In 1985, my husband and I bought a house advertised as a century house but which was almost 200 years old. We loved the property surrounding the house and were blinded to what was involved in living in a house that old.

The basement had a dirt floor and 2 sump pumps. A sump pump is used to get water out of places where there shouldn't be any. The basement was also easily accessible to various animals and I pretty well refused to go down there unless the situation was dire.

The main living area consisted of a kitchen and living room as well as the main bathroom and a laundry/storage area. The kitchen cupboards must have come over on Noah's ark they were that old and the entire 18 years we lived there, we could never afford to replace them.

The wiring was adequate but in the rooms there weren't enough electrical outlets so extension cords ran everywhere.

On the upper level were 3 or 4 bedrooms. Since the fourth room was accessible only through our room we used it a a dressing room. The two rooms our three sons had to share were very small.

We learned that in these old houses, closets were just about non-existent. In the 3-4 rooms, there were 2 small closets. We had to purchase wardrobes for my clothing.

The floors upstairs were wide pine plank boarding which over the years had spread apart as much as a quarter of an inch in most places. Also on this level, the floor tended to roll and was not level. These floors were very hard to keep clean as dust and debris would get in the cracks. The floors on the main floor were also not level.

The walls were plaster and any hard knock or bang would quite often cause a crumbling hole to appear. With 3 active boys, I became adept at repairing them.

Then there was Edith. Edith had lived in the house approximately 100 years before we moved in and she was our resident ghost. We never saw her but did hear noises from time to time. We came to be quite fond of her to the point that when we moved approximately 100 kilometres away, we invited her to come with us. Sadly, she stayed with her house. The lady who purchased the house from us moved out a short time after she bought it because she claimed it was haunted. Obviously she offended Edith in some way and Edith had the last laugh.

In purchasing an older home, you should consider our experience. In the long run, the beauty of the property on which the house was built overcame in many ways the inadequacies of the house.

Learn more about this author, France Burlingham.
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