We started budgeting and planning immediately.  We talked to the owner and he was kind enough to give us permission to be and work on the property before the papers were signed.  We had only been working a few days when a local sheriff that stopped by one afternoon.  It turns out that last fall they had busted a meth lab in the house.  This really didn't surprise us based on all of the trash we were hauling out.  We also started calling contractors to get on their schedules.  The foundation guys could come in a couple of weeks, but then were very busy after that.  So we made a very hard decision and, with the approval of the owner, started fixing the foundation before we even had possession of the house.  It made for a lot of restless nights. 

The foundation guys showed up and got to work on the north-east front of the house and the two side porches on the north and south sides.  When they got the house up on jacks they discovered that things weren't going to go as smoothly as originally planned.  The foundation had been made of two separate stacks of limestone, and under the front of the house and the south porch the first layer had bowed out so much that when the house was lifted off of it it just fell over.  So under these two areas we decided to pour new foundations.  It's not a pretty solution, but it is the most structurally sound option we can currently afford.  I guess I'll just be forced to plant some pretty bushes in front of them.
Our foundation fixing created a mystery that still has not been solved.  We worked on the house until late one Sunday night and then headed for home.  That previous Friday the foundation guys had gotten the south porch jacked up but hadn't removed any of the stones to pour the new foundation yet.  So there was a gap in between the foundation and the house.  When we arrived Monday morning the gap was filled with pieces of limestone.  When we asked the foundation guys why they had done that if they were going to pour a new foundation they replied that they had thought that we had changed our minds and done that.  Strange.  We went over to the pile of limestone that had been removed from the front of the house and some one had clearly sifted through the pile and picked out pieces that fit into the crack in the foundation perfectly.  We've asked everyone we know and haven't come up with the culprit.
We finally closed on the house with no problems what so ever.  In fact, the owner even gave us some old photos of the acreage that we figure date to around the 1940's.  What was interesting is that one of the photos shows that the south porch was originally open.  It really makes the house look a lot nicer so we got  our sledge hammers out and started to restored it.  We got to the point of having the decking built for the floor of that porch and the wrap around porch we are putting back on the front of the house when we ran into the problem of it taking FOREVER to get the tong-and-groove flooring in.
Tim also started working on repairing the old windows in the house.  He started in the master bedroom and scraped all of the layers of paint and varnish off and then re-glazed the window.  Unfortunately it appears that all the paint layers were what was making the window weather proof.  We struggled and struggled with this decision, but finally decided to purchase new insulated windows for the house.  It is not something we wanted to do, but see it as the only way that we can afford to heat such a big house.
We've also become E-bay junkies.  We've already purchased most of the lights for the house.

I've taken down most of the woodwork in the house and labeled it corresponding to digital pictures of all of the woodwork that my aunt had taken for me.  Now we're just struggling with whether or not to try and clean it up or to strip it and re-varnish it.  It's not in as good of shape when you get it off the walls and up close to it. 
We had the local church's Luther League kids out to tear out our lath and plaster.  They do a service trip for Habitat for Humanity every year and do odd jobs around the community for donations to put towards that.  So I was letting loose 20 or so teenagers in my house with crowbars and hammers.  I was more than a little nervous.  In fact, the morning of I woke up and almost called them to cancel all together.  Thank goodness I didn't because they were incredible.  They started at 8:00 in the morning and had the downstairs pretty well wrapped up by 10:00.  By the time they left at 3:00 in the afternoon they had taken the plaster out of every room that was ready for them (I didn't have quite all of the woodwork out yet), but they had also done a great job of cleaning up.  I think I can safely credit them with saving our marriage because if Tim and I had to do this together it would have taken months.

