The house we own was built in 1932. It's an Arts and Crafts home. It's been around for a while and was probably one of the first houses built in our neighborhood. We're slowly learning the history of our home. Things like our home was owned by a man named Robert Noble. He owned the Noble Merchantile which was located kitty-korner from our house. That area is now the location of the St. Vincent de Paul's parking lot. The business was moved across Central Ave. W. to where Noble Liquor is now. Mr. Noble's brother owns the liquor store. I've talked with him and he says the family grew up in this neighbhood. In face he grew up across the street from my house. Mr. Noble died in the mid 1970's. His wife lived in the house until 2002. She kept the house in impeccable condition. She was moved from the home and put into a nursing home where she died in 2004. Since then the house has been owned by two other families besides ours.
Other little facts I've learned is our street has not always been 1st Ave. SW. It used to be called Pierce Ave. And Central Ave. W used to be called Broadway Ave. I've also learned that an alleyway about 2 blocks up from us is asphalt and has sidewalks on either side of it. I've always wondered about this. During a tour of the Civic Center with William's Boy Scout troop I learned this alley is called Pig Alley. We're located by the railroad yard. Well the story goes that this alleyway was used to move pigs from the rail cars to where a slaughter house was previously located. It's no longer there. I love living in my neighborhood. You could live in a big house, in a new area but you don't get these historic stories in those types of areas. I've enjoyed learning about our area and I look forward to learn more.
With the fact that this house is almost 80 years old the house has some issues. Like any home would. But we have the extra added issue of the fact that the last owner thought he knew what he was doing. We have found issues that come with all old homes. It still has single paned windows, lathe and plaster walls, no insulation in outer walls, and the original floor joists. But to join the list of regular things we've discovered oh so many other problems. We have found that they tried to redo certain areas of the home like the kitchen, the bathroom, one of the bedrooms, and the basement.
The kitchen was redone with sub standard stuff which was the cheapest things you could find. We found our sink for $25.00 at Poulson's. The plumbing was poorly done. They moved the stove from where it was originally to an area next to a wall. The flooring is not a good one, it's slick and at times dangerous plus they put it directly over hard wood floors, one of the window panes has been broken out and was covered with a book propped up on the sill. The cabinets are barely attached to the wall and the cupboards are falling apart.
The bathroom had one of my favorite problems. Every time we would shower we'd have a leak into the basement. We had to take it apart to find the problem. Oh we found the problem alright! The idiot tried to "fix" the plumbing by sauldering brass onto copper. We you can't do that. He learned but then "fixed" it by gluing the pipes together with Gorilla Glue. When we changed out the sink we found out that the guy tried putting PVC piping into the original galvanized steel pipe but it didn't fit so he forced it and buckled the PVC piping. It's been slowly dripping. He cut out studs and didn't replace them, and once again he put flooring over hard wood floors. So our bathroom door way has a 1 1/2 step up between the hall way and the bathroom itself.
The basement we've started working on. When we first moved in they had been in the process of sectioning off the basement into rooms. The man apparently had no concept of 16 inches on center! Then we had our laundry room. We ripped that all out because the sub floor he laid down he had done a poor job, he didn't finish it, and the walls were about 4 inches thicker than they needed to be.
As you can see it's going to be a large job and a long process. But I think we're up for it. We look forward to the adventure that lies ahead.
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