Host Anne Helen Petersen talks to Cheap Old Houses founders Elizabeth and Ethan Finkelstein about the home restoration enthusiasm they’ve seen through their massive Instagram following (2 million+!!). And we caught up with Betsy Sweeny (@betsysweeny), a 29-year-old with a Cheap Old House in Wheeling, WV, while swooning over her multiple fire-burning fireplaces and stained glass windows.
Maybe you’ve seen the Instagram account Cheap Old Houses (@cheapoldhouses) in a revenge bedtime procrastination blur. The account highlights homes in need of TLC where the price tag isn’t the sore spot… it’s the money and sweat equity you’ll have to put into restoring it. They’re often in rural areas, or in towns where, for various reasons, the population has declined significantly over the past 100 years. Host Anne Helen Petersen talks to Cheap Old Houses founders Elizabeth and Ethan Finkelstein about the home restoration enthusiasm they’ve seen through their massive Instagram following (2 million+!!). And we caught up with Betsy Sweeny (@betsysweeny), a 29-year-old with a Cheap Old House in Wheeling, WV, while swooning over her multiple fire-burning fireplaces and stained glass windows.
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Find episode transcripts here: https://townsizing.simplecast.com/episodes/the-highs-and-lows-of-owning-a-cheap-old-house
I grew up middle-class, in a house that my parents had bought, and the fact that I would someday own a house — it was the sort of thing I just, assumed would some day happen? Like, I’d get my driver’s license, and I’d get a job, and then….someday I’d own a house.
There are so many reasons why that housing dream has become an impossibility, particularly for millennials and younger — it’s the shrinking middle class, it’s monumental student loan debt, it’s a lack of new housing, it’s, well, a lot.
THEME STEMS IN
And the end result is that home ownership has become an unattainable dream unless you have some sort of familial wealth, particularly if you live in any of the hundreds of metro areas across the country with out of control housing markets.
But there is a different way.
It requires a lot of work and thoughtfulness and also, in many cases, the willingness or ability to move to a place that is very much not an urban area.
Enter Cheap Old Houses.
Maybe you’ve seen the Instagram account —or followed it in a revenge bedtime procrastination blur.
There’s A 3 bed, 2 bath in Sharon, PA for 7,500?!
Or an quirky hotel in Thayer MO for 25,000?!
Or this adorable yellow house in Joplin, MO with a front porch and pocket doors for 50,000. Like who has seen these numbers next to a house in any recent past?!
Cheap Old Houses is what it sounds like. The account highlights homes in need of TLC. Where the price tag isn’t the sore spot… it’s the money and sweat equity you’ll have to put into restoring it. These are also places where flipping isn’t — or shouldn’t — be the goal. They’re often in rural areas, or in towns where, for various reasons, the population has declined significantly over the past fifty to one hundred years.
It’s easy to fall in love with these houses through, you know, the screen on Instagram— there’s 100 year old staircases, the beautiful built-ins, the MULTIPLE wood-burning fireplaces. But there’s a responsibility, too, with becoming a steward of history — you change the house, but if you talk to anyone who’s gone through the process of buying these homes, it’s also clear that the house, it changes you.
FULL THEME IN
And that’s what this episode is all about.
SHOW ID
This is Townsizing, a podcast from HGTV all about small town living. And I’m your host, Anne Helen Petersen.
SEGMENT INTRO
In the first half, we’ll hear from the creators and founders of Cheap Old Houses. Which is not just an Instagram account but also newsletters AND an HGTV show. What made them so captivated by these homes and towns?
Then, later, we’ll hear from someone who actually bought a ‘cheap old house.’ We’ll hear about the highs and lows of restoring an older house…and spoiler: that part is not cheap.
First up… Ethan and Elizabeth Finkelstein…
INTERVIEW
[00:00:00] Anne: I consume a ton of cheap old houses content. It's like one of my favorite scrolling activities. Not only to look at the houses, but also to read the comments on the houses on Instagram. And I've watched a show and I want to know, especially for our listeners, how did this all start? Like how did you start doing this?
