Colorfool

Alrighty, we slept in late today and now I'm ready to give it to ya. So, we drove down south aways through country roads. I forgot how much open land is still out there. We started to approach our destination and came to this town.  Two whole stoplights. Wow. I started thinking maybe this wasn't the right direction for us. We drove another 30 miles and got to the our spot. Yikes people.  The main street/town was about 1 1/2 blocks of abandoned shopfronts. And the rest was sad discount stores and your basic post office, bank etc. And there were NO stoplights in this town.  There is a neighborhood on each side of Main street. One side had all the big 'ole homes and the other side had smaller homes. We went to the big side.

Our agent guy was late, very late, so we found the house and snooped around the outside. This neighborhood had giant houses on pretty nice sized lots. 

This is across the street. That scary house was for sale too. The other building is a church. It's bells ring every half hour. It sounds pretty, but I think it would get on my nerves being so close and loud.  So, the house was built by this Josey guy. He apparently settled and owned most of the little town. He had a plantation house out in the country and he owned (his family still does) the big lumber mill in the town.  He had the yellow house built for his in-town home.  Not much of a town buddy. It's a little sad that there at one time was all this money in this little place, enough so that half of the homes are gi-normous. Now though, it really is a sad, run-down, very poor, little destination. No energy. No good vibes. Barely a pulse.

 

So, the Josey house stayed in the Josey family from 1882 until 2003. A man from a different state bought it and has been updating it. I guess he lost steam on the big project and now wants to sell it. He had all the electrical, plumbing, heating/ac updated and some painting done. Now, on to the interior. It is a basic 4 over 4 plan with a central hall, which is the style of home we are interested in.  When you open the front doors, this is what you see. The center a hall. Two rooms off the right (men's parlor & din. room), two rooms of the left (ladies parlor & dining room- now a master bed.). And straight through the back is a screened in porch. I love the doors at both ends of the central hall and the 12 ft. ceilings.

This could be a two lane bowling alley, huh?

Parlor, eeeek to the wallpaper. The floors are all heart-of-pine. I love that the windows are to the floor.

dining room. Most of the windows have interior shutters. 

master bedroom. Wallpaper much y'all? 

Ummm. yeah.  YUCK! The kitchen was built onto the back of the right side of the house. It needs to be gutted and re-done. Carpet in the kitchen?  

This is the other side of the kitchen, that door (along with 3 others) open up onto the long screened-in porch. The whole kitchen wing is this long line of built-on additions, each one has their own door.

See? This is the outside view of the kitchen row. 1st is a kitchen, then a little (sewing?) room (originally, I'm sure it was the cook/maid/servants quarters), then a weird little office, then a storage space.

Let's go upstairs… 

upstairs landing.

Bedroom. I like the wall color. I think I'm going to paint our current living room this color.

another bedroom

original fixtures. There are two other bathrooms but they are too gross to post.

Another bedroom. What's that? A little chair on the mantle? Huh? What's that? No, I didn't see a chair there. What chair?  

Oh come on! A little chair AND 5 kiddie pianos!?  

Me, spying on Keely dancing. 

The back yard. The little building is a smoke house. Ya know for the hams I'll be smoking.

So, that's enough photos, right?  While waiting for Sir Chats A Lot the agent to come. Hubby went to call him. We could get no cell phone service there (No DSL internet either). He left us at the house and went to town (two streets over) found a payphone and while calling, some guy who was just released from prison came and hit him up for $5. The guy knew hubby wasn't from there. He said, "What you doin' here?" Hubby said, just visiting. The guy said while scanning the crap main street, "You must reeeeeally like visiting."(because there is obviously NO reason to come to this town) Crack me up. The guy then said, "You don't wanna live here. It's one ignorant town." 

So, the town's webpage is quite funny. Most towns have some kind of "look at the pretty and great stuff we have in our town" photos on their main page. This town has a photo of it's motel. Because it HAD a motel. And that apparently, is a big deal around dead-ville. We were trying to figure out why anyone would stay there though. I'm not exaggerating, there is NOTHING there…or even close to there.

Needless, to say, we are not considering moving there. The house was really neat and I'd buy the house if it were somewhere other than nowhere. It wasn't as structurally sound as the  farmhouse was, but it still had a lot of potential. The addition rooms had some sloping, and lots of the rooms weren't exactly 4 straight corners. Some of that is to be expected in OLD houses, I know. Anyway, we had fun getting to go inside of it.  Hope you enjoyed the vicarious house snooping.