The History of our 101-Year-Old West Chester Borough Home

This post was originally written in February 2021.

Jamie was lucky enough to purchase this gem over 10 years ago at a sheriff sale, which is before he met me. Little did he know that this would be the longest flip of his life, but also the start of a business born 8 years later. Before we get started telling you the story of our favorite place, I need to give you the layout of the house so you can follow the story.

The Long Shot 

Our little home is very long – imagine a ranch house but you enter through the side.  When you enter the front door, you walk into the cozy family room and sunroom area. As you continue straight, you enter the dining room and kitchen area. Keep walking back and you are greeted by a bathroom and a staircase that leads to the single bedroom upstairs.

Can you tell that I am a realtor yet?

As I was saying, if you continue straight, you would have been greeted by three bedrooms and ultimately the back door. So yes, if you walk in the front door, you are in a straight line to the back door.  Interesting, huh?

So that is what we are working with. But it turns out that our wonderful home had pipes freeze and burst that winter before Jamie bought it. So it left him with quite the project for starting out (thank goodness I met Jamie and moved in after this reno was completed J)

The First Reno

As mentioned above, the pipes had burst in this home right before Jamie purchased it. That meant that everything had to be removed down to the joists (bye-bye blue carpet). He kept the layout the same while adding beautiful oak floors in the sunroom, family room, and dining room. In the kitchen, he imported 300-year-old floors from the old mansion that used to sit on Marsh Creek State Park’s property. Even after years of wear and tear in this current house, they look exactly like they are supposed to be there and we continue to get compliments on it.

The Second Reno  

I hadn’t even *officially* moved in yet and we had already decided to completely gut the back of the house, which would be the back three bedrooms. This house did not make sense as a 4 bedroom house with the square footage we had and the dreams we had for our oasis. Since we are located in the heart of downtown, we knew that this home would be perfect for young professionals (us at the time and now) and empty nesters to sell to in the future.  

With the three downstairs bedrooms at the time, we had room for only one bathroom and our washer and dryer were in the kitchen. We knew that we wanted a master bathroom and a laundry room, so do we keep two bedrooms downstairs and do a smaller master bath and laundry room? Or do we blow it out of the water and do one large master bedroom with a walk-in closet, huge master bathroom, laundry room and leave room for a much-needed mudroom? We decided on the latter and couldn’t be happier with the results!