[00:00:19] Elizabeth: Oh my gosh. It was just a magical coming together of so many forces – of a background in historic preservation, a love of old houses growing up in them, both of us. I grew up in an old house, a cheap old house that my parents restored. Ethan – his mother was raised on a 200 acre farmhouse in New Hampshire from the 17 hundreds,
Anne: Wow
Elizabeth: and he has very beautiful memories of childhood with his cousins running around those meadows and fields. Yeah. Um, and really, You know, the merging of that with the idea that in this country, no one can afford houses. And, um, it it, it was sort of the, the convergence of those things. Realizing that people want things with character that make them feel a sense of groundedness, um, houses that are imperfect and beautiful in that., also with the idea that these houses are accessible, attainable, finally, right? Like, Oh my gosh, I could actually own a house. I think we're all feeling that so much now.
[00:01:19] Anne: like to me, a cul-de-sac of McMansions is like, just emblematic of that feeling of like, Oh, well we, there's like this dream that's also really hollow and the, the contrast would be something like what you're doing with cheap old houses, which is like, Oh, here are these beautiful houses filled with character that are accessible to people in a different way, and there's actual, there's value inside of the house.
[00:02:18] Elizabeth: my gosh. I feel like a cul-de-sac of McMansions. It's like my soul sucking worst nightmare. you mentioned this sort of the dream and I think that we, we say so much, we're like trying to really redefine what the American dream is. When we were growing up, it was like you get a car, you get a big house, you get everything and all. You go to, you go to college and all of this revolves around the idea of debt. Ethan brought up this great point that like, I think what's gotten lost in all of this shuffle. Absolutely out of control real estate market is, is the starter home. Like the idea of a starter home doesn't exist anymore. I mean, housing is so expensive for everybody. So the idea that you can have something in your closing costs would be very low. And you could be patient and you could work on your kitchen over the course of 12 years and that's just fine. Um, you know, that's really the kind of dream that we're that we're pushing. And I think that that there's such comfort in that for me.
[00:04:23] Elizabeth: started cheap old houses cuz I love pink bathrooms. I love, you know, art deco things. Like, it's crazy how, and I, I feel like that's when you know something has legs when yes, there is a way to latch onto the cheap old houses bandwagon if you love, you know, lavender tile and you love, you know, cool linoleum from the twenties and you love time capsule houses and you're a Greek revival nerd, whatever, and there's all that and that's so great. but there's also this like very real complex side of it that is speaking to a larger sort of system of values that we've been sold in this country.
Anne: Yeah.
Elizabeth: It's interesting because cheap old houses started doing well long before Covid. You know, when, when things were fine and the economy was fine and people could afford things, and then suddenly covid. And it then even did better. but it, it sustains no matter what the economy is because it's always a really good idea to try to live beneath your means no matter what the sort of economy is.
[00:05:31] Anne: that's a good transition actually to to asking what makes a cheap old house. Like by your definition, how does it get featured?
[00:05:38] Elizabeth: It's really the perfect storm of things for me. I would say original things. I, I think there's nothing sadder than seeing a house that's, you know, has this beautiful Victorian facade and you open it up and it's like graige and has those same like grayish floors and you're like, Oh, it's clearly been flipped. I would rather see something in a decrepit state of deferred maintenance, but still be there. Then something that's like fresh and clean and totally gutted and uninteresting anymore.
[00:06:09] Ethan: clearly there's a price point and the price point is under.
Elizabeth: Oh, yeah, there's that
Ethan: a hundred and what is it? You, you, it's $120,000 on the fee.
[00:06:18] Elizabeth: I mean, generally most everything we post is under a hundred. Occasionally, if I see a house that's so good, that goes up to 120, which I think. You know, thinking about the idea of inflation and how we started this feed in 2016. Was it, 120 is kind of like the new hundred. I don't know. it's kind of, shifted, so you know, we do that and then we also post houses that are called Save This House. That's, that are like, and those are some people's favorites,that are just really amazing fixer uppers, but that are in places that would never warrant a price tag of under a hundred thousand dollars. Um, a lot of houses on the West Coast are this way, in our more sort of expensive areas in the country, but that I, but I still think these houses are very, very worthy of, you know, being shown to people who would appreciate them.
