We bought this house in 2004, after moving back to Portland (Oregon, not Maine).  Most of the other houses we looked at had already been “redone,” usually by a flipper or by a homeowner (both of which have their potential share of problems).

Because so much of the original, stained woodwork was intact, we decided to take the plunge. Our previous experience with minor remodeling on three earlier houses somehow led us to believe that we could handle this one. While we’re now at the point we feel good about it, there was a lot of hardship along the way, and our original timeline was probably off by at least 3 years!

We spent 8 months in a house rented from a friend while doing the major work to the downstairs and the demo work on the upper level. Since then, it has been a never ending stream of weekend projects and vacation time used to make progress on the bigger stuff. We are hoping that by the summer of 2008 we will finally be “done.” Sure…

Note: we started this site in December 2006, more than two years after starting the house. In an effort to maintain continuity, we have back-dated posts of previous work to maintain timeline continuity.