Our 1908 house

I have been looking online most of the morning at vintage light fixtures and turn of the century bathrooms and kitchens. While not and sometimes while looking at the pictures i have been reading a cute blog about a couple that have been restoring their 1912 bungalow near L.A. After reading many of their posts our house is in much better condition than i thought. We have not run in to the problems that we could have and that they did. Not to say we haven't had our own fun with our house.
I am now unsure if after reading all of this that i am more excited to work on gutting and redoing our kitchen or more nervous because maybe our luck has run out. We have been very lucky with our house. Although it has been neglected in some of it's more than a hundred years it has also had some very loving owners. We bought the house in Feb 2002 after it had been vacant for about a year and a half. Because our house has had loving care and fix it quick years, most of the time we discover gems in our house. Poorly applied drywall, in disrepair, once removed shows beautiful wood trim and a light switch that was walled in. A light switch that was left in the on position and still operates the celing light in the room; a light that currently has a pull string. More than once we started one project and because of certain discoveries while working, when we were done we can cross off two other projects from our list.
Our bathroom has a walled over window in it. It currently is still walled over but the window goes to the backyard and the insulation that was put up against the glass is visible. When we pull down the wall will the two inch trim and crown & base molding still be in place around the window? Will the wall tiles that appear to disappear under the wall still be intact? If our luck holds out, then the answer will be yes to most of that. If the construction style continues from other projects we have undone in the house; the window ledge will have been sawed off so the plywood would fit better but everything else will look just like it did before someone decided to cover up the window. It's the reason that they covered it up that worries us. Was their a leak of some kind and instead of repairing they just covered it up? We will only find out when we pull down this poorly installed and never finished bathroom project.
so your next question maybe is, it's been 7 years since you bought the house, why haven't you pulled it down yet? The answer is a simple one. We worked on our house non stop for a year straight and planned a large wedding. After that year we were married and our house was livable. We decided we would take a breather.
Four years and two kids later we decided that we needed the backyard that we had mostly forgotten about. (We live on a park we never needed the backyard) After 4 months of daily sweat & tears, along with @ 2 tons of discovered concrete, & $900 we had a play area, patio, enclosed pond & garden area, sprinkler system and lots of beautiful green grass. Now we are sitting in our awesome backyard enjoying the fruits of our labor and there is this insulation filled window staring directly at us. We had mostly forgotten about this window. It's easy to do if you never look at the house from outside in the backyard.
And there on our patio table a plan was made to finish the work we had started 4 years earlier. The backyard project got us back on the restore the inside of our house wagon. The writing is hard to read because of the severely beat up knuckles and there is little red spots on the paper (i mentioned the blood, sweat, & tears that went into the backyard) but there in writing a plan was formed to finish the inside of the house.
We are now on year two and items have been crossed off that list. As we steadily if not slowly have started to work on our home after our 4 year breather.