The Forever Home?

Scott spotted it first. He loves to haunt Zillow and he came across a house that looked almost too good to be true. An English Tudor Revival in the town of Stamford, a town I knew absolutely nothing about. It was just so striking and handsome, it had me from the first picture in the listing. And that red door...I MEAN...

There was an open house that weekend, so I said "Let's go". Of course there were lots of people there when we pulled into the driveway. The house sits so nicely on the property, you look up at it placed elegantly on a small hill. It was built in 1939 and it's oozing with period charm...a high-ceilinged living room with rustic beams, a big stone fireplace, nicely proportioned rooms that are TOO big. Aside from the exterior lovliness, the layout of the floorplan is what's so interesting. The entryway and living room are flanked on one side by the bedrooms and home office, and on the other side is the dining room, sun porch, kitchen, and family room/den. Best of all is a whole separate upstairs bedroom and bath billed in the listing as the 'au pair suite'. I think back in the day it was probably called 'the maid's quarters'. That clinched it. That room would be an absulutely fanastic sewing room. Lot of space for me to do my thing, a creative sanctuary that no one would ever see except me, I loved it. Now the bad news: the kitchen and priamary bath were (and still are) terrible. My guess was that they were an early 90's renovation that the owners probably did with the best of intentions, but they haven't aged well at all, totally anachronistic to the style of the period the house was built. I also want to open up a couple of walls to create some case openings from the kitchen to the dining room and family den. I'm sure NONE of this will be cheap but it will look great once it'sre-done. Are these spaces fine for now? Absulutely. But could they be made SO much better? NO DOUBT. It was destined to be an adventure that would last at least 9 or 10 months, NOT a small undertaking. Here are the initial pics from the listing, the 'BEFORE' photos, if you will...

I decided to take the plunge yet again and make an offer. But this time it was going to be well over the asking price, I was determined to play this game better this time around.