My 1914 Bungalow Turns 110 This Year + The Repairs To-Do List

Are house birthdays a thing because if they are, I’m throwing My 1914 Bungalow a party for turning 110 this year. One hundred and ten. That, my friends, is old, yet not one of the oldest in my historic neighborhood. I consider myself lucky as the caretaker of my house and for the privilege of calling it home.

May 2017 – Purchased + Started Renovations

I purchased my house in May of 2017 and immediately got to work. My personal renovations meaning the houses I actually live in, are always a combination of hiring and managing contractors and doing a lot of the work myself. I understand firsthand how costly renovations can get and choose to do much of the work myself to save where I can. Many DIYers take this approach and I’m right there in the trenches with you.

I was lucky this go round to have had a very gracious neighbor offer her home to me and my dogs to live in during renovations. We had the house to ourselves and it was an absolute blessing. It allowed me to have a clean place close by to live in while I worked tirelessly on my new home. However, it didn’t keep me from wanting to get into my own house as quickly as possible.

You can read more about the before and early renovations here.

Moving Too Fast = Skipping Steps and Missing A Few Things

We worked so fast that if I’m being honest, we skipped a lot of steps and missed a few things along the way. And now, seven years later, those problems are showing up in a big way.

Some items on the list include peeling and chipping paint because we skipped pretty much all of the prep work, and window sashes that I apparently forgot to paint. My porch floors are rotting, again, and there are some new cracks in the drywall and plaster that seem to be from small structural issues that got missed. To be fair, those last two I couldn’t have predicted regardless of the pace of the renovations.

The Repairs To-Do List

And so this year, and in celebration of my house my house turning 110 and me trying to be a good caretaker, I am working on a repairs to-do list. It seems to be growing by the week but I figure I’ve got to start tackling some of these sooner rather than later.

I have no idea if I can finish all of these projects by the end of the year but it’s a start, and to make the list a little less daunting, I’ve thrown in a few fun projects.

Maintenance/Old House Repairs:
1. Replace porch tongue and groove floors.
2. Repair structural issues under the house.
3. Repair cracks in drywall/plaster.
4. Strip, sand, prime, and paint all of the peeling paint on the trim throughout the house.
5. Start restoring all of the window sashes including stripping them down, reglazing, refurbishing with the old weights and new sash cords.
6. Have large limb in back yard removed.
7. Have corbels installed along back screened porch where the overhang is sagging.
8. And I will forever have touch-up paint for both the interior and exterior on this list.

Fun Projects:
1. Refresh the master bedroom.
2. Install Potager Garden with fence. (completed)
3. Replace garage door with carriage doors.
4. Finish the workshop areas of the garage.
5. And fingers crossed I can work in building the cutest little chicken coop you’ve ever seen.

The Moral of the Story

The moral of the story? Well, there are a few.

First, make a list when you get overwhelmed, especially for an old house. Even marking one task off the list every now and again helps you to keep some momentum.

Second, if you move too fast and intentionally skip steps during the renovation of your home, especially historic ones, those missteps will show up down the road. They always do.

And third, throw in at least a couple of fun-to-you projects. Just doing the boring and hard stuff gets overwhelming so I always throw in projects that bring me joy to balance the project list out.

What about you? How do you tackle your repairs to-do list?

My 1914 Bungalow Sources