I Bought an Abandoned Victorian Mansion! House Tour Time.

[Music] hey guys uh going to take you guys on a tour of my house this is the charles s brown house he was a manufacturer of woodworking machinery um from like 1890s up to about uh 1930s ish still covered today lots of the tools are still around people still use them but uh let me take you on a tour of this house so here we have the entryway which these doors here are not original but this door and this set actually is original to the house we have the transit up there which is really cool all the woodwork in here is still pretty nice and together yeah and we also have the original tiles which are probably hand painted and really really nice and really cool so we're gonna have to bring that back because we're missing a few up here so we'll be figuring that out here at some point so let me take you guys inside so yeah here is the entryway we have this really awesome chandelier here which is original to the house we have the gas fixtures here and the electrical here there would have been quite a bit more crystal on it at one point but of course we've lost a lot of it over the air but the fact that it's still here at all still pretty awesome we have a little like cove here where you probably would have had like you know your hat rack coat rack maybe a place to put your shoes we also have uh the staircase here which unfortunately is missing its newel post here at the front but we actually are in contact with a guy who has some of mr brown's the guy who built the house his machinery he's going to go ahead and remake us a newer post for this area which we think is kind of perfect for the house we do have some really nice woodwork in here which we think is actually only in this house we have these little like posts and bits up every or these little circular woodwork details and i mean i don't even know how to necessarily describe it it's just really pretty and cool and i've not seen anything like it in this city or another so we also have these gigantic pocket doors three of which work two of which do not or three of which do not because there are three sets of them this is one that actually rolls pretty nicely or the set that rolls pretty nicely but you can see a little bit of noise but considering they're 131 years old can't complain too very much here in the parlor we are unfortunately missing the two matching fireplace for this parlor and for this parlor over here um which is unfortunate but we we will find something that works for them eventually um so this is the main bay of windows in the front and these are pretty unique and cool because the shutters are actually built into the windows so if it's too sunny out for you you just pull the shutters pull them close them up you can let in a little less light or no light at all pretty much and every single one of these windows has that which we think is a pretty awesome feature i do have my little pump organ here that i purchased not too long ago it works it's really cool and i think it really fits the aesthetic of the house we also do have these really cool medallions in here with these kind of angular shape and of course we're going to repair and eventually paint and maybe even gild these in gold which we think you know would be pretty awesome give it some opulence to the house that it deserves i also have the inlaid floors in the second parlor don't have it on this side but right here we have these inlays and really pretty design and there's really nothing wrong with it other than a tiny little piece missing here and there they're pretty much in perfect shape so and of course yes we are missing this fireplace here as well which we're not terribly happy about but you can't win them all we do have four other fireplaces in the house that are still here so there would have been six in total we're just happy to be missing the front two ones so you know the windows the woodwork all the plaster work again with the medallion up here uh yeah pretty pretty awesome stuff in this house so let me re-center you guys cool so coming out of uh the third set of pocket doors so one two and then here is the third one we have back into the stair stairwell slash hallway which is really just pretty cool the other nice thing about this area is the fact that because these stairs are floating you can actually look all the way up to the third floor which is pretty cool if you need to yell down at somebody hey i need laundry or hey i need you to come down and do whatever you can totally do that which is really cool so heading back into this area we have kind of the half maids half dining room kind of you know area still we still have some of the really nice woodwork here this is the maid stairwell behind this door here pretty dark back here you know they don't really care i guess if the mates could see if they were walking up the stairs but these are really tight and narrow but still pretty cool we're definitely not going to lose that area we're going to keep it because it's still a part of the house that we want to show off we have a bathroom that we believe was originally a pantry and i i do apologize for lighting here because simply put the electric in this place isn't super great at the moment so we don't really have any lights to turn on but you can see in here pretty good right now this was probably like a 1920s esque arrow when they put this in and we think they took out the pantry to do this which i guess makes sense considering the house at that point probably only had one bathroom in total for a 3 700 square foot house which is not enough at least by modern standards we have the hallway here which i mean still ceiling is really tall here you see a little bit of damage there from just age and water and everything like that here we have the kitchen now of course this is not a very big kitchen because victorians did not have very big kitchens we're going to keep it that way um we have done a little bit of work into this room simply put it was 70s out it needs to be taken back to the 1880s and the plaster was really starting to fail in this room and i needed access to the electrical wires back here so i could re-run a lot of the system because the entire house is knob and post and that just doesn't fly anymore and i do not think it will pass code we also did