How fantastic to be able to research the history and have photos of your property throughout the years.
I hope to get to see your beautiful home for myself one day ;)
xx

Hi Paul, Very muc aware of the tax credits. Sadly when i was putting most of the money into the house (95 to 99) NC was not providing tax credits. I've got all the paperwork but I believe it has to be $20,000 or more per year or per project. Right now I'm not spending that type of money on restoration specific projects. I actually work right around the corner from the offices that help setting up the paper work for this and remember beating on their door quite a few times. Right now our house and the old cook house is listed as contributing to the Garner Historic District and are listed in the register as such, but have not listed individually. Once you do that they are very restrictive of what you can and can't do.
As a contributing building within the historic district I am afforded all the perks such as tax credits as if I was individually listed, but am not confined by what I can or can't do with the house. Major changes we made were to take out a kitchen, 1/2 bath (use to be a pantry) and open porch, and make one large living room. In 1912 they had foyers and parlors but not living rooms. We also took one bedroom downstairs and made a kitchen out of it. That was probably the main "adjustment" to the house, althought I do want to add a bath and laundry room to the downstairs corner of the house off our living room. We only have one bathroom upstairs, and with just me and Cheryl really isn't a problem but we expect at least bathrooms homes today, and to add Cheryl's kitchen doubles as our laundry room.
I think as I get a bit older we will have it individually listed, but for now will continue to upgrade and continue to improve to make it more liveable for the future. I've got a ton of restoration stories and pictures, especially those first few years. and will be working on my House Notebook and sharing some of that stuff online. For example we took each of the 9 columns out and disassembled, cleaned and reassembled, reframed and reinforced much of the wraparound porch sub structure, and re decked (needs redecking again now!), and that was a major project for me and my dad. The previous owners had removed the clawfoot tub and I remember having to hunt one down, have it reglazed, and getting that thing upstairs and installed. Anyway, lots of "restorations" and "upgrades" when you own one of these fixer-uppers!

Jason, it's fascinating to know that your house has so much history. I love how you have kept the front of the house looking the way it did in the early days. It's a lovely home!

I just talked to Mrs Carroll...our 90 year old neighbor whose husband's parents owned our house from 1945 to 1965, and had owned it herself from 1965 to 1967 and has agreed to do an interview sometime in the future to talk about living in the old house. In fact, just talking to her she told me why she always called the old shed the "wash house" ... she said they had an old maytag ringer type washing machine in the middle of the floor and it would drain out into the yard by way of a drain hole and pipe embedded in the floor...something I had always wondered how it was used!