"Much has been accomplished...

...and much remains to be done."  That was a favorite phrase of a great old features editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He'd come back from a long day in the composing room (where REAL PEOPLE actually pasted stories onto each page) and then laugh about getting the next section out and the mountain of work he faced.

Well, that came to my mind recently as we talked to contractor, architect, lender and financial advisor about our closing, from St. Louis, on a funky Hamilton, Mt., bungalow on Friday, Sept. 30 (the same day that was to be the government shut down. Phew!)

We've accomplished much, and SO much remains to be done.

We will soon do a walk-through with said architect (also a Missoula bungalow expert) and a highly recommended local contractor. We plan to camp out in the Montana house, meaning we buy a bed and mattress somewhere -- at Costco in Missoula? -- arrange to have it delivered, stay with friends until it comes,  and then see what it's like to live in the bungalow -- what furniture we'll need from St. Louis, and what stuff we won't, etc., etc.

MT living room with fireplace -- not much to look at now, but just you wait!

And the best part? We have help. It comes in the nicest ways:

We're uncertain about the process of taking off glass that encloses the front porch. Vicky Bohlig to the rescue. "I was at a yard sale today and saw one of the old owners," emailed Vicky, our real-estate broker.  "He was a realtor once so we struck up a conversation.  He owned it for 15 years maybe 25 years ago, said he didn't change the front,  it was already glassed then.  He said the previous owner to him is still here... so I can try to find out if she has any old pictures or if she changed it." Hooray!

And the camping out in the bungalow will be bare bones...
 
"I still plan to lend you the bird's-eye maple dresser in our erstwhile guest room, and there are probably a few other things available," wrote another Hamilton friend, Mary Barton.  "I don't know if your new place is smaller/larger than the first house you planned to buy so don't know what kinds of furnishings you're looking for.  Let me know and I'll be on the lookout." Wow!

And Marie Anne Hasenkrug -- musician, gardener, wife and mom in the nearby town of Victor -- also sends this to Alex: "Do you plan to live in the house while it's being remodeled? You and Becky are welcome to escape here as needed." So cool!

We're beginning to think that some of the kindest, smartest people live in Hamilton. That, I hope, never changes with time spent there (a few tea partiers are there, but they're everywhere, at least for this moment in time).


Meanwhile, we're keeping in mind the colors of another little Hamilton house (below). It's one in which Vicky Bohlig lived, and she painted (with her husband) a color scheme there that we love. Plus, it's got a mountain view in back. We may mimic those colors, and we're working on an idea for enhancing our own view (haha!)...

A beautiful little four-square house in Hamilton, Mt.

What an adventure!! We are excited, nervous, happy and scared.

More details, very soon.

A new/old house gets an offer!

 

Can you see the spectacular color scheme in this Portland, Ore., bungalow? (from                                                     http://dailybungalow.tumblr.com/?)...

Well, we can!! And if everything works out, we will be applying something like that color scheme to the old, weirdly re-habbed and painted granny bungalow, below, in Hamilton, MT!

The price was right, the location was southside (primo) and there definitely were "bones" of a bungalow in the Arts & Crafts vein. And so, yes folks, we have another contract on a house in Hamilton.  If there is no (or mitigate-able) radon and no other awful secrets found by the very thorough and professional house inspectors that we've come to know there, then this 1913 bungalow will be ours -- to renovate. (Are we crazy? To do a restoration at this stage in our lives? Yes, absolutely!!!! What are we thinking, we ask ourselves over and over this weekend? It's a great adventure, we answer in the best of moods, and a contribution to one of our beloved Hamilton's best streets. We're nuts, we say when desperation and details set in.)

But this house doesn't need a new roof, thank goodness. It does need for the glass enclosed porch and old-fashioned screen door to go away, quickly, and for the steps to be widened and welcoming and for the color-scheme to disappear(!) under coats of green and cream, with a tiny bit of a third color just around details and, perhaps, the inside of window frames. We want to add four more of the tapered Craftsman-style or Arts & Crafts supports -- often identified with the wonderful term of elephant-leg columns -- that hold up the deep overhanging front porch.

(http://www.columnsandbalustrades.com/HTML/FiberglassColumns.aspx)

And I seriously want to re-landscape -- next June or so.

Inside, old carpeting is covering wood floors -- says our long-distance, real-estate broker (we had seen the house briefly on our tour of Hamilton homes this summer but hadn't even looked for wood; we'd dismissed it for all the work it needed at the price that was asked; that price came down dramatically last week, and we jumped).

Here's also where the doubts start:

Everything inside needs paint. Everything, including woodwork, walls, ceilings and wooden kitchen cabinets!  Those floors -- if in good shape throughout-- need sanding, stain and finish.

See a similar floor plan, below, from one of those old kit-built-home catalogs. Inside of the one we're hoping to get, there's a second bath off the rear master bedroom; a rear north-facing breakfast nook with built-in window seat; an ample rear west-and-north-facing mud and laundry room; and a rear west-facing little office with a big picture window facing the Bitterroot mountains (it'd be MY new office, of course!).

 

 

We have fallen in love with bungalows. 

 

The Northwest is full of them, as we found out from hundreds of photos on The Daily Bungalow, http://dailybungalow.tumblr.com/ (below).  But there's also: http://artsandcraftshomes.com/; http://www.arts-crafts.com/archive/achomes/color-schemes.shtml; http://www.americanbungalow.com/2010/06/exterior-paint-colors/; http://bungalowinsanity.com/2008/05/29/new-bungalow-paint-colors/; even http://www.valsparatlowes.com/en/explore-colors/find-ideas/styles/craftsman-homes/craftsman-homes-1.html. I could go on and on...

 

Last Friday, we went to St. Louis' office of the American Institute of Architects on Washington Ave. downtown and bought "Updating Classic American Bungalows," a beautiful Taunton Press book. And the woman behind the desk gave us even more pages of sources and architects interested in this specialty. From one of those, I may have just found the perfect architecture firm!! See a in a link at ... http://www.finehomebuilding.com/design/articles/seamless-in-missoula.aspx.

Another nice color scheme from The Daily Bungalow.

                                                   

And then there was this reply last Wednesday to my query of Steffie with California's calbungalow.com:

"Hi Becky, I like the look of your bungalow. You are definitely on the right track. I would do all those things to get it back to a more original look. You don't need to remove the front porch glass if you don't want to, but that front porch door with the block glass on either side needs to go. The color scheme you picked looks very nice. Good luck!"