I get a free subscription to Country Living and in the October issue was this bit about Colonial homes. I totally dig these types of homes, so I ripped it out with the intention of looking them up to see the interiors, of course! Researching these homes, however, proved extremely difficult with the information supplied by the magazine. They gave you the realtor website and the agent name. It was like doing a root canal on an alligator to find these homes this way. I either couldn't find the agent or the house, or had to look for 30 minutes. I eventually just put in web browser search for 1700s home for sale in _________ as that proved much simpler. They really just should have supplied the MLS #. Multiple brick fireplaces - including one with a beehive oven - keep the vibe cozy inside this three-bedroom, two-bathroom center-chimney Colonial. Extra-wide floorboards, original multipane windows, and a neighbouring carriage house are a nod to the home's 254-year history. So, it's interesting to note in the selling/purchase history of the house that no one's lived in it very long. A year or two and then they try and sell it. Hrmm... What happened in the Moses Huse house that has people wanting to ditch the place so quickly I wonder. Barring that, it's nice enough from the exterior, but it looks like my house. I live in a salt box, in the deep south. I like that I live in a very unusual home for the region, and while I've enjoyed living in this house my entire life, my next home will be something completely different. So, of course I want to see this inside since this is 210 years before mine was built, just from the exterior I know I wouldn't be purchasing it, if I was in the market to do so. The first living space you see. I'm sure this is an addition to the house, as nothing looks original, though I give A for effort that they were trying. It's the same in the kitchen work part (I think only the fireplace, possibly the wainscoting above it and the beams are original, because certainly that floor isn't). I see they're trying for wide plank flooring and beams throughout the house and brickwork. But it's so new and not stained to even seem original that it seems very out of place and honestly like a bad job in my opinion. Look at the dining room, this is the simplicity in which they should have attained for in that addition. Everything fixture-wise in that room is original and so, so beautiful (not the paint, obviously, but you understand). The window casings, low ceilings, the dark and shiny from wear wide plank heart pine floors (I know you can't get this particular wood, much less in this thickness anymore, but if you're going to fake it, fake it better y'all - those other floors are too new and light and dull), the fireplace, the ceiling beams, the wainscoting paneling on the left lower wall and around the fireplace, the storage closet in the fireplace wall. The living room (with the antique Singer sewing machine) is all original as well. Wouldn't their den area have looked so much better and more unified if they'd gone for this style instead of the 2004, I think I'm doing this right? look that they instead settled on? They did an appropriate window casement in the upstairs bathroom, why not downstairs in the kitchen and the den area? Also all of the main doors, gnarly wood posts and ceiling beams (it's obvious in that hallway photo with the creepy old wooden door to the attic space) and wood plank floors are original. Obviously that attic hasn't been touched as it's kind of spooky up there, but that's was almost 300 year old wood looks like. Doesn't mean you have to keep all the wood old and spooky (unless there are house rules). Perhaps there are. Wainscoting and doors was always painted, so repainting isn't against anything, but beams would not have been painted originally, nor would floors have been. There are some nice elements to this house, but I wouldn't buy this house and not just because it looks like my house from the outside. The dining room inside this five-bedroom, two-bath Cape boasts a working cooking fireplace (wrought-iron pot hook included), while the kitchen charms with a cathedral ceiling. I don't know much about Rhode Island, but that town name sure is fun to try and say. I'm also not a fan of Cape Cods... if they're modern. From the eighteenth century and I like 'em just fine. I'm also not a fan of maroon, but I can dig it since it's a period appropriate house colour. While there are some cool things about this house, I'm not a big fan. It's very rustic and very dark, dark, old, old wood. I'd probably be OK if I could paint something of that wood in a nice time appropriate colour, but from the way the house looks I'm thinking the original builders are somewhat poorer than your merchant middle class with their simplistic wainscoting and such. So, if nothing's ever been painted as would be the case with more of a rustic frontier interior (though was Scituate in Rhode Island ever the frontier? Perhaps for about 5 seconds in the early westward