[00:07:06] Ethan: And we do have some newsletters that change the price point. You know, we have cheapish old houses. We have cheap old farmhouses. We have –
Elizabeth: cheap old houses abroad.
[00:07:14] Anne: A lot of the the cheap old houses are places that are smaller towns or places that used to be bigger towns and are now population wise, smaller towns. So I think of like,, near where I used to live in Montana, the, the city of Butte, which used to be like the richest city in the west, right. Incredible architecture, incredible houses, But also because of the downturn in mining,, like the population just really plummeted over the course of the 20th century, right? it's a small town that has gorgeous architecture that like you would not expect to find in a town named Butte. so like, what are the role of these houses in some of these smaller areas? Small towns in, in Metropolises?
[00:08:14] Elizabeth: Oh my gosh, these houses are so critical. I mean, these houses are. are these towns wearing their proud histories on their sleeves? I think there is nothing sadder to me then strip mall America… when you drive and a place has just been stripped of anything that has the potential to really bring its people together around a common shared history and understanding of sense of place. and I think the built fabric is so unbelievably critical to that. I don't mean to be naive in this statement because obviously a lot goes into, creating healthy towns and cities, but I think that a lot of the places that people would pay a fortune to live now are that way because at one point people went in and saw the bones and revived the historical architecture. So it does play a significant role in making places that obviously, people wanna live in Cause they're paying a ton to live there. I think that through all these examples we can see that clearly there's a draw to these kinds of buildings and we have a lot of towns in our country that, quite frankly cannot get people to move to them. I mean, gentrification is a concern in a lot of places in this country – towns around where we live that's not an issue. The buildings are literally vacant and abandoned. And no matter what you do, you try to open a coffee shop in that downtown, you're not gonna survive. No one will come to it. So, yeah, And, and if historical architecture is a draw for people, we need to look into using it more to get people interested in some of these places. it might be that it's all that some of these towns have right now in terms of attracting some sort of investment to help them
[00:10:06] Anne: Yeah. and I think that's like a real tension, right? Because some of the people who have lived there for a really long time they're still mourning the loss of whatever that industry was, Right, Whether it's timber or mining or whatever.. So what is the future? How do you think about like, how do we get people who are working remotely to work here and sustain this town so that it doesn't disappear altogether? what are the places that keep that pop up a lot? That like if you see a listing in this town, you're like, Oh wait, bet this is gonna be interesting Or in this area.
[00:10:49] Elizabeth:. the Midwest is really big for this in rural parts of Maine. Western New York. I guess things we would sort of traditionally consider like the rust Belt area around Pittsburgh
Anne: What about you Ethan?
[00:11:02] Ethan: West Virginia.
Elizabeth: West Virginia.
Ethan: West Virginia, you know, places. Georgia and South. There's South Carolina and
[00:11:09] Elizabeth: yep. there is a direct connection between former industrial cities. And cheap old houses because yeah, as our economy moved away from that and those cities emptied out, we had this incredible housing stock that's just. . Still there. And so that's where you find a lot of them.
[00:11:58] Anne: I, so I live on an island off the coast of Washington state. And, uh, I live in one of the oldest houses on the island, which most of these houses were originally just fishing shacks. Like people would come over from the mainland and they were not winterized and no no mechanical, plumbing, all that sort of thing but oldest house on the island is 1904 – was when my house was built. Right? And so like, the contrast to seeing how old houses are on the East coast. like the first time I went to the East coast, I remember just like driving around in some town in Maine and I was like, How this is just a normal town. Like everything is so old and part of it too, like my town that I grew up in, in Idaho, it was like a boom town and everything was made with like cheap, shitty wood And like just burned over and over and over again. so yeah, it's just, it's a contrast for sure.
