We had been looking at homes in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia for several years, eventually gravitating towards the Town of Woodstock. Having made many trips to Woodstock, we developed a list of houses we thought we might like to own someday. None of these houses were for sale at the time, but our criteria…

We do a lot of DIY stuff. Most projects have a consequence of failure limited to embarrassment and/or a redo after learning from the first attempt. However, this project was not a DIY in our book. The house came fully armed with an enormous and old sprinkler system. Carrying pressurized water into every room (inside…

We heard from the former owner that there may be a staircase buried in the wall connecting the first and second floors. Hearing this aligned with our suspicions, having scoped out what appeared to be a stairway above the basement flight of stairs. Sure enough, we found it! The walls of the staircase are a…

Our new home came with an elevator! Albeit one that doesn’t operate and whose car is stuck on the 3rd floor. In fact, the elevator door had not been opened in some time – evidenced by the fact that the replacement flooring installed several years ago prohibited the elevator door from swinging open. After about…