[upbeat music]
- I'm in Longmeadow, Massachusetts,
and I'm standing in front of a Colonial home built in 1786.
This house has four bedrooms, two bathrooms,
and is for sale for $235,000.
With enough improvements,
this house could sell for north of $1 million.
[upbeat music]
First impressions, obviously this house has seen, you know,
a number of renovations over the years.
There's random pieces of siding that are patched in,
makes me wonder if there was possibly a porch
on the front of this house at some point.
The door, while it's beautiful,
I don't think it's original to the 1700s,
but what I do notice is that a lot of these nails,
these are actually hand-cut nails,
likely original to that 1786.
So we're probably gonna see things like uneven floors,
crack plastered, damaged millwork,
maybe even a door that doesn't open that well.
Let's get inside and take a look.
[door squeaking]
So we are already seeing some of these uneven floors,
but overall, the place actually is in better condition
than I originally expected.
Seeing peeling paint, but it doesn't really lead me
to believe that it's necessarily a structural concern.
It's more of an aesthetic concern.
One thing that you're gonna want to do
is get a specialist in here to test
to see if that is lead paint,
just to make sure it's handled correctly.
But overall, it's not a very daunting task
to patch and paint something like that.
And the staircase, I mean,
this is usually one of the things that we're seeing
on an old home like this,
that it's sagging to one side and frankly,
it looks like it's in really great shape.
Even the molding and millwork has held up really well,
but let's keep walking around and see what the rest
of the spaces look like.
Coming into this room,
you see the peeling ceiling and looking around,
I see signs of mold and mildew.
So one of the things between buying an old home
and buying a new home,
new home is gonna be more air tight.
You're gonna have an HVAC system.
An old home like this, it's not gonna be as airtight.
Maintaining the climate in here is very hard.
So when it's wet outside, it's gonna be wet in here
and that's why we're seeing these signs of mold and mildew,
the peeling paint, things like that.
But looking around, you know,
this is where I'm starting to see
some of the structural concerns.
Here, you know, is actually much higher than over here.
The floor tends to ramp up and down
throughout the entire space, so for me,
one of the options would be to rip this floor up,
reframe everything and re-install the floor.
The problem I see here is that a lot of the molding
and the millwork is really beautiful.
Everything is still really tight,
nothing is broken or cracked or seems to be sagging
so that leads me to believe that this floor was never flat.
It was never really built to a perfectly flat surface,
so instead of ripping it up or fully gutting
the entire space, almost celebrate what is here
and understand that this is an old home.
The floors are gonna roll up and down and leave them as is,
so you're really probably talking
about a few thousand dollars, you know,
just to make sure things are structurally sound.
And of course, that can sway,
depending on how poorly it is supported,
but based on what we're seeing and the lack of damage
in the cracking casing and things like that,
I don't think that it's going to be incredibly costly.
The more costly option would be to remove this floor
and now we're talking about framing a brand new floor.
This is when we're talking about gutting the entire home
and starting from scratch
because like I said, once you address that floor
and try to flatten this entire space,
you're going to be impacting everything all the way up
to the roof line.
Speaking of the roof line, I see this wood stove here,
which is certainly not from the 1700s
and tied in with some aluminum duct work,
which leads me to believe that we
probably have some masonry concerns with this chimney.
The chimney is probably in pretty poor shape,
install a nicer wood stove,
obviously redress up the millwork around it
so it's not this open hole
that is obviously not aesthetically pleasing.
The more expensive option would be to get into this chimney
and address the masonry concerns,
re-point the chimney from the basement level
all the way up to the roof,
and then re-install a traditional wood-burning fireplace.
Going back to the conversation around the floor, you know,
in new homes, you're oftentimes paying a premium
for an ultra wide plank and in this old home,
this is what they had, and this was available to build with.
That's further a good reason why we should leave it here
and refinish it in place rather than ripping them all out,
even if you were to salvage them.
And the best part is that floor continues
through the entire space,
which I think really lend to the character of this home.
Looking around, we have mold and mildew,
but ignoring that and focusing
on the construction of these doors,
you have the traditional mortise and tenon joinery here,
which is super cool.
It makes me think that these doors were original.