[00:12:55] Elizabeth: Totally. and so when people say, Can you post more houses on the West coast in a way, The purpose of our feed is not to find the sort of diamond in the rough, super cheap listing in a really expensive area. Right. The point of our feed, in a way, and this wasn't my, our intention to begin with, but one of the things I love about our feed is that it opens people's minds to towns and cities that you, we had never heard of before it, but they're like superheroes and cheap old houses. Yeah. And it makes you think about, you know, maybe, you know, when we lived in Brooklyn, believe me, Brooklyn was the center of the universe and there are other places besides Brooklyn to live. Right. Um, and, and it's, it's, it's just kind of funny.
[00:13:34] Ethan: I just think we, when you take the location, location, location out of the real estate search, It opens up a completely different world of possibilities of what you can and can't have.
[00:13:47] Elizabeth: Which like, let's be honest, Covid did for so many people, right? It just like took location out of like you suddenly, you know, if you're working remotely, what can I do?
[00:13:54] Ethan: Well, and we were working remotely before the pandemic, and we were dying to really exercise our, being able to be anywhere and, um, you know, and then finally Covid hit and we were like, Okay, chains are off. Let's, let's do this.
[00:14:14] Anne: Yeah. And like not even have to be like a train ride like a quick train ride into, right.
[00:14:19] Ethan: I mean, technology is a such, also in rural communities, way more than it ever was. I mean, there are communities around here that still don't have internet and homes in our area that don't have internet, which is mind boggling to me. And actually that's a big thing when you're searching for a cheap old house in a very rural place, check your internet if that's a requirement for you. Because for me it was more important than water, let's say. You know?
[00:14:46] Elizabeth: And it was. When we bought our cheap old farmhouse, which we're restoring right now, Ethan, like day one. Like we didn't have any, I mean, this thing is a soup to nuts, fixer upper, but Ethan was like, We will have internet immediately and we did.
[00:14:59] Anne: You know, I look at the Instagram page and I look at the comments, and oftentimes people's first reaction is like, What's the hitch?
[00:15:08] Elizabeth: When people say, “What's the hitch?” I'm like, you guys, this feed is not called expensive houses in overpriced locations. Like this is cheap old houses., there's no such thing as a free lunch. The houses are all gonna have some reason why they're cheap. I mean, I assume that's a given. So I'm always a little bit like, Why did you even ask that question? I mean, the idea of these houses is that they either require work or they are far away from typical jobs. you know, there's a lot of reasons why they're cheap and that's not for me to judge. I'm just kind of putting them out there. So yeah, there's gonna be some sort of hitch in some way, and it's just like a matter of like,, pick your poison?I mean are you. You know, and we often say there's a reason why we have so many creatives that follow us. like very, very well known celebrities, artists, writers, poets, actors, actresses following us. This is not about the money for them. They don't need a cheap house, but they love the dream of that. I'm sure these are people who deeply overworked, probably started doing what they did because they loved the art, but are now stuck in the business of it and emailing all day and in customer service and having to post on social media 14 times a day and like all these things that are just like, I wanna get back to using my hands and doing art. And these houses are art for them.
[00:16:26] Ethan: Like I see that comment. Like an engineer or someone who, and I don't mean to blame engineers
[00:16:33] Elizabeth: We love engineers,
[00:16:35] Ethan: We rely on them for everything. We rely on them. Um, but someone who sees, you
[00:16:39] Elizabeth: know, very black and white, like a wall is a wall
[00:16:40] Ethan: with the numbers. I mean, I've talked to like people who are in different professions that are like, Wouldn't it be cheaper to build a new house? And it's just like, Yeah, but this house is the oldest house in the, like this house from the 1700s. Like, yes, it would be,, but they would also be boring as all heck to live in that house.
[00:17:02] Elizabeth: Right? Obviously, like we're not picking the easy path here. Easy is not the goal. So, yeah, the hitch is that for whatever reason, it's not gonna be easy. But I think like we're all, I think this is exactly the dream. I mean, we're all sick. I don't wanna sit in my house and yell to Alexa to turn my light on and not have to do anything and just like walk away. You know? Like that's boring. I mean, I feel like our people wanna express themselves through their homes and
[00:17:27] Anne: Yeah.