find the original wayne's cutting or not wainscoting the original uh bead board in here which was hidden behind here so we know this is what it would have originally looked like and so we're going to bring it back in the whole room there's actually a place to nail it in on these boards here and so we know the whole room had it so we're able to just dissect that by just tearing it a little bit up we also found these little shelves here and we would have believed that this would have been the door for the pantry that is now the bathroom but somebody at some point put these little shelves in there which are kind of cool and fascinating didn't expect to find that so entering from the way the maids would have come into the dining room this little door here is a double hinge door so you would push it open you can push it both ways so easier to get with foods and plates and stuff in and out of the dining room so here let's go ahead and pop this open push on in now this is one of the more grand rooms on the first floor mostly because it does have the original waynes cutting which is really cool and pretty nice and really in good shape again especially considering its age we have the original radiators in here like we do through most of the house which are pretty ornate we also have one of the original the only original fireplace actually on the first floor um with the original tiles uh it's really nice and carved and really ornate but you have to get pretty close to see a lot of the detail but there you go there the grill is really nice and then of course the tiles here are just awesome so and then we do have um a lot of good plaster work in this room as well we think the medallion here is something pretty special because it has grapes and fruit and food to specify that you are in the dining room and we just find that really kind of cool that they even thought about that to put the detail in to signify what the room was for we do have this really cool china cabinet over here built in that has the original push button switch and electrics and it all still works all the light bulbs everything and it's just really a pretty little piece it's got some mirrors in there so if you point it in the right way it kind of looks like an infinity room but it's pretty cool all right guys so that's the tour of the first floor let me go ahead and take you up to the second and third floors and we'll continue the tour there so coming back into the hallway we have the stairs as you can see up it's pretty cool i think i showed this earlier but just in case you missed it let's head on up so digging in the walls a little bit we actually discovered that there's a little bit of the original wallpaper up here we might try to have this remade if i can get enough of it uncovered i think i might have to bring a steamer in and see if i can pull some more of this paint because that's a really pretty pattern wouldn't that look awesome here in the in the stairwell at least i think it would so continuing on these two doors down here are the two uh main bedrooms of the house or at least the more ornate ones um but before we get to those i would like to show off this this is actually one of the original panel boxes so this is electrical i have never seen anything quite like it it actually predates fuses and is on a slate board so it doesn't burn but yeah we're going to keep that there we're not going to use it for electrical but it's pretty cool looking and yeah we might frame it out so let's go to the master bedroom first so first thing you come in you see like the obviously the big bay of windows here this is right above the first parlor in the front of the house and then we have this beautiful fireplace here with the original tiles which are just gorgeous amazing that they're all still here and then we only have a few right here that are cracked um and of course the fireplace has carved itself too so you have these really beautiful little motifs carved in there yeah i think it's really cool somewhat hard to see on camera i suppose but you can kind of still see them in there it's just really pretty so that's that um and of course the babe windows these have like the really beautiful woodwork it's probably easier to see here so it's not so backlit but just like downstairs it's the same style woodwork it's really beautiful and most the house has that or at least most of the prettier areas and we have this little cove over here as well which i don't know what that have been like maybe a little sitting room addition to the kitchen or to the uh bedroom here um we're not sure we're gonna do that if we're gonna put the bed there or or what but we'll do something pretty nifty we also have the original radiator here which is pretty cool we're trying to get the system back online right now um we're having a little bit of trouble with it but you know that's just how you know you do with these houses we also have the transoms here which people seem to really enjoy and they actually all work which is really cool i can actually show you on this one here if i come into the second large room the hardware is here and you would just unscrew this bit here and pull this up and down and screw back and unlock it and that is the whole system for the transoms and like i said they all still work or at least everyone that i've seen so far works so this is the second big bedroom on the second floor the medallions in here which are super nice the master bedroom has one too but it isn't cracked we might have to replace this one because the ceiling in here as well it's not doing the best it's kind of pulling over there in the corner we have another fireplace over here i believe this is granite just like the other one same stone little carved motifs really pretty uh one thing unfortunate here is somebody has taken our tile so that's all missing but you know you win some you lose some and this one also is kind of unique because this here is a regular window right but this guy over here is what they call a jefferson window so it runs floor to ceiling and you can actually open it up and there would be a deck out here now currently we are missing the deck because i had to have tuck pointers take it out to be able to get to the problem area that was above us and relay the bricks there but at some point we will build