The joys of a pre-renovated house

When we bought the house we knew that the whole living room was an addition on the original house. However, as we have been cleaning up, we are starting to realize just how much the house has been changed around from its original form.

While cleaning the basement, we were able to figure out why the "laundry room" area had such odd walls.

Now looking at it, it's obvious it's a stair support

After clearing the cobwebs in the ceiling, we saw an inconsistency in the ceiling joists.

That's not metal...

Turns out that there used to be a stairway down to the basement in the large room. This stairway was under the stairway to the upstairs. The first floor landing for the basement stairway is now the fridge alcove/pantry. The access to the basement has been moved to the new addition. This answers out big question on how the basement was accessed before the addition was put in.

Luckily the work seems done very well and while the subfloor on the first floor has a few small gaps, we are not going to worry about this change and enjoy our much larger basement room.

Just a small gap is all that remains of what used to be a landing

Since the stairs were once all more centrally located, there was also a door at the far end of the kitchen. It explains why the kitchen itself is so wide, the kitchen used to be a major through way in the house. All that remains of the doorway is some cut siding and a small window. The inspector thought it was good, so I am not currently worried about it.

Not only is the vinyl cut, but the stair mounting and the outside light are still up. Luckily this is the back of the house.

Another change we knew had been made to the house from its original specs is that a wall had been taken out between two of the bedrooms on the first floor. This turned two 11'x12' rooms into one long 11'x24' room.

The floor was sealed before the wall was removed

Unlike the basement stairway, this change will most likely be reversed. Danielle and Matt still have some disagreements on exactly how the wall should be added back, but the general consensus is adding back the wall with a large door/opening to allow passage between the two bedrooms.

Now for some changes that we didn't know were there...

What are these strange markings?

This is the closet at the end of the hall. When we looked up at the ceiling, we noticed these markings. This means that this closet was originally part of the small bedroom and it's closet was a couple feet bigger. This was verified by really examining the closet next door. The paneling in the closet is a bit slipshod and mismatched in a couple places. Luckily that is in places not normally seen and the room is going to probably end up as a music room so the closet appearance is not so important.

Finally, the most worrying alteration is this one.

A random wood scrap covered something important!

This is a large hole in the basement. We think it was either the old sump pump hole or a simple drain. Currently the only things in the hole is a drain from the current sump pump and a lower drain leading outside (we think). We would like to cap it or cover it somehow (at least something better than the small plywood piece currently on it), but we are not sure what can be done. Luckily it doesn't seem to be causing any problems and at the very least we can put the washer or dryer over it to prevent someone from falling in it.