This kind of thing just never happens. Yesterday afternoon I heard a knock on the front door. I saw a woman and a boy, and Jack was going bonkers, so I just slipped out to the porch to see what they wanted. The woman introduced herself, said she was in the neighborhood, and wanted to stop by because her grandparents built our house! She said she has a lot of photos going back through the years, as well as blueprints and other things, and she wondered if we’d be interested in seeing any of it. Um, heck yeah!

Obviously we love old houses, or else we wouldn’t put up with the fixer-upper life, and I especially love knowing more about the history of a house. I knew our house was built in 1921 by the town doctor, but that was about it. Yesterday I found out that it was originally painted yellow, as it is now, so I have to keep it that color. I was planning to go with gray, but if we’re not staying here long-term, I’d rather stay true to the history of the house.

I also learned that the room we use as a music room, with the piano and music stands for the kids to practice, was originally a music room. This woman’s grandmother had a piano in there that she played. We recently had some work done on the front stairs, with new concrete from the sidewalk up, and new wood stairs up to the porch, and she complimented that, which pleased me. I felt like it meant we did a good job keeping the work true to the character of the house.

We chatted for quite a while, and she shared a lot of neat tidbits about the house over the years. It’s been out of the family for over fifty years, and she said they’d wanted to buy it a few years ago but the asking price was too high. So the coolest thing to come out of it might be that we could help get it back in the family, once we’re ready to sell. That would feel pretty good.