Home Home Home.

This is where we are now - a 1921 Craftsman style "builder's bungalow" in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a sad place when we first bought it. The previous owner, "Miss W.", had inherited it from her parents, had retired to live there, and had lived in a nursing home for a year when she passed away at age 94. In the 33 years that she owned it, she apparently kept the outside spotless - but did absolutely nothing inside. Having very little family, she left the house, contents, and most of her estate to the Salvation Army. (That's who we bought the house from.)

She apparently lived in only three rooms - the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen - all on the back side of the house. When we first saw it, the front 2/3 of the house and the upstairs had been sealed off. The wallpaper was hanging in strips, the plumbing was so old there was zero water pressure, and the dirt everywhere was incredible. Plaster was cracking, floors upstairs were incredibly out-of-level, and there was evidence of water damage in the upstairs front dormer (now our bedroom). First floor hallway was painted a dingy 1950's green, and there was a six-inch-wide strip of dirt on the walls, waist-high, where Miss W. had braced her hand on the wall while she walked from kitchen to bathroom to bedroom.

There were still pieces of coal in the coal bin, even though the old coal-fired furnace had long since been replaced with a forced-air unit. And, according to a neighbor who held Miss W's power-of-attorney, Miss W died a millionaire.

All in all, it was a sad, sad house.