I think overall, what is really important to note here
is that we have a very traditional colonial home.
We have an obvious addition off the back of the house,
but this space really should be maintained.
You know, we have the two front rooms,
which are more of a formal sitting space.
We have this space right here,
which would lend itself to be a great dining room.
We have a small room with a private entrance
off to the side, which would be a great home office.
And then you have a bathroom off to the side here,
but overall, the details, the molding, everything is in,
I don't want to say great shape,
but good shape and salvageable shape.
If we can correct the moisture issues,
I think this place gets restored.
You know, there's beautiful trim, beautiful millwork,
the beautiful staircase in the front,
and of course the floors,
all of that stuff can be brought back to that 1786.
Where we have this addition back here,
this is a perfect opportunity to step from 1786 into 2021.
So the addition was built in 1850
and this is actually quite a big kitchen for that era.
We have a lot of custom cabinetry,
really interesting custom cabinetry,
a detail I haven't seen before.
These cabinets actually slope backwards
up towards the ceiling.
It makes me wonder if it was an aesthetic decision
or a way to keep their doors from opening by themself
and kind of gravity holding them shut.
Great natural light
and talk about a massive fireplace over here.
At one point, this was likely a wood-burning fireplace,
and then they had put the wood stove in here,
but just a massive amount of masonry,
some beautiful natural stone on the bottom here.
Back here, it looks like we
have a possibly three-season porch,
a ton of natural light coming in that space.
Over in this way, we actually have a garage out back
as well as an additional staircase and a secondary entrance.
So this is a big addition on the backside
of a 1786 Colonial and I talk about bringing this to 2021
more modern-day living and the way we do that
is we strip everything out of here and this becomes
modern-day kitchen, dining and living space.
Nowadays that's where the heart of the home is,
that's where you're spending all of the time,
and I think that this can be a really unique opportunity
to do that while having this moment or this experience
stepping from the old into the new.
So this over here is the exterior wall of the existing house
and I want that experience from stepping from old
into the new to be really intentional
and the one way we can do that is by creating a connection
to the outdoors and I'm thinking that we
do a full-height window on this side, as well as that side,
pulling that side in.
One of the things they did get right, the kitchen location.
I think the kitchen location is great.
You have a ton of natural light.
You have connection to the three-season porch
where could lead you into future outdoor dining,
and even the fireplace
I think is in a really great location.
However, the fireplace is really big
and it takes up valuable real estate
from our kitchen and dining space,
so I say we shrink that down,
we make this a modern double-sided fireplace,
and we put our dining area on the backside of this.
What is now the garage,
we would turn into a great, big family room.
So now you have modern day living
in this entire back addition
in the kitchen, dining and living space.
So there's two ways to look at this.
You know, to make this space livable,
we certainly don't need to blow out this entire addition
and make this one big living space.
While it'd be awesome,
let's talk about the more cost-conscious approach.
Just renovate the kitchen in the existing location.
The fireplace we dress up,
we don't add that secondary dining space.
Rather, we use the existing dining space
in the old part of the home and the garage can stay as is
and you can utilize one of the front rooms
as a potential living room.
That's gonna be a lot more cost conscious.
You're gonna be somewhere around that 30 to $50,000 range
to get this kitchen upgraded.
But if we are looking at a more massive renovation,
there's gonna be structural work, the glass work,
you know, at that level,
you're gonna be looking at custom cabinetry.
You're looking at converting a garage into living space.
There's going to be a lot more cost,
so we can trickle into that three, four, five,
maybe even north of that $100,000 renovation
for the back portion of this house.
So we've talked about the first floor.
I can make some assumptions of what we're gonna see
on that second floor of the existing home,
so why don't we head up there and take a look at that
and then see what this edition has to offer us.
I talked about these stairs in the very beginning.
There was a lot of traditional elements I like,
the continuous handrail, the curved molding on the wall,
the curve skirt.
Looking at the bedrooms here,
they're actually quite generously sized.
So we have two bedrooms on the front of the home
and we have two bedrooms in the back of the home,
but we have that space above the addition.
Let's go take a look at that.
Where we're standing now is above the existing kitchen.
