Bungalow Heaven, a neighborhood of 800+ historic homes in Pasadena, CA, truly is a paradise. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the area was built between 1900 & 1930 & designated in 1989, as a local landmark district. Thankfully, this status has been instrumental in protecting it from the pop design of HGTV.
I discovered Bungalow Heaven when I lived in Pasadena. Though occupying only 6 blocks by 6 blocks, entering its streets, you are completely immersed in the period. Even the historic vibe of the whole, beautiful city doesn’t smoothly ease you into this perfectly preserved jewel box of a neighborhood. Holy DeLorean, it’s a time machine!
Thanks for much of this wonder can be given to The Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Association. BHNA is a crackerjack, non-profit organization of volunteers dedicated to the preservation of the homes & enhancing the lifestyle of its district. When we shakily formed our first home tour committee in nearby Eagle Rock, the historic community where I lived to the west, it was suggested that we volunteer as docents for the BH tour so we could learn what to do. I had been on their tour several times & had admired it from my event producer’s eye, but due to being dazzled by the charming bungalows, I hadn’t really paid much attention to the workings of the tour machine.
Like the rest of the organization, it was finely-tuned & well-oiled. The tour, only one of the group’s many activities, is a massive undertaking due to the amount of volunteer coordination & the directing of the hoards of attendees. They also have to ensure the protection & comfort of the homeowners, so each task is clearly delineated & drilled in the weeks before the tour. It was great to receive this training & experience & provided us with the template that we used to form our own fledgling committee.
My wood flooring company was privileged to restore many of floors in Bungalow Heaven. Please understand that we had moved from a bungalow neighborhood in Phoenix, but we had never experienced such wonders as we saw here. I was introduced to clinker brick, to Arroyo rock & I was treated to my first inglenook in BH, in the home of a flooring customer. My husband requested that I be given a tour of the home & they graciously agreed. I was enchanted. When I learned about their yearly home tour, I was thrilled to be able to enter these homes that were so carefully restored & preserved, beautifully furnished, with most decorated in the A&C style.
WHAT MAKES BUNGALOW HEAVEN SO SPECIAL?
Bungalow Heaven is the poster child for the Arts & Crafts Movement. Though the Movement’s origins are in England, both its aesthetic & its philosophy were brought to the United States in the early 1900’s & California heartily embraced them.
The natural materials revered by the Movement are abundant in the state. In the forests grew acres of fir, oak, redwood & Ponderosa pine providing lumber for building. California’s mild climate lent itself to the idea of living with nature, allowing houses to have many windows & sleeping porches in which to spend hot summer nights.
The nearby Arroyo Seco, Spanish for “dry gulch” runs 8 miles through Pasadena & provided beautiful stone for building & adorning houses. Pasadena’s beautiful topography, rich soil & mild weather provided the perfect setting in which lush vegetation flourished.
Pasadena spawned & inspired the applied artistry of people such as The Greene Brothers, who designed the Gamble House to enhance the setting & honored the natural environment in every detail. The extraordinary work of Pasadena resident, Ernest Batchelder, tile-maker, is seen in many homes in the neighborhood.
Additionally, the modest homes of Bungalow Heaven were within the reach of the working class. People of moderate means could afford to live in a beautiful city with views of the San Gabriel Mountains, enjoy well-built homes with a variety of attractive details & friendly front porches, & had the added benefit of being near transportation, commerce & job opportunities.
This wonder, a piece of Pasadena that is Bungalow Heaven, is an amalgamation of the history, the homes & the neighborhood spirit. Read about it in this informative book, view it on a driving tour or, catch their spring home tour!
TIP: Read about other preservation groups holding wonderful events in Southern California, click, HERE!
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Brothers Charles & Henry Greene can be understood as men through the study of their Arts & Crafts architecture. As with all artists, their creations were born of their unique viewpoints of life, tempered by their educations, their personal relationships & professional experiences, & the cultures & technologies of their times.
At the same time, each creative expression contributes to the personal evolution of the individual. You can see this clearly in studying the works of any artist over their lifetime. The viewpoint does not remain stagnant, as evidenced by the often radical changes in style over the course of the artist’s career.
