The New Old House
Sep 7th, 2007 by Marilyn
For most of 2006 and much of 2007, we struggled with decisions at our much-loved Colonial Revival house. We didn’t need a bigger space, we needed different space. So…build an addition – no addition – move to the country – build a house? We’d never considered building a new house, having only lived together first in a 1905, and then a 1929 house. Sure, everything might actually “work,” but it would feel so…new. How could we build a new house?
Months of deliberation included these ideas:
- Getting rid of our yard and bumping the house out. The grass doesn’t grow, anyway.
- Building an open, contemporary house out in the country. Fresh air!
- Building an open, contemporary house in a fancy subdivision. Bad idea.
- Moving to Wisconsin; Minnesota; St. Charles, IL and our favorite – Nova Scotia
- Building closer to downtown Lawrence in historic Old West – but where?
The hand-wringing ended like this: not the country (no espresso, no wireless, coyotes), not Wisconsin (it wasn’t Lawrence) and Old West – well, nowhere to put it. Then one Sunday in May 2007, we randomly turned down a block in Old West Lawrence, and there it was – the new framings of a new house.
Within an hour we’d called the number on the sign. After one look at the plans and within two days of that unlikely turn, we knew that we’d found our “new old house.”
new old house begins, May 2007