So behind me here, this is actually the existing wall
from the old home and this is part of the addition.
You can see the fireplace that was in the kitchen below
is actually brought up into this second floor
and we have our back staircase.
And as you walk around the fireplace,
we have all of this space,
which can be turned into additional living space.
We actually have a second fireplace in the backside
of that first one, but back here,
this I think can be a really great primary suite.
It's private, it's on the back of the house,
it has a ton of natural light,
and a great view out the back of the building.
Being that it's so private,
I think that it really makes sense to keep the bedroom
in the backside here.
As you wake up, you get out of bed,
you know, it really makes sense for this center section
of this space to be the bathroom.
I think one thing that we would want to do
is bring in some natural light into that bathroom.
So we're gonna want to add additional windows
to this space, similar to how they have them in the bedroom.
And we also have this back staircase
that we're dealing with.
Now, the back staircase, you know,
we do need to remove it for the bathroom,
but being that we're renovating the entire first floor
below this level, it does give us the flexibility
of adding that staircase where it makes sense
because I think it is a long walk from this bedroom
all the way to that original staircase
in the front of the home.
I think it would make a lot of sense
to have that second staircase
specifically for entering the suite.
One thing we didn't talk about was the fireplace,
or actually the two fireplaces.
Now I think if this was in a different spot
and closer to the bedroom,
I'd love to give a fireplace to the bedroom.
Unfortunately, I don't think it makes sense
to move the bedroom closer to the fireplace
because you're gonna lose the view out the back,
so realistically I think this fireplace
is just gonna go away.
We'll leave the masonry structure so we can support
the fireplace down in the kitchen,
but this is just gonna be encapsulated
in the interior walls, you know,
as we're framing for the bathroom, as well as the closet.
And the last space at the end here
I think would be a formal dressing room.
Rather than a reach-in closet or even a walk-in closet,
we have the space here in the square footage here
to have a formal dressing room and I really think
it would compliment this size primary suite.
So realistically, this is all bonus space.
We do have the four bedrooms
in the existing part of the home,
so if you were just looking to move in,
this space could remain as is unfinished
and be addressed later on.
But if you did want to build a primary suite,
you're realistically looking at probably somewhere
around $100,000 to add a bedroom, add a full bathroom,
as well as all the millwork and cabinetry
that goes along with, you know, a true dressing room,
and then of course the structural changes
that are gonna be required to add that staircase
in another location.
This house is so interesting,
especially the front part of the house being built in 1786,
but that addition on the back really gives us
a great opportunity to modernize things
for modern-day living.
So if you want to make this home livable,
there's a couple things that we need to address.
We obviously need to understand and correct
the moisture issue.
We saw the signs of mold and mildew,
the peeling paint, so that's really number one.
Secondly, we're gonna need to address mechanical systems,
plumbing, electrical, HVAC.
All of those systems are gonna need to be
at least repaired, if not upgraded.
You're gonna want to bring in a professional
to take a look at that.
Third, there's definitely some structural concerns
to bringing in a structural engineer
and then bringing in someone to address those things.
And beyond that, there's definitely cosmetic things
such as painting and the kitchen upgrades
and things like that, but overall,
if you wanted it to make this place livable,
realistically, you could spend three or $400,000
and do that and it would really be a great investment
for a property like this.
Now, if we wanted to go all out and modernize
that back addition, well, now we're getting
into a new kitchen, dining space, additional living space,
and of course the primary suite.
Now this is an in addition to everything that the home
requires to make it livable easily.
We can be north of a million dollars at that point
for a substantial renovation,
especially when you get into all the additional
exterior work, you're gonna want to upgrade windows
and things of that nature.
You know, from my understanding,
the Longmeadow real estate market could support
a project like this,
so if you're willing to put the time and the money
into a project like this, it would be a beautiful home.
That right there is the existing home
and we're actually standing above the existing condition.
We are standing above the existing condition.
This is the-
- [Woman] Kitchen.
- Kitchen is the word.
Kitchen is the word.
Where we're standing now is actually above the existing.
Oh my God.
Where we're standing now
is actually above the existing kitchen.
I'm just proud of that, so I just gotta do it again.
[both laughing]