For an architect the quantity of these in-flowed influences is magnified by their medium- clients, contractors, topography, tradespeople, materials, climate & cost overruns, oh my! Each of these leave their mark on the soul.
These videos are about the most well-known works of the Greene’s. I believe this medium with their virtual, docented tours to be the next best way of experiencing & understanding any piece of architecture. They tell the story of the Brothers Greene through the magnificent Arts & Crafts architecture that they designed.
THE VIDEOS- Charles & Henry Green Arts & Crafts architecture
Though I am an admirer of the Brothers Greene, I am not an expert, nor a scholar, nor do I have sophisticated video capabilities so I prefer to let them do the teaching & they do it exceedingly well.
Arts & Crafts architecture of Greene & Greene including The Gamble House, CALIFORNIA episode (3:03)
Craft in America
A short video with some beautiful shots expressing how the California lifestyle influenced the design of the house.
A Portal – the Gamble House front door (9:50)
The Gamble House x
Jennifer Trotoux, Director of Collections & Interpretation, gives an overview of the artistry and construction of the front door of the Gamble House. Wherever you are, you will be transported to the entry of the house & learn so much about the design & the crafting of this beautiful portal.
The Thorson House Tour- A Greene & Greene Ultimate Bungalow (19:16)
The Wood Whisperer
A close look at the many refined & delicate details through which the Brothers Greene, took items of utility & made them things of beauty, including their version of recessed lighting!
Greene & Greene’s Bungalow for Robert Blacker (10:44)
Hoosierwoodcraft
A short history of the Greene Brothers & some images of the Blacker House.
Two Sides of the Pacific: Japan and the Architecture of Greene & Greene (1:18:15)
The Huntington
Looking at Japan through the lens of the Brothers Greene, a fascinating talk by Edward R. Bosley, Executive Director of The Gamble House on the influence of Japanese design on Charles & Henry & the reception of their work in Japan.
I invite you all to visit the Gamble House at your earliest opportunity. Sign up for their mailing list so you can stay informed of their wonderful array of activities.
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INSCRIPTION:
“Bungalow Terrace [in Hyde Park, Tampa, Florida] was developed by Alfred Swann and Eugene Holtsinger [major developers in South Tampa] on what was Morrison Grove in 1913. The Bungalow Style home was modeled after the bungalows in California because of the low cost, adaptability, craftsmanship and low maintenance.
The first home was built in 1913 at a cost of $4,500 including the land. In 1916, a Pergola (bougainvillea) was built that extended from the south end to the north end of the terrace. The pergola was ten feet high and extended 345 feet with sitting benches and individual covered archways to each bungalow. In 1924, due to severe rot and deterioration the pergola was removed. Known for its many resident writers through the year including the best-selling author, Alec Waugh, this development consists of 19 homes which share a common sidewalk.”
ENTERING THE COURT
So, here I am on a balmy winter day, getting ready to enter Hyde Park’s Bungalow Terrace.
My first adventure into a bungalow court was visiting an interior designer, specializing in Arts & Crafts, in L.A. Her little house was a mini-me of my bungalow, inside & out. It was fascinating. I was never able to learn who the architect of my house, was, nor for the court. I’m still kinda upset by it.
Bungalow courts originated in Pasadena California, & their intelligent, aesthetic & practical design motivated Pasadena’s City Council to require that all multi-family units be built around a landscaped courtyard. Great idea! And an idea easy to import to Florida, another state enjoying massive growth & needing housing. A brilliant model, developers today would be wise to mimic it to solve today’s housing shortage & to satisfy people’s need for green space & for community.
This court is in South Tampa, Florida in the neighborhood of Hyde Park. It covers a whole suburban block. Platted in 1916, the first residents began moving in in 1920. The variety of architecture featured is totally charming.
DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERISTICS
Here’s an airplane bungalow gem on our tour of Bungalow Terrace, in Hyde Park, Tampa Florida. You can see the care that went into designing this court by the use of multiple materials- stout red brick columns, use of both shingles & lap siding, paired outriggers, and multiple window styles.