expansion, if at all. But you get the gist. The more simple the interior, the less money they had, it works like that today. These were work the land or factory workers or menial labour workers and not general store owners or newpressing people. If the first house had been very prosperous, they wouldn't have had a cooking fireplace inside the house, as that's for people with less money. No, they'd have had a kitchen in their basement (if they had a basement) or in a separate building away from the house; all in brick. The living room in it's blue detailings is all original and very beautiful, but you can see that it's very understated compared to the last house. Plus, the differences in the main fireplaces tells you a little more about social class. Both houses have the large main fireplace that denoted living room as well as kitchen, however the first house had a larger fireplace as opposed to this one. It's not merely so that perhaps a larger fireplace will heat a larger home, because that's why there are so many fireplace openings and mantels in a home (for distributed heating). Plus they have a larger house to begin with, that first one. They have more money than the people who built this house, perhaps not by a huge margin, but yeah. I like the understated charm of the simplicity (like in the blue sitting room), it's just that's a lot of wood in the original living/kitchen area. And that dark wood theme was extended into the 1950s kitchen, which is just way too much. Like I'd leave the fireplace natural if I could paint the other wood around the room like the window casements or the baseboards or something. In the modern (mid 20th century) kitchen I think most of the elements are original. I know the cabinetry and countertops are not, along with that squiggly-do story-book element around the window. I'm unsure about that brick on the right wall. But they painted the wood ceiling like you'd find in an attic space, so I'm sure that's original wood, so if one could paint that? Unless having been updated in the fifties, there were no regulations, because that is possible. I, however, would want to re-do the kitchen. The pantry is nice and might be original (for the most part, barring that lighter wood shelf and the fridge obviously) as it's very eighteenth century for a pantry and if this is how they re-did a kitchen, I would doubt the pantry would look so original, right? It's just a lot of natural wood (which I like, just not a lot of it) in the original part of the house and the additions are just gross. I would not purchase this house. Besides I found one in the same town that's way better overall. Wanna see? Of course you do! Bonus House: 1780 - Scituate, RI Now this is more my speed! Look at that glorious (period appropriate) mustard yellow. And the house has no additions. My one complaint is that the fireplaces aren't up to scratch. They had very tiny fireplaces, one was replaced with a stove pipe burner and one is boarded up altogether, which is sad. But besides that it's really quite lovely inside and that modern kitchen could be done over in a pinch I think, as well as the bathrooms. These people had less money than the first Cape Cod. Smaller fireplaces though same amount of mid height simple paneling, and those wood floors are old, but are less quality. Like if these were replaced they were replaced in 1810, not 2010, which makes a huge difference. Plus, this house and I are exactly 200 years apart in age! I love that! A glimpse inside the rustic, exposed-stone basement offers a peak at life 222 years ago, when this two-bedroom, two-bath home was constructed. The main living area is flanked by a pair of fireplaces, ensuing a warm and inviting space that seems plucked from another time. This one's kind of cute overall. I can dig it. It's a large house though with all of the additions and the basement in the back, but the land is beautiful and there's a creek right by the house. Love! While there are some things I like about the house inside, it is strange. I'd definitely repaint as I don't like dirty sand chic. I love the stairs and window in the second interior photo. I like the stone fireplaces, of course the wood on the ceilings and floors, the exposed stone bits, the low ceilings, the original interior doors. The basement is really cool as that was the original kitchen! Though the modern kitchen isn't terrible, I'd have the kitchen in the basement, because that's just me. I'd also do something about the ceiling in the attic because it's creepy. Overall though, it's not a bad house and it's just a little work in their updates that I would change. Bonus House: 1801 - Johnson City, TN I stumbled across this one while searching for the previous house. I include it because it is also 200-years-old and there is another stone house from the magazine, in Ohio, that is only four years earlier. I think that one is a museum where nothing has been updated, but this one is reno central and it's gorgeous. It's not very, well Regency (not Colonial) anymore