We have the greatest roofer in the world.  Back in March we had contacted about 5 roofing companies who came out to look at the house.  One said right off the bat that he wasn't comfortable working on it.  I can completely understand.  Out of the other 4 the only one that we didn't have to call back constantly and pester for a quote was Jensen Construction.  In fact he mailed us a typed out quote of the project with all the details with out us even asking.  He was scheduled to come and complete the project the first week of July.  Well he called us the first week of June and said that he had some tin for another job that didn't come in on time and that he would like to do our roof now.  We were ecstatic!  He finished the job in a week and did beautiful work.  And get this, he came in under budget (and we're not talking a few bucks).  Worthy of sainthood if you ask me. 
When they tore off the shingles on the front part of the house we discovered a cut out for a dormer in the attic.  This corresponds with a cutout for a door I thought I had found in the master bedroom.  This means that at one time very early in the house's life there was a two story porch or there had been uncompleted plans for one.  We're leaning more towards the latter assumption because no one remembers the porch as being two stories.  I wish we had money in the budget to put it on because I think it would give an ackward spot in the front of the house a visual interest that it was lacking, but money doesn't grow on trees.
The porch flooring finally has come in and Tim is now going like crazy to get those porches on.  We have discovered that we hate treated tong-and-groove flooring.  It was horrible to put in.  The boards were twisted and warped so bad that we couldn't use many of them.  We tried hard to make them work but it was seriously impossible.  Then when Tim put the boards in they were beautiful, nice and tight against each other.  With in two days they had shrunk so much there was a gap between the boards in some spots.  Then when it rained a week later they swelled up so much that the flooring bubbled and rolled.  I don't know what we did wrong, but I'm hoping that when we get them painted it will seal them up so the changes aren't so dramatic.
We also have our first "livestock."  A friend from school gave us two little farm kittens.  They are supposed to be to keep the mouse population down, but I think our mice are bigger than they are.  Oh well, they make good company when you there alone working.

My husband is incredible.  It took him one and a half weeks to build a large wrap around porch and repair the other small side porch.  And it wasn't an easy build.  I know I was there.  I honestly think that if we had hired a carpenter he wouldn't have had it done this fast or built as strong as it is.  I told Tim that the porch would be standing long after the house fell over unless it collapses from the weight of all the nails he used to build it.  The only thing he didn't do was the roof.  We called Jensen Construction back in for that and it took them two hours to knock it out.  Another marriage saver, it would have taken us two days.
When we first bought the house we noticed that the large chimneys were pulling the house down around them.  So we made the hard decision of tearing them out.  There are no fireplaces in the house so they were something we would never use since we are replacing the wood burning stove with forced air.  Plus they were in very tough shape.  A local volunteer fireman had told us that they had been called out twice a number of years ago for chimney fires.
We are finishing up the clean up so we can start rebuilding by the end of the month.  The attic is clean, the second floor just needs to be swept, the first floor needs to be picked up a bit and swept, and we just won't talk about the basement.  I think we'll just get the furnace room cleaned out and worry about the old root cellar at a later date.  We have the cellar doors leading to the outside so we don't have to worry about tracking the junk from the basement through the house to get rid of it.
July 25, 2003 - OK, so just the first floor needs to be cleaned up yet.  I vastly under estimated the time it would take to vacuum every little nook and cranny of that house.  Tim is busy plugging away at the interior structural repair.  The basement jacks are in and where the first floor sunk in towards the chimney is compensated for.  When we got the walls out we discovered that most of the openings in this house have no headers over them and if they do they are just 2x4's.  So we are beefing up the larger structures such as the picture windows and double doors.  He is also working on reinforcing the joists under our future master bedroom.  The floor has some serious spring to it and I don't want to wake up some morning sitting in the living room.  The electrician has been called and is supposed to be coming late next week.  The heating/cooling guys start next week, and we meet with our exterior house painter tonight to finalize details.  Also, our windows came in last week and look good!  We may be three weeks behind, but I'm not worried yet.
July 28, 2003 - If this last weekend were a movie it would be titled "Tim and Becky's Very Bad Horrible Weekend."  The interior structural work just keeps coming.  We get one thing fixed and then decide well if we fixed it here we had better beef this up too.  And I'm still not done cleaning.  How many weeks behind are we now?  Not that it really matters anymore because Tim went to put in one of the new window and guess what, it's 3 inches to big.  The lumber company measured wrong.  Unless the lumber company can work some sort of miracle it's going to be over 6 weeks to get new ones in.  We can't replace the siding until the window trim is in, we can't paint the house until the siding is up, we can't insulate the house until the siding is up, we can't drywall until the insulation is up.  How many contractors do I have to call and reschedule with!!!  Thank you Superior Lumber.  They told us this morning when we called about the problem they would have someone out there by noon.  It's 2:30 now as I write this and they still haven't arrived.  Nice.  Plus Charlie, our little gray kitten, died.