the deck back here you can see the holes for it and everything where the line and put like a nice chair out there and uh our concept right now is to actually have this room here and the room that we came through right here the master as two rentable rooms maybe airbnb or whatever or for guest rooms uh and turn the third floor itself entirely into our master suite um you know looking back into the stair stairwell which is so pretty okay on to the maids area and we know that because this is the top of the maid stairwell here so you know kind of tear narrow and tight bendy but it comes right down there by the kitchen and then you know looking up here's the stairwell again the two rooms and also the woodwork does change here quite a bit so even though we have the transoms and everything you can see it turns normal rosettes and things like that are at least more common woodwork versus if you turn the corner and look back up you can see the more beautiful or nate would work up there so let's continue on here this is the one original bathroom believe was in the house um of course i think the second owner remodeled this and the teens or the 20s because this is more of an art deco aesthetic than maybe victorian so we might move this stuff upstairs because we're kind of going to go a little art deco on the third floor but everything else down here is going back victorian even has the original painted unfortunately but we'll we'll sand blast this guy radiator a nice little cute closet so if you need to put your things away all right continuing on we have the actual maids room or at least what we believe would have been the maids room nothing too super fancy here we do of course have a little bit of water damage there's areas of the house especially ones that meet to the roof that have more damage than the others and the floor is nothing to write home about here it's all gonna have to come out um this is right above the kitchen actually so well a lot of the walls have to come out here just for wiring purposes anyways so let's go in here again with the transoms every door in this on the second floor has a transom above it this room we're not exactly for sure what it was because it does have the fireplace it does have the back bay to it and it does go back to the really nice woodwork again which the maid wouldn't probably have had in her room so we're not sure exactly what this was for or how it connected to like the normal spaces and unfortunately it is all painted back here which yeah you know i guess you can't win them all again um so but yeah nice big windows in this room and we do have of course more water damage up here um most of this stuff we've kind of ripped down ourselves it's not like it's just falling but we did have a have to have a lot of buckets back here catching all of the water which is unfortunate but the new roof goes on next week so can't complain um this fireplace too i originally thought it was wood and nothing special but turns out it's actually stone so beneath this we think there might be stenciled paint and so i to be very careful get a heat gun out and try to scrape the paint off of this and see if i can reveal those original painted bits if there is any defined of course but it's worth at least a search all right so let's head here back now to to the stairwell and i'll take you all to the third floor which i love this area the lighting in this area is spectacular all the time and no there's no lights on in this building at all currently all the power is kind of messed up because a lot of it's 100 and you know 31 years old so let's head on up more random chairs left by the previous owner you got to get a little look at the neighborhood from here see some of the missing buildings here here here here this neighborhood's kind of been through a lot but you know it is what it is so look back down the stairwell you see how you could easily just yell or throw something down to somebody down there in the first floor so in here this is actually the part where you'd be in the mansard roof and you can see we've kind of started stripping a lot of that away because we need to look at the roof and find out how good and or bad it was luckily everything this way is dry um there are a few holes where you know it's connected to the building like here and you can see one down here a little bit of light down that way and that's just you know we're missing parts of the cornice and some other things and so it's things we have to get built back up and stuff like that again and then uh birds got in here at one point built nests you know all the usual fun stuff but still it's all saveable it's all fixable not cheap but fixable um this is uh one of the original closets in the house and there's many closets this is the only one we found that was cedar lined so we imagine they probably kept some more valuable furs and whatever else in here it's got the built-ins it's pretty cool so we'll definitely be utilizing that this is the big bedroom up here there are two maybe three if you count the small room next to us um and so yeah you can see again where the mansard comes in normal brickwork mansard roof and you can see the light coming through it needs to be flashed there again i mean the entire roof needs to be redone completely but luckily we're getting the flat roof on here soon but you can if you ever wonder what the back of a mansion roof looks like there you go and then out here the window we do actually have a pretty cool view if you look out this way you can actually see the st louis gateway arch right here which if those not familiar with st louis there's our icon of our city which we rather enjoy and then you know some of the prettier buildings on my street well hard to see dirty windows it's a dirty house right now okay so of course up here too we do have the transoms and all the wood up here is beautiful too i mean there isn't a piece of woodwork in this house that isn't pretty which we feel extremely fortunate to have so into this room actually this room this entire area we're going or this entire floor we're going to turn into our master suite um we're going to divide this room in half and actually put a bathroom here like what in a claw foot tub right here in this little bay look amazing so that's the plan we'll see how long it takes us to get