except the exterior, but I'm including it so you can see the stark difference. It's so difficult to tell because everything is so white. I mean everything. It's so much white it's almost burning my eyes. The stair railing might be original. The stonework of the fireplaces are original, but I'm uncertain about the mantel pieces. There's a little door in interior photo 11 that's original, as I'm sure the stairs beside it are as well. It's really nice and done well inside (I especially like the basement - they have their kitchen there! - and the attic - well... because they're not completely white). But, take all that in and remember it before we hit Ohio in a minute. This tranquil, 238-year-old retreat, owned by the same family for more than two centuries, began as a simple log cabin and grew into a three-bedroom, two-bath farmhouse nestled alongside a spring-fed stream on 20 acres of meadow and woodland. Part of me really wants to be juvenile and say, "Well, duh!" Of course it's two houses! But perhaps that isn't obvious to everyone; that the brown bit is from 1780 and the white bit is probably 1840-ish. I don't really like homes with extensions, even if that extension is old, as I'd rather just have the Colonial bit, but it isn't a bad home, though they went in a crazy direction with the wood to make the house look the same on the inside, which is a bit off-putting. But the original home and the extension on the bottom floors are just fine and are cute. The beams and chinking upstairs are possibly original, I want to say yes. Not sure about the rest of the wall after that. But they added wood floors up there that don't look original and used a maroon paint that matches the wood but awfully and there's a stove pipe and the dirty sand tile in the bathrooms and the new wood for the laundry. It's weird. I don't like the deck from the exterior but inside of it is nice and that land and stream and just gorgeous. I would update what wasn't original in the upstairs of both homes and I could live here no problem. Built by a Revolutionary War soldier, this two-bedroom, two-bath primitive stone home was constructed with sandstone from a nearby hill. It's one of the few remaining from that era in Southern Ohio and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. So... woah! I was not expecting this interior at all. I'm not sure if it's primitive or just run down, honestly. Reminds me of Drayton Hall in South Carolina. They left that house as is and you tour the house the way it looked during Colonial times. Only it was grand house on the river. But there's no electricity, no furniture, and the only things fixed are so it won't fall in on itself. This house seems to have damage at the base and that roof line. Online it says it was renovated in the 1970s, and I suppose that's when the additions were added, or else styled all simple 70's, and when the main part was electrified, but to resemble candles in brass holders. It seems very like a living history museum in a state of suspended time. If it had to stay this way and I had to live in the addition, then this house isn't for me at all. I don't even understand this house. What is that square part out of the wall for up on the second floor. It's not stairs, so what is it? What's that gate blocking on that second floor? And why is some of the house looking like it should be on the exterior, but has a roof over it? Was it the exterior and they've put a roof over to protect it? Because it seems like it. But I'm confused by this house. How primitive was it? Does he have an outdoor kitchen in a sunken pit with a root cellar door off from that? Was it just a back of the house kitchen, but these people are ruined it by not replacing the foor correctly? How was this house really supposed to look when it was built in 1797, because I'm having a really hard time seeing it, and I know these types of houses well. What might be the oldest continuously occupied private residence in the state has a storied history, from its early life as a local militia company's guardhouse to its transition to the village post office. Today, it's the three-bedroom, two-bath star of the local historic district. I know that the term "storied history" doesn't mean it was necessarily all unicorns and cupcakes, but they jump from a guardhouse to a post office and it just seems perfect. I actually loved this house, until.... Well, see that blue sign up there? It's a historical marker and is in the listing for the house. Old Guard House Lieut. David Taylor, British spy, was confined in this house and hanged on an apple tree, October 18, 1777 (State Education Department 1938) That's exactly what it says, verbatim! I might be undecided about ghosts, but I do believe in residual energy. I've felt too much weird stuff to not think there's something to that.