[00:17:28] Elizabeth: I think it's human nature to want to feel challenged, There's a lot of things that are hard. Running a marathon is hard and people celebrate having kids having, I often can, I often relate this to having kids because
Anne: totally.
Elizabeth: Nobody's gonna argue with you for saying you want children, Right? But like, people are gonna tell you, for wanting a house. That's a lot of work. Kids are a lot of work. kids are expensive. Kids will make you cry. Like all the things, right? But we do it because we realize that there's immense value in it regardless. And it's the same with a cheap old house.
[00:18:01] Anne: For yourself or for other people who have bought some of the cheap old houses? Like what is, a difficulty that is often unappreciated or unanticipated? Like what's the, the unsexy thing that people don't think about?
[00:18:15] Elizabeth: I would say that with all that's out there right now with these instant transformations on tv, on Instagram, everywhere. I think there's a frustration in the feeling like, oh my gosh, everyone is going so much faster than me. I see a lot of sort of like, Self-help speeches, like therapeutic vulnerable speeches from old house owners talking about how they're coming to terms with, like letting themselves not have done any house projects this week and it's okay. I think that they buy this house. And it changes them deeply. I mean, when we bought our farmhouse, it became our life purpose. It became literally like our everything, all of our money, all of our time, every, all of our thoughts going to this. And when you don't have a moment, you have to focus on your children that week or you, you have something come up and you can't get stuff done. There's sort of like a guilt about that. There's a lot of comparison syndrome because like it's easy to open up Instagram and be like, Oh, everyone else is doing it faster than me.
[00:19:26] Ethan: I think dealing with contractors right now, because I believe the trades are underrepresented, there's not enough people in them. and how to work with them I think is a big one. I think financial, um, components of owning a cheap old house are definitely not sexy and not something that everyone wants to talk about, I think that's a big one. But I think at the end of the day when you're under-leveraged and you work slow, and you work with your contractors in their time, you're still have a better investment because you aren't in such crazy debt and you're not running on this crazy hamster wheel.
[00:20:09] Elizabeth: yeah, because so many people moved during Covid. right now, contractors are just in such high demand and it's definitely…
[00:20:16] Anne: Yep.
[00:20:17] Elizabeth: …Hard to pin them down.
[00:21:06] Ethan: The sort of famous line in business is, how cheap or costly do you want? How fast do you want it and what quality do you want? You can only pick two of the three things. Oh my gosh, that's terrifying. My belief I guess on this school of thought is I want quality and it for to be cheap, and I'm willing to wait. for, for that to, you know, and, but I can't have it quick. You can't have all three. It's impossible. Supposedly.
[00:21:49] Anne: Yeah. like, everything has to be amazing and beautiful. And quick and like shouldn't cost a lot of money. Right? We should always be trying to get a better deal on everything. it's just not realistic. And so if you can change your understanding and be patient in that way, I do think it opens up so many possibilities in terms of home ownership, just broadly. …My last question is just generally, what is your favorite thing about living in a small town?
[00:25:38] Elizabeth: That's hard.
[00:25:39] Ethan: I think for me there's only single roads and there is a chance to just generally slow down. I mean, we still live very chaotic, crazy lives through our work and through all the things, but it allows this other part of us, the normal part, the daily part, the stuff that should be easy to just kind of relax a little bit more and just kind of be at ease.
Elizabeth: I don’t know why we didn’t move here sooner.
In Act 2 of the episode, we hear from someone who went to one of those towns the Finkelsteins talked about.
ADD BREAK CUE
MIDROLL
AD BREAK CUE
SEGMENT 2 – BETSEY SWEENY OF WHEELING, WV
Wheeling, West Virginia is a city built to be big. It peaked at around 110,000 in the 1920s. But like a lot of post industrial cities, it also saw a mass exodus. And now, it’s a small town, hovering around 30,000.
