractor or their craftsman or their architect or whatever because i'm dealing with larger preservation projects so i end up in more of a desk job dealing with historic preservation that way so i love on like a sunday afternoon to just put on some messy clothes go over to the house by myself put on an audio book and just work it's so peaceful how long do you think this whole process will take you from start to move in it's been really crazy so when i bought the house it was a project just for me i wasn't involving anyone else it was just a personal project it's gonna be my home that i live in and when that was the case six to eight month construction schedule i had it tight fast and like i was gonna be in around the new year but i am in this weird position where i was blogging for myself and my family and i was on social media for my friends and my family and then the project just blew up and now i'm in this whole new world of content creation and blogging and it's really fun and it's really new but it does take time and so with that um new world of whatever there have been certain opportunities that have made it make sense to slow down so now i'm kind of at a point where i'm hopeful that by the summer i it's livable whether or not i decide to live in it i will remains to be seen but i think by summer it'll be livable and then anything after that i really want to take my time and just make it what i want and enjoy the process like like i said i like to work on my house so i'm not trying to rush through it i kind of am savoring the process but um compared to the timeline i had when i bought it i would say we're like six months behind um but by choice what's been the most fulfilling about this project oh the best part about this project is it is a house that is big it's kind of looming on a little bit of a bank in the neighborhood like everyone knows about it all of my neighbors have seen it degrade in various states of disrepair over the years and so many people saw it and thought this is a house that is too far gone like it's not worth saving it's it's a mess it's a money pit all these different things and to be able to show people that with some preparation and with some knowledge and like just a vigilant construction schedule the house is savable and the neighborhood deserves to have homes that are restored and people are living in them and that they are healthy for the community not to be a neighborhood full of homes that are empty and so i love seeing people that have lived on my street for 30 40 years who have seen my house be empty for the majority of their lifetime see that it's coming back to life or have neighbors stop by and say hey come on in you want to see the progress like i think it's very empowering for other people that see some of the other properties on my street that maybe need the same amount of work to know that it actually can be done and it was done just down the street well i can't wait to see it in six months or so when it's all finished and you're moved in and then we can see all of the after pictures with your beautiful interior design which i know that you will uh surely have do you have any ideas about what it will look like on the inside in terms of design i do i love i love design and i'm so excited to style the house because i i really really love the beautiful traditional historic architecture i think the things that were built in the house were meant to be you know consistent through time and i think the things that weren't built in are meant to change so i am not trying to live in a museum i don't want it to look like your grandma's house i don't want any red velvet sofas or cherubs or lamps with fringe on them like no i love really modern furniture i have a ton of art but i can't wait to hang up i really like the juxtaposition between super traditional architecture and super funky modern furnishings it's gonna be beautiful i can't wait betsy thank you so much for chatting today i really appreciate it thank you it was a pleasure

Channel: Homeworthy

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Id: JIsgwthncK0

Length: 9min 18sec (558 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 26 2021