So, just imagine if you were arrested as a spy and locked in some house. I don't know how long he was there, but the entire time he's filling the space with "Oh shit, they're going to kill me. I'm going to die!" That's a lot of negative and sad energy, because you know I'd be filling the space with that if I knew I was about to die. Then they hung him. This didn't say where the apple tree was and I was guessing it was on the property. The listing says it was across the street. Two problems with this. Say it is on the property, then you've got a creepy tree and a creepy house on your property. Even if "across the street" wasn't part of the property back in 1777, you could look out the window of your creepy house and possibly see dead dude hanging from a creepy phantom tree! It probably sounds stupid, but I feel like I was lulled into this false sense of security. The house is cute from the outside, I liked the inside and it had nice features (like the original stairs with a door partway up - love those!) and it still has the post office features and I love post offices! I could see myself living in this house and it was my favourite one, and then we got to the sign where some poor British guy was confined, knowing he would die, and then was hung... and the poor tree too! Even the listing online is all, "It was a house, a guardhouse, a post office in the 1950's, it's so quaint and cute and adorable and you can have it as a house or commercial property (only not retail, because New York is weird apparently), oh and by the way, it's also a negative energy cesspool murder house!!!" This house made me sad and slightly nauseas for two days after reading about the British spy and the apple tree. I'm well aware about the thing called the Revolutionary War and that we were all British, until some didn't want to be under British rule anymore, so while they were still British they were no longer loyal to the crown (Loyalists) and were, instead, Patriots. It's like how some people misunderstand this or The Bible. The Bible, you say? Yes, depending upon the Protestant religion, Jesus was whatever religion they are; Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist, etc, and those Jews were evil, because for some reason they don't understand that Jesus was Jewish? The Revolutionary War is the same way. There are loads of people who think the Patriots were Americans, as in United States of America Americans, and those British people were evil. Because for some reason they don't understand that they were all British, just having different views and ideals? Yeah, I'm not that person. I'm well aware it was British against British in a race to be free of the government for the Patriots because King George hadn't listened to them (because they didn't want to "be free" from the get-go). I also understand that there were spies amongst the Patriots as well as the Loyalists, so apparently this Lieutenant was a Loyalist, because the marker sign is misleading because no matter what side, they were all British, but oh the 1930s. Anyways, and treason and sedition were high crimes against the crown and punishable by death. I'm also well aware that there's a lot of death up New England way (or anywhere the Revolution was fought - cause we're only talking about that small time period of eight years here) for battles, random murder, old age, sickness, childbirth, as well as being a spy. But it's been pointed out here! And it's creepy and so very sad. I got to a lot of forts and not one has had a marker sign saying how many men died there or were wounded or locked up with threat of death or starved or tortured, etc, for whatever war. Of course I've not been to a Revolutionary War era fort... is this a thing (not the forts, the marker signs of death)? Because I love forts and that will make me nauseas and possibly vomit if I had to contend with that information everywhere. I haven't had much travel out of the south, and when I did there were no time for historical places of the Revolutionary War, which I was sad about. The closest I've come is the time I drove my friend to the airport on the coast so she could go to Comic Con and I noticed one of our state's historical markers in the median saying there was a historic cemetery nearby. I had a real mobile then, with actual service (not just wi-fi), and found that cemetery on the way back and there were veterans of that war, who had moved down here to Mississippi, lived the rest of their lives, and died here. I practically danced a jig in that bone yard because I hadn't realized that yankees had left for the wilds of the deep south of Mississippi in 1789 or whenever, because they all relocated before 1800. It was really cool, but everything I have here in the south besides that is War of 1812 (which I like) and The Civil War (which is fine enough, but it's every freakin' where here, and gets old real quick). It's not like I'm even in the market for any house, much less these, but what was going to be a fun foray to see the interiors escalated quite quickly with that last house and the entire affair left a bad taste in my mouth so to speak.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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