There’s all these gorgeous houses, once owned by steel magnates or nail factory owners. Victorians with these great stained glass windows. Ornate staircases. Bay windows.
And our guest Betsy Sweeny has one of these houses. It was featured on ‘Cheap Old Houses’ Instagram. She’s 29 years old and works in historic preservation.
I’ll let her take it from here –
INTERVIEW
[00:00:15] betsy: I grew up in Pittsburgh. I went to school in Missouri, Went some other places, was living in Virginia, working in a museum, and when I kind of recognized that I wanted to take my architectural history and historic preservation background and kind of shift lanes a little bit and get out of the museum and out of the academic world and into more of a community environment. I just started doing basically a national search. You know, in my field of work, it's not too common to pick based on geography. You kind of go where the jobs are and so, yeah. Yeah. I didn't have any regional or geographic allegiance anywhere. I was just casting my net wide to try to find a job and a location that felt good to me and Wheeling, West Virginia came across my computer and I called him up. The next thing you know, I'm interviewing, and next thing you know I'm moving.
[00:01:13] Anne: So you moved there first, why were they looking for someone with your background? Like why was it a good fit?
[00:01:19] betsy: Yeah, so, Wheeling is a national heritage area and I tell people, Think of national heritage areas, the way you think of national parks, but instead of being designated because of natural beauty, mountains, waterfalls, things like that, they are designated based upon the area's contribution to American history. And so in the case of Wheeling, the Wheeling national heritage area is the city limits of wheeling. And we were recognized, um, I think 28 years ago because of our contribution to the history of statehood, innovation, transportation, things like that. And so Wheeling Heritage is the operating organization for the National Heritage Area. And when I kind of got linked up with them, they were looking for someone to manage their historic preservation activities and kind of overhaul their historic and heritage interpretation, um, which was exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to kind of stay in the formal cultural institution world while still being super connected to a community, which is a pretty tall order when job searching. And so it ended up being a great professional fit. And then I came to the town and I toured around and I saw the architecture and the small businesses that were popping up. it was very clearly a town that was on the brink of revitalization. Mm-hmm. . And that's exactly the space I wanted to work in. So it was pretty much love at first sight.
[00:02:47] Anne: I love that. So a lot of the houses that are on cheap old houses, a lot of them are in these kind of postindustrial places in the east and and midwest in particular. And we have is one of those places. And so what was Wheeling Known for specifically?
[00:03:09] betsy: Yeah. So, um, Wheeling is unique and this is kind of the reason for Um, National Heritage Area designation in that they were kind of on the cusp of many different eras of industrialization. So kind of early settlement, pre railroad, the National Road came through wheeling, and so people were on wagons and Wheeling was one of those gateways to the west. And then as we get a little deeper into history, we sit right on the Ohio River and so Steamboat Travel and River Travel, incredibly significant in this region because you could go up to Pittsburgh and ship things down to Wheeling and go on the Ohio River and eventually hit the Mississippi and eventually out to the port of New Orleans.So we were a Rivertown. And then the rail road came through, which enhanced industrialization and we had pretty much all of the big kind of factories, steel, glass, pottery…probably most famous and for the longest time we had the LaBelle Iron Works, which was the largest manufacturer of nails in the world at one point.
[00:04:48] Anne: Wow. So describe the community now. You said that it was, you know, on the cusp of revitalization. Just give us a sense of it.
[00:05:00] betsy: Wheeling is interesting because it straddles the benefits and the challenges of both West Virginia as a state, but it doesn't feel like the rest of the state. And the northeast and Midwest post-industrial communities, but it doesn't feel exactly like those either. And so, Wheeling peaked in population in the 1920s, and that was nearly three times what it is today. So our population hovers right around 30,000 now. In the 1920s, it was over a hundred thousand. And so Our building stock and our urban sprawl was created to accommodate a population much, much larger than what we have today. And that, You know, of course, breeds issues of vacancy, abandonment, dilapidation, all of those things. On the bright side, Wheeling has these institutions, resources and cultural amenities that were built for a much larger city. And so we still maintain a beautiful theater. We have a symphony, we have several art institutions. We have all of these cultural amenities and larger facilities that are something you would expect in a big city.
