1 in 3 Baby Boomers Say They'll Never Sell Their Home

[Mossfern]

17. We bought our house about 37 years ago

We had grown out of our present house at the time (4 kids)
I fell in love with this old dilapidated turn of the century Victorian cottage.
When we moved in the plaster walls were literally falling off the lath, the electricity was knob and tubing.

We needed to rewire the entire house, replace all the plumbing - eventually replace all the interior walls.
We also needed to add on to the house- one child was sleeping on an upstairs porch, another in a room that fit only a crib and a dresser and the kitchen was too small for a refrigerator - it was kept in a cold pantry. One 5' X 7' bathroom was a scheduling nightmare. There is nearly an acre of historic landscaping that needed restoration - we've been working on this and the house for decades.

We raised our children here and the walls hold so many memories.
The house was purchased as an Estate sale, as it had been in the original family since about the
1880's.

Yes, there are "entities" sharing our home with us. Sometimes they make themselves known and I, personally speak to them when things go missing or weird. We have all seen the patriarch of the family walking up to the front door of the house - and then disappear. The family left us deeds going back to 1807. We've got photos of the original family - even old bills and various other papers that got handed down.

I feel privileged to live here, and plan to stay until I can't make the stairs any more. I hope that my children will find a family as sensitive to the history of this place as we were. The man who built it for his daughter was a Civil War captain (North), influential in the community, who eventually died of his war wounds.