r/VictorianHouses

My husband and I (29M & 30F) finally closed on our historic church we’re turning into our house. 6.125% and total loan amount 293k but we only paid 116k for the building and then 149k for renovation and a 14k contingency in escrow. We were under contract for over 3 months and after numbers set back and 3 different lenders it’s finally all ours. Renovation has started and phase 1 will be done by end of July. We used an FHA 203k and if you have any questions please ask. I know everyone said this was the most difficult and impossible loan but I’m hard headed and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I think these are extremely underrated and we just didn’t have the time or energy to fight for a turn key in this economy with people bidding 100k+ over asking.

✨PSA✨ I know some of you are wanting to see the renovations process and I’m documenting and posting everything on TT, YouTube and IG my handle to all is cjdzimmer follow along to see all the pics and videos!

Who knew stripping three layers of wall paper would take ten years off our lives

Just a quick view of my favorite rooms in our Old Louisville Home on the day after the KY Derby, when the calm has returned.

In our little, long south west London garden. For anyone interested, laying a greenhouse on bricks was super tricky!! Lots of time spent getting things level. But got there in the end. Obviously needed to christen with a glass of champagne!

Rain actually has a lot of character to it.

A rainy D.C. Sunday

Over Spring break, we updated the bedroom in our 1890 house. We added wainscotting, picture rails, and completely refinished the fireplace, rebuilt it from scratch (you can see the before in the grey-walled photo). The mantle was found on FB Marketplace, the grate was rusting in the back of Architectural Salvage, the inset is electric from Amazon, the tile is from the Tile Shop. Then we color-saturated the room in SW Naval.

I know this type of dark room isn't for everyone but I find it sexy and soothing.

just an architectural dream in need of some love

Our first attempt at wooden flooring - I don’t know whether you’ve tried laying it on concrete which undulates like the foothills of a small mountain range, but I wouldn’t recommend it!