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!"