Refurbishing an old Arthur (my 1st house)

This is the house I've been working on since 1995. It's bones are an old Arthur kit, but since I don't like many of the features of the Arthur, I've made some modifications: changing the doors and windows to a more appropriate size and shape, adding windows to the sides of the first floor (though one set is going to be replaced by a bay window), extending the porch outward (if the Arthur were a full scale house, people would barely be able to move about on it in its stock dimensions), and finally, the addition of the two dormers. In style, they're a little later than the rest of the house, but many of my favorite real houses when I was growing up in Santa Cruz were the result of decades of additions and modifications, and many old houses were designed to be expanded as resources allowed.

One thing for which I kick myself in the head now is not documenting my progress, and especially for not photographing the house when I first acquired it. As I said, it was an Arthur which had been assembled more or less by the book, except that I don't think it ever had a roof on the porch. At some point in its history--I'm guessing--it was turned over to the kids, and by the time it found it's way into the thrift store, and my home, its trim was mostly cracked away, its windows torn out, the whole thing slathered first in white paint inside and out, then smeared with fingerpaints before being left outside to collect dirt in its seams. When I saw it in the store, a battalion of battle-hardened Gi Joes were billeted in it.

On this site, I hope to document it's continuing re-build into (I hope) a showplace.