Our big, beautiful house was built around the turn of the century in Wichita, Kansas.
It has 4 bedrooms, two floors, an unfinished basement and an attic. When we bought it, it was a bank owned property. You can read a little about that process here.
The house had sat vacant for several years and unfortunately, needed quite a bit of work.
During that time the old radiators had frozen and burst - one of the first unpleasant sights we saw when we peeked through the windows the first time.
The first winter in our house, we did not have heat but thanks to a few dozen phone calls and a lot of blankets, we made it through and got our brand new furnaces with the help of a grant from the South Central Kansas Economic Development District.
It has 4 bedrooms, two floors, an unfinished basement and an attic. When we bought it, it was a bank owned property. You can read a little about that process here.
The house had sat vacant for several years and unfortunately, needed quite a bit of work.
During that time the old radiators had frozen and burst - one of the first unpleasant sights we saw when we peeked through the windows the first time.
The first winter in our house, we did not have heat but thanks to a few dozen phone calls and a lot of blankets, we made it through and got our brand new furnaces with the help of a grant from the South Central Kansas Economic Development District.
What followed was a lot of paint and a lot of love (we got married in the backyard in 2009)
Our first major remodeling project was the upstairs bathroom. That's where we found all of these goodies (i.e. really old trash from under the stairs)
Not too long after that, we found out, using the 1940 census that between the years of 1938 and 1944 our house was owned by Dan and Eva Muck.
They actually rented out rooms in the house to young women and thanks to some internet sleuthing we were able to connect with their granddaughter, Wilene. It was a surreal experience to hear about our house back then from someone who saw it firsthand!
Then, one day while digitizing slides at work, Conan came across a picture of a little boy on a pony in front of a house that looked mighty familiar...
He sent me a cryptic text that said, "Yes, wonderful things." A little nerdy nod to Howard Carter's famous discovery.
When I got home, he had a stack of photos of our house from not too long after the Mucks lived here.
He spoke to the man who was in the pictures, Larry, that next week and we were able to piece together a little more of the house's history.
UPDATE: as of spring 2020, we have the final puzzle piece of our home's history. The original owner's 3rd great niece reached out to us with an EXHAUSTIVE amount of research and we were able to learn all about the family who originally called our house home.
Read that amazing story here.
We've made some minor improvements (paint, landscaping) and some major ones (living room shelves, upstairs bathroom, kitchen) in the five years since we picked up the torch of this old house.
Be sure to check out the Interior Tour to see how our house looked when we moved in!
And check out the History of our House to learn even more about the people who lived here before us!
Thanks for visiting!
