May 2^nd, 2002

To answer your friends questions, I am buying the house for $220,000. The original asking price was $249,000.00 but because I’m buying it “As-Is” I was a able to get it much cheaper. It is hard to say how much it will be worth when I’m done. Housing prices in Eureka are really going up right now and I plan on working on this house for four or five years. If it was fixed up really nice right now it might fetch as much as $300,000, but that is only a guess. There is currently a home on the market about 4 blocks away listed at $340,000. It is in a Colonial style and at three stories is a lot bigger than my house. It is on a busy street, though, and the house literally takes up the entire lot. There is a Victorian mansion (22 rooms) about a half a block from that house listed at $800,000. That house is VERY nice. My realtor is astounded at these prices for old homes in Eureka. She said just a few years ago any house over $250,000 in this part of town would have been unheard of. Even at those prices this area is still a lot cheaper than most of California.

Replacing some of the ginger bread may not be all that hard. There are a two small mills in town that specialize in that type of work. I’m guessing a one to two hundred dollars per window. That is just a guess. There is a large Victorian I pass on the way to the post office that caught fire about a year ago. It is just now being restored and they are replacing the ginger bread that was damaged or destroyed. I’ve been hoping I would see the crew at some point so I could ask them about cost but I’ve never actually seen them working. On my house, because I don’t know what was there before, I will probably just pick pieces out of a catalog. This might be cheaper because I won’t have to match existing gingerbread. I will use the trim on the sister houses as a guide.

As for the sort of filigree stuff and the large rosettes, that is another story. I’m not even sure if those pieces are wood or plaster. I know there is a company back East that still makes these types of things out of plaster. You can also get reproductions made out of high density foam (like very sturdy Styrofoam). I’m going to have to do some more research. There is also an Old House support group in town. I may start going to the meetings and talk to people who’ve been down this road before.

Some of that sort of gingerbread does still exist on my house. If you look closely at the pictures I sent you can see a repeating, white decoration that goes all around the top of the house. That is not just painted on. Those are either wood or plaster gingerbread pieces. I’m also still not sure what is under those damned asbestos shingles. If I remember correctly the sister houses have sun bursts on either side of the curved stained glass window on the front of the house. That may still be there underneath the shingles.

About those sister houses. When you are looking at the book, the blue house on the left was built 7 years before mine (1888), and the big picture of the house on the right was built 2 years before mine (1893). All were built by the same builder but I forget his name now. The 1893 house is currently cut into apartments. The 1888 house is on 2^nd street in Old Town. A lot of the houses in that area are now used by law firms or other professionals because it is near the court house, city hall, and the county building.

Today I was researching the coal fireplaces. I found two sites on-line that sell reproduction Victorian “coal baskets”. These are ornate cast iron and brass baskets with claw-foot legs that sit in the fire box. This is probably what was there originally. The reproduction ones have fake, ceramic coal piles and are fired by natural gas. At about $1,700.00 for the entire kit it is comparable in price to a nice gas stove insert. I have two fireplaces to do so I’ve decided to start the Greg DeBacker Memorial Fireplace Fund. I will put a little money in each month and by the time I actually get around to fixing the fireplaces (two years) I will probably have enough.

I have been kicking around the idea of opening a bead and breakfast. Considering the number of bathrooms and kitchens in the house this may not be too difficult to pull off. Filling the home with antiques would probably be the toughest part. The right side of the house on the downstairs part is still a separate apartment. I could live in that during the spring and summer while I run the B&B and then have the house to myself during the off season. Who knows what I’ll do. I try not to plan too much because until this house is officially mine I know that something could go wrong. About 25% of all realty deals fall apart before the close of escrow (June 6^th for me).