One of the Reasons We Like Peekskill

A lot of older buildings are torn down in the name of progress. Happily, a former Peekskill firehouse will not suffer that fate. The two-story brick building was in the path of a planned highway improvement. It is going to be relocated to be part of a historic district. I think it's a good sign that Peekskill is making an effort to preserve its architecture and history.

Another thing we like - this morning on our walk the animal control officer stopped to say hello, introduce himself and give our dogs treats.

A Little About Us and A Little More About the House

J. and I have been together for a little over four years. We have two dogs, two turtles and a goldfish -- our only kids, at least for the foreseeable future. This is our third house project. We both like projects (and J. looks very cute in his tool belt). Our first house together was a 980 square foot Spanish bungalow in Studio City, California that was built in 1926. We completely redid the kitchen doing most of the work ourselves with a little help from a plumber and a very patient electrician. We also repaired some of the plaster walls, did a lot of painting, installed a new sink in the bathroom and did some landscaping. We had more plans for the house, but a job opportunity came up and we found ourselves headed to the east coast (moving back home for me and a completely new environment for California native J.)

We first settled in N.J. in a 1910 Dutch colonial, but it wasn't quite what we were looking for. In addition, J. found a job in Westchester and the commute was a bit of a bear. I figured he moved 3000 miles for me, the least I could do was move about 50 for him. We spent several months looking around Westchester. This house was one of the first we saw and we both really loved it, but didn't want to rush into anything (plus we still had to sell our NJ house). We also knew that it would take some negotiating on the price.

In the end, it really is the perfect house for us and has everything we wanted in terms of features and location. The first floor consists of a foyer, living room, dining room and kitchen. We're hoping to figure out a space to install a small powder room. The second floor is three bedrooms and one bath. There is a small room with a sink off the master bedroom that we plan to make into a master bath. The third floor is a finished attic that could be made into an additional bedroom (and maybe bath depending on how ambitious we get). It also has a large back yard (currently pretty overgrown), a two car garage (which we hope to keep clean enough to comfortably house our classic car - yes, we like old cars as well as houses) and a basement that has plenty of headroom (no more hitting our heads on water pipes!) We are a tiny bit intimidated by how much work is ahead of us, but we are also really excited by all of its potential.

A Little About Our House

Still trying to pin down the style - thinking a Foursquare with a bit of a Victorian twist? It was built around 1900 and has a shake siding and plaster exterior with a slate roof. A large front wrap-around porch with wide columns and on the second story a small back sleeping porch with glass windows. We are quite excited that it still has all the original windows, a lot with leaded glass (most of them need some level of help), and one of our favorite features - curved windows in the front living room (currently hiding behind an overgrown Azalea). Our first project is too take lots of "before" pictures!