Making a House a Home

Back in 1991, our friend and fellow Patch writer found a great deal on a house.   $100.  Yes, that's right...one...hundred...dollars.

A church in Winder wanted to make a playground for their flock of children, but an old house sat in the way.  The church had purchased the 100-year-old house when the last resident passed away, and they used the home for overflow Sunday school classes.  

Four big rooms and a wide hallway, with a tiny kitchen in back made for the perfect addition to their growing congregation for many years. Eventually, though, they added onto their church building with more appropriate rooms.

They wished for a playground, so the old place needed to be moved or torn down.

That's how John got such a bargain.  He actually purchased two houses for his 100 acres of land in rural Oconee County.  The second house was moved from Greensboro, and "our" house was moved from the Winder Church property.

The story is long and tedious about getting the structure out here in several pieces, but suffice it to say, it got here.  Nine months later it was completely put back together with new plumbing and electrical, a new foundation, and new roof over the existing pretty Victorian gables.

My husband Michael and I found the house in 1993 while visiting a friend who lived nearby.  We immediately fell in love with the place and located the owner, who has since become a very dear friend.  We made arrangements with John, and moved in right after we got married, in May of 1993.  The house was somewhat livable, but we had a lot of work to do.  

John's 100 acres of property used to be a cattle farm, a blueberry farm, and a cotton farm over the previous 75 years.  The house was positioned in one of the pastures properly facing south, and here we sit today!

Michael and I are not afraid of hard work.  He set to scraping and caulking every single board by hand, then hand painting the entire house with a 4" brush.

I rented a sprayer for the inside.  I sprayed the bead board, the trim, and the ceilings white.  Then we brushed and rolled the walls with several beautiful rich colors.

Speaking of walls, those are an unusual feature in our home.  The living room and dining room have wooden walls all the way up, tongue and groove with beaded cuts.  The ceilings are the same.  

However, the hall and bedrooms have a beadboard wainscoting, plaster above, and beadboard ceilings.

I have painted all the floors either in a checkerboard pattern, or faux finished to look like the original wood.  This was done because the previous owners had painted all of the floors chocolate brown and with a lead based paint, so we were not able to sand it down to the original hardwood, which was not in great shape anyway.

The original coal burning fireplaces were ripped out during the move, and John installed heatilator fireplace inserts so that each of the four rooms has a fireplace.

The only down side to this house is that we have no central heat or air. Heat is oil baseboard units, which do a great job.  During extreme cold we supplement with kerosene stoves.

Air conditioning most of the hot months is screen doors and windows open, which is divine!  The really hot months call for window unit air conditioning and ceiling fans, which keeps it nice and chilly. The 10-foot ceilings help with that as well.  Plus we are 1/4 mile away from any heat-holding asphalt and we sit in a little valley that has an almost constant breeze.  We also have shade trees.

We have loved every minute of living here and never want to leave! My talented husband has manicured the cow pasture into the likes of something you'd see in Southern Living Magazine.  We literally live in paradise, and we have our pal J.E. to thank for it!

Of course, by the time he got the house moved and all the re-constructing, septic, well, and all that involved, he spent about $50,000.  But still, a heck of a deal for such a great house.

The Athens Banner-Herald has an article about two-century-old houses they have available for free!  It's a big project, but as you can see from our photos, worth every penny!  Don't let the estimates in the article scare you.  Those are bids they put out.  I guarantee you can get it done for a more reasonable price than what they list there.

In an era of "re-use, recycle," perhaps you will want to consider relocating an older home. We highly recommend it!

Enjoy the photos!  They tell the story better than my words.