there this room too we've been working on the ceiling trying to get it out so we can make sure that all the rafters are good for the roof to go turns out they're pretty much good to go so we're gonna get that in and dried but while doing that we did find a little friend here the mummified squirrel as you can see uh yeah turns out i guess he got into the roof and couldn't get back out and here he lies and it's a full-on tried mummy so that's a first for me i'm sure it won't be the last goofy thing we find about this house but yeah a weird little story there um all right so that's pretty much the third floor i guess i can show you guys the roof real quick so the half of this uh the house is two stories and half of it is three stories and so this is the part that's two stories and the part we're in right now is the third story or mansard as they call it um so eventually we actually would like to put a deck up here just like a floating deck so you could walk out and enjoy these pretty views of the city we actually have uh this little white tower here and this little darker tower here these are actually both really old water towers these to supply the city this one here is the white one it's actually a giant corinthian column or roman or whatever column and uh supposedly it's the largest in the world so interesting little fact there and they light it up at night too it's really pretty that's it for the third floor i'll uh i'll meet you guys again back in the basement and show you guys essentially the dungeon all right guys so now back here in the kitchen i'm gonna take you guys to the basement or the dungeon whichever you'd prefer so this is the stairwell in the kitchen this is the stairwell to it there are two other inches from the outside and i can show you guys those down here again excuse the lighting and it'll be a little dark down here luckily we have windows down here that do help a significant amount so right underneath the kitchen is was probably like the laundry room at some point when you know machines became available we have some old bead board and stuff down here and a little bit of insanity with pipes and just random stuff but the windows are pretty cool because they have these old iron iron gates on them and they're actually all still there so the entire way around we have these guys which are really red and then here's one of the back doors now entering into this room you'll notice the tile first and foremost that's because this was used by the second owner it's actually a vet office so you would have entered from this door here from the side and he put this fantastic tile down which is really strange for a basement also these walls are kind of weird they have like these foam boards on them like fiber boards not exactly for sure what they're about but that's what they are kind of looks like a haunted house in here because of it and then we have these old school cabinets here built-ins the little crystal knobs they've also painted these silver but we'll probably take all that crap off and turn them back into wood but they are rather pretty so continuing on we do have a little bathroom here which was probably put in the same time as the tile because the age of that toilet's rather old and to be honest we might reuse this somewhere else in the house because it is probably the oldest remaining toilet in the house so we'll do something with that at some point now we come to the radiator or not radiator the boiler so you can see the systems and the pipes going every which way we've had this actually looked at supposedly it should work it's from 2007 so it's on a terribly old model and as soon as we can get water to it we'll test it we did have to rip out all the or not rip out but we had to rip up the street to get a new water line in here because the lines were lead they were the original lines to the house also it's kind of hard to say or tell but this basement is actually really tall it's probably well i don't know i i'm it's hard for me to touch the ceiling i have to get on my tippy toes to do it and i'm 510 so if that gives any perspective there we have this little partition for the basement here this little wooden uh bead board wall and then you know the giant columns holding up the basement pretty cool stuff it's extremely dry down here and doesn't look there's ever been water damage or anything down here like that uh we have this little kind of like root celery room here this is the front of the house um you know not a whole lot going on in here but dry pretty lots of storage space or whatever else you want to do on here if you want to put a speakeasy this is the water line that cost a fortune to bring in but of course as you can see it's not lead it's copper so this was an exciting moment for us to get this in here because it means we have at least some water so as you can see it works yeah i know it's on the basement floor but it's not going to hurt anything and then here we have this little i don't know just random little room super duper dungeony yes super creepy but uh yeah it seems to work pretty good a weird glass dome thing i don't know what that was from but it's here so it's ours we're keeping it so essentially that's the basement yeah i mean maybe not as dark and dungeony as most basements because there is so much light because of these windows and like i said again these these wooden or iron bars are really just nice they're so cool no no all of them all the windows have them so guys that's pretty much the tour of the house you've seen the messes you've seen the beautiful woodwork you've seen all the other goofy things and you even heard a few of the ideas of what we have going on here uh our plan is to make this a perfect victorian home again we want to see this place shine we don't want to use any white paint anywhere we want to put the original wallpaper back where we can and the details back where they are that way this house can live on as what it always was so that's the concept that's the plan that's the tour and i hope you guys will join us along for this journey of making this place a great home again

Channel: The 2nd Empire Strikes Back

Views: 1,788,646

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Id: IF8VkcLa1S4

Length: 26min 57sec (1617 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020