[00:06:17] Anne: So you've lived in mostly bigger cities like Pittsburgh and dC metro area. What was it like for you to move to wheeling in your mid twenties?
[00:06:26] betsy: this is gonna sound really shortsighted, but I didn't even think about what the community would like, feel like coming from a certain age or a certain background or whatever. I just knew the kind of work I wanted to do, and I knew that it this community had all the building blocks and so it was gonna be fine. Yeah. I moved here and all of my expectations were exceeded. I met a group of people that are still my closest friends within weeks of moving here. My best friend in town is literally five houses down the street from me. Like it is like a Hallmark movie. Um, in terms of meeting people and having a social life, it was great because there's enough of us here that it doesn't have that super small town like everyone's in your business thing. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. But it is small enough that you recognize people and if you're kind of working in the same space or you have the sort of same civic commitment as others, You see each other and you naturally have something in common. And so it's really easy to build relationships.
[00:08:38] Anne: So, I wanna hear about your house you moved first and then the house came along. Like how did you find the house? What was it like?
[00:08:49] betsy: Th there's multiple layers to Instagram in being part of this story, so there is this weird, almost supernatural part of it where when I was in Virginia sitting on my couch, having just interviewed for this position in Wheeling, I was kind of scrolling on Instagram, looking at the geotags of like downtown wheeling, East Wheeling, historic district, whatever, just creeping. And I remember seeing a detail shot of a fireplace that was really beautiful tile and it had like some dogs running across it. And it stood out in my mind and I thought to myself, this seems like the kind of community where I might actually be able to afford something like that one day like that could be in my house and not just something I dream about. so keep that story in the back of your mind. Fast forward to about a year into living here. I started looking around in earnest and my, what is now my house, I saw it. The neighbor overheard me telling my friend, I thought it was beautiful. She was like, Oh, I'll get you in touch with the owner. It's vacant. I bet he'd sell it to you. So that snowballed. Little did I know that they were preparing to put the house on the market at that exact same time, so they submitted it to cheap old houses because they were also preservationists. And so all these things are kind of happening in the background and they're lining up. And then, and they were working in louisiana um, on a historic plantation in like the museum sector. So they came up for the holidays. Thanksgiving weekend they meet me in the front porch, swing open the front door. And under the staircase is the dog fireplace that I had seen online.
[00:10:34] Anne: Oh my gosh.
[00:10:35] betsy: A year ago. Yeah. And so it was a done deal after that.
[00:15:08] Anne: Um, when did, when did you get a move in?
[00:15:26] betsy: So I purchased the house at the end of May, 2020, and I moved in December 1st, 21. So it was about 18 months of construction.
Anne: Wow. Yeah.
Betsy: Um, Which in retrospect is good. It was fast. Yeah. Uh, I was, I initially had a much tighter timeline planned, and then the house kind of went viral and all these other things happened and that slowed me down a little.
[00:15:51] Anne: Yeah. You know, one of the things I like about your account and also just about, I think, some of what the Finkelstein's like really underline is that there's a real patience in doing this work and there's something worthwhile in cultivating it. Like what was something that took a lot of patience for you?
[00:16:09] betsy: truthfully, all of it, but the probably quintessential example would be the repointing of the house. There is no way to speed it up. every single joint between every single brick, had to be redone and that, you know, two and a half stories. Every single one, scrape it out, wet it down, fill it back in, clean it up inch by inch, foot by foot. There was just, there's no way around it. And so there were times where it was really frustrating to work for four or five hours and feel like you got six square feet done. But there was also something really medicinal about it, like it really felt like little drop of mortar that I put into that house was healing it. And you could see it was getting stronger and it was coming back to life because yeah, she was on the brink.
[00:17:06] Anne: So how do you decide what stuff you pay a professional to do and what stuff you learn how to do yourself?
