Ok, first off, yes, I think we are calling it The Guest Cottage now. Too many people were confused about “carriage house”, wondering where this is, why it is, what it is – and everyone gets “guest cottage,” aka on our property, but not where we live, and she is old. As a reminder, we hired Tom Island, Portland’s best and most likable and enthusiastic older home inspector (or any home), to tell us what is wrong with our guest cottage. He was the original inspector when we closed on the house, and we LOVED his level of experience, expertise, and enthusiasm about our vintage property (he’s a former builder, so just a wealth of knowledge). Now, I’d say that most of what he wrote on the inspection report wasn’t a huge surprise – everything needs to be fixed or replaced – like EVERYTHING, but we do have good news at the end!!!

WAIT, WATCH THE QUICK YOUTUBE!!!

Yes, you are going to get the inspection here, but it’s WAY more fun watching on YouTube. It’s quick and fun, I promise :)

Now for the written report. We just screengrabbed block by block with Tom’s notes in blue.

The Roofing

The roof doesn’t actually look bad from the outside on parts of it, but over the canning room, it really is and certainly leaks a lot. My hope would be to repair, not totally replace (naturally). So we’ll see.

On the inside, you can see mold growth and lead damage (and we felt it too in the winter). It was gnarly in here!!!

The Chimney

Non-functioning chimney should go – but what if we like how it looks? It appears his report says it’s unsafe, and “falling”. And yeah, no gutters, so we have a real water management problem.

The Siding

While these photos look bad, he told us in person that the siding really doesn’t need to be replaced. Besides the rotting, the wood is strong and sure, has some holes. Since it would be so expensive to fix ll of it, our hope is just to replace what HAS to be and repaint to match.

He’s very serious in the report, but in person, he was like “yes, it needs help, but this is such great old siding that we should just fix it. We would need to custom mill the wood to replace it, which is very expensive (he said either $150 a linear foot or $15 a linear foot – somehow my brain didn’t clock the decimal placement, lol).

The Windows

We all love old windows and wavy glass, but these are in bad shape. If they aren’t cracked or missing, the wood is totally broken or rotting.

My goal/plan would be to replace the windows where they are, not move or add. The house is nicely lit, and yes, I even love the awkward window on the second floor. We actually might reduce the windows in the canning room because the big one looks out to a tall fence 2 feet away (so it provides no light and is quite the eyesore). Plus, that might be the music room (Charlie is such a good drummer, if I can brag a bit about my son), so less glass, more insulation is probably better if we do that.

The Breezeway/Covered Walkway

I think what he is saying is that the whole thing really should be replaced (ARCIFORM also told us this over and over), but we were like, so what? It’s old and rickety? It’s not like our children sleep under it. The biggest issue is that the rain from it pours onto the siding, rotting out the house. So we will definitely make some adjustments to that, and sure, if we have to replace the whole thing, we wil,l but my goal would be to repair, not replace.

Ants!

We’ve got some friendly carpenter ants. I’m not sure if you demo this out first or get a pest control person on the job – we will figure it out.

The Plumbing

Tom didn’t know how old the plumbing was, but close to 100 years old. It’s rusted through and needs to be ripped out and replaced.

Yes, the sink does need replacing, LOL. BTW, it’s a Kohler sink! I forgot Kohler had been around that long!!

My favorite quote of the inspection: “Upstairs bathroom needs new toilet”. INDEED. That’s the hole in the floor. I don’t know when there was a toilet (maybe in the 1940s?) and when it was removed (or the more daunting question…why????). The shower is wood, likely because only the wealthy could afford tile at the time. As you can imagine, it didn’t hold up well, and I’m not even sure we are going to put in a shower up here, but if we do, should we make our own tile? Collect enough vintage??? METHINKS YES.

Yeah, he wasn’t impressed with the state of the pipes..it’s all got to goooooooo.

He thought the water heater was from the 80s, which made me think, did someone live here when I was a child??? Seems so much older than that!

The Electrical

Ok, so we think the house got knob and tube electricity in the 1920s or 1940s (Isn’t that wild? Less than 100 years ago, people in rural America didn’t have indoor lighting, and now our lives are outsourced to AI robots???? TECHNOLOGY IS UNFATHOMABLE). So there is some hodgepodge electrical from that time and then after.

You see, knob and tube (the exterior conduits on the ceiling – not really shown here) isn’t grounded or safe. So then in the 60s they added extension cords on the ceiling, you know, with a staple gun! Needless to say, all has to go, and the house has to be rewired. I’ll write more about this later as I learn about it, but I really don’t want to gut this house. My hope is that we can either just lift up certain boards (which I heard is a thing) or use pretty conduit for the basic light fixtures and outlets (also a thing). Or maybe it’s a combo. More on that later (also, HELP).

Everyone is charmed by this stove, and I am, too, in theory. But it’s not like it’s cute (no offense, stove). Yes, it’s awesome that you can open it and heat it with wood burning inside of it, but it screams “I’m going to burn your house down,” and again, it’s not like it’s this cute “could have come from Downton Abbey” stove. Tom just said it needs cleaning out, but that stove isn’t staying. And no, neither is the asbestos.

The Foundation

The long and the short of it is that the entire foundation needs fixing, replacing, or just pouring in the first place.

The house was built over time, and some of the “rooms” had a tiny crawl space and others were just wood on dirt, and for others, a slab was poured. It all has to be dealt with. Does anyone know a hot foundation brand to work with? LOL.

Yeah, more foundation shame. They really cobbled together these houses, putting wood on a brick on a stone – like that weird TikTok trend where women are standing on a can of pickles on a box of something in a high heel?? That’s how this house was built.

Here’s the official diagnosis:

We weren’t surprised and yet totally bummed. We don’t know much, but we know that “need to replace foundation” sounded like tens of thousands (or more). And not something we can’t DIY. More on that soon.

SO WHAT IS THE GOOD NEWS????

Well, Tom actually said all the wood was in pretty great shape (and the house is like 100% wood). The posts and beams that hold the house up are strong (old growth FTW), and the flooring and ceiling wood are so long and clear (high quality). He was impressed with how strong the house was; she’s a 200-year-old Olympic athlete! WE don’t need to gut it and replace all the wood, just fix the foundation and everything else, but the structure can remain mostly intact (he thinks). Of course, we are hiring an engineer along with a foundation contractor and have to get it permitted, so praying that they don’t make us take off all the interior side or exterior siding to fix everything. Tom really didn’t think we needed to. Just spot repair as needed – not an overhaul. Of course, he said that about our main house here that we ended up gutting, but that’s because we had to open up the walls – it was actually a lot grosser in this house (drywall and plaster crumbling everywhere), besides the gorgeous windows. He even thinks that the flooring underneath the gross laminate asbestos flooring is really pretty long wood planks that could be salvaged.

A huge thanks to Tom Island for his report. If you are in Portland (or surrounding areas, he lives in the Willamette Valley) and want an inspector with a lot of house-building experience (and a lover of older homes), he’s really incredible. And his wife follows – Hi!! :)

*** Oh, and for those of you who reached out about restoration coaching, I haven’t gotten back to anyone yet!!! I’ve been so slammed traveling, then catching up, then traveling again with kids before summer is over. Still no update on the paranormal investigator, but I did get a home spiritual counselor that could be fun to talk to. We have an appointment at the Oregon Historical Society soon to hopefully better understand who lived here, when they built it, how it was used, what the neighborhood was like -anything :)

Opening Image Credits: Photos by Kaitlin Green | Left From: Before Exterior Tour | Right From: Before Interior Tour