The first restoration project we took on at the house was the front porch. Openings in the roof in multiple areas had caused water damage beyond repair to the roof and floor structure. The home has a full basement that runs even under the extents of the front porch. Fortunately this foundation was still in wonderful shape.
When the house was constructed coal was a primary source of heat for residential and commercial structures. Each main room in the house had a small coal fireplace. Fire boxes for coal are much smaller than those for wood burning.
The house has 3 chimneys. 2 supported 6 fireplaces. The third supported the service side of the house including at least one cook-stove.
We first fell in love with the house after we started digging into the history of the builder and the quality of construction he insisted go into the home at the time it was built.
Honeybees had been living in the walls of the house for over 10 years. They were very comfy and settled in four unique colonies – 1 on either side of the exterior chimneys. From the exterior you could see a weak spot in which the bees were coming and going. The bees were most active when the sun was hitting that side of the house.
Hello! Dianna and Peter Osickey here [with tot Oliver]. The summer of 2016 we purchased the Wilder Home from a friend we met through one of my best buds and architecture school classmates. He owned the home with his three brothers and had been renting it out while living in Nashville. The home had fallen into a state of disrepair and the current renter was living in unsafe conditions. Luckily the city had not condemned the house. It is much harder to pull construction permits and get loans once a house is condemned.
The Wild[er] Adventure 