[00:17:15] betsy: So I think it's different for everyone. I have some restoration background, so there were things that I knew how to do, and that was kind of one category. If I knew I could do it, I would try to do it. And then urgency is the other thing. Like I, again, I am not the live on love person. I harp on people. Figure out what your time is worth, figure out how much of it you have, and then compare that against the professional. And it might come out that it's better to do it yourself. It might come out it's better to pay someone. in the case of that early structural masonry and the gutter systems, every single day that my house took on water, it was in jeopardy. And so yeah, I could have gotten it done in a year, but the professionals finished it in like three weeks and yeah, that's time you can't buy back. So I hired out the things that were urgent. I hire out systems. Like I tell everyone, there's a reason I'm a historian. My architectural knowledge stops at like technology. And so plumbing, electrical, H V A C I don't really mess with.
Betsy: Your house renovation is only going to be as fun as you make it. So find the things you enjoy.
[00:18:45] Anne: Yes. Since you do, like, you have a very popular Instagram account, what are the questions that people send you a lot
[00:18:54] betsy: I would say they're different kinds of questions. So I've seen a ton of real people, probably 30 to 50 on average.
Anne: Yeah.
Betsy: that actually moved to Wheeling. Like they saw the town, they're looking to relocate.. And so I do a lot of one-on-one consulting with those people because if they're serious and they wanna come here, like that's my ultimate goal. So and then there are a lot of younger women in particular that are interested in the field and didn't have the language to really identify what it is that I do until they saw it, and that I really love. So I always enjoy talking with them. And those are, I've had people as young as like 12 all the way up to you know, second careers in their thirties. And then you do see some older folks that are just, they just love old buildings and they have found this whole wave of information on social media and they just love to interact and so it really runs the gamut.
[00:19:56] Anne: What is one of your favorite parts of your house?
[00:20:01] betsy: I grew up in a ranch style house. I'm an only child. I never lived in a big house. I rented little houses. I had a little loft apartment. and so it has been really fun to have a big house. Like I love having a formal dining room. I love having a guest room and a laundry room and like all these different rooms.
[00:20:54] Anne: Yep. It's so funny cuz it's similar to like, I think what some people want when they move to the suburbs to a house that they don't really necessarily love, but they love the space. So you have like the richness of the house in its design and it's huge. And it's all yours.
[00:21:09] betsy: Yeah. I mean, I tell people we are not actually reinventing the wheel. Yeah. This house was built in the 1890s for exactly that. Someone made some money, they were able to move out of their apartment. They wanted to have a family. They wanted to be within walking distance. They wanted certain amenities, but they needed these other things. And so they built this house, but they did it before cars and when we still cared about our neighbors. And that's the difference. And I think going back to that way of living might actually help us all.
[00:21:39] Anne: Okay, so what is your advice… Just kind of overarching advice about how to approach this moving forward?
[00:21:55] betsy: I would say so many of the properties that are featured on cheap old houses are in these towns and small cities. And a lot of times, I would say most times there is a nonprofit, a main street organization, a historical society. There are people in that community that are trying so hard to make it a vibrant, amazing place, and so the quicker you can get into contact with those people, It's gonna give you the technical information you need, and it's also going to help you understand if that's the community you actually want to live in and join, right? Because you're not buying a house in isolation, you're buying a house in a neighborhood, in a community.
OUTRO
In our next episode, we’ll be going North to the Arctic Circle. If you thought I live in a remote place, that’s nothing compared to our next guest Kawahine Danner. She’s an Inupiaq-Hawaiian artist living in the village Uqiagvik, the northernmost town in the United States. She will speak about what it’s like living in rural Alaska, and the beauty and challenges that come with it.
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Townsizing is produced by Neon Hum Media for HGTV. You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts. If you like the show, we'd love it if you could take a second to leave us a review on Apple podcasts. It helps other folks find the show. I’m Anne Helen Petersen and if you see me online or in real life, be sure to give me that small town wave.