Though the first ones in the court were built in 1913, the records show that this one was not built until 1939.
DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERISTICS
I have a huge weakness for unusual columns, particularly when paired with such a large overhang. I do love chunky ones, but I especially like it that the developer of this bungalow court in Tampa, Florida took a few minutes to say, “Let’s not make little houses that look all the same,” half a century before Pete Seeger sang about suburban houses made of tick-tacky.
DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERISTICS
This cute little airplane bungalow, features a sleeping porch with a 360 degree panoramic view, shingle siding (unfortunately painted) & limerock columns & a big honkin’ stone chimney!
Its lot size is 38×63 & the house itself, with 2 bedrooms & 2 baths & the house is 1,360 sq ft. Small but packed with great architectural features!
Go Bucs!
DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERISTICS
Once again, the original developers used some great detail in this smaller (1,236 sq. ft.) airplane bungalow home in Bungalow Terrace in Hyde Park, Tampa, Florida. The bold paint job emphasizes the structural elements of the roof overhang.
DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERISTICS
A bungalow court triplex converted from a single family home, in Bungalow Terrace, Hyde Park, Tampa, Florida.
Built in 1916, like several of the others, it has a pop-up sleeping porch & wonderful stone columns & chimney. Unfortunately, what appears to have originally been an open porch has been closed in.
Once again, the original developers used some great detail in this smaller (1,236 sq. ft.) airplane bungalow home in Bungalow Terrace. The bold paint job emphasizes the structural elements of the roof overhang.
DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERISTICS
This is another of the delightful homes in the Hyde Park Bungalow Terrace neighborhood. The composition of the front facade is wonderfully balanced with multiple front facing gables that pull the eyes from shape to shape & detail to detail.
Developed over several decades, the neighborhood of Hyde Park in which the court is located, was built as an upscale district with a variety of architectural styles. Today it is a beautiful example of how historic preservation can benefit a community, financially, aesthetically & culturally.
BUNGALOW TERRACE LONG AGO
Burgert Brothers was Tampa’s leading commercial photographic firm from 1917 to the early 1960s. Established by brothers Al & Jean, the studio focused primarily on photographing the Tampa Bay & surrounding areas. We are indeed fortunate to have the Burgert Brothers’ photographs which tell the tale of Tampa’s development from small town to major city. I made good use of them in the film I produced for my Tampa bungalow neighborhood.
I hope that you have the opportunity to visit this charming community, looking very much like the historic image above, yourself some day.
TIP: To learn more about the value of preservation, visit my page HERE!
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As muses & artisans of the Arts & Crafts Movement, women inspired & changed the course of history through their works, both in the early years in England & later here in America.
Had there been no Industrial Revolution, the Movement quite likely would never have formed. Had women had equal rights, this would have been reflected- & we might consider May to be originator of the movement, rather than just William’s daughter, only recently receiving the wide recognition so richly deserved.
Art exerts profound influence on culture & conversely, throughout history, conditions of the day have always provided creative individuals with material to motivate works that support or protest.
I turn to the scholars in the videos below to relay to you the wonderful stories of these women. I love learning from these sources & hope that you will too.
If you’d like to know more about the Arts & Crafts Movement, & what it might have to do with your bungalow, click here.
THE WOMEN OF THE ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT VIDEOS
Women and the Arts and Crafts Movement: “What Can a Woman Do?” (1:00:02)
Nevada Museum of Art
Maker & Muse: Women and Early Twentieth Century Art Jewelry (4:10)
Paine Art Center and Gardens
In this video you will see some beautiful jewelry pieces as well as getting an overview of the subject of women as muse & the male response to women becoming more bold.
May Morris: Art and Life | Modern Masters Women Events Programme (19:40)
The Scottish Gallery
The images show up a few minutes in. They are worth the wait!
TIP: To learn more about the Arts & Crafts Movement, watch all my videos, HERE!
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If you want to have a successful bungalow restoration, you need to take a hard look at your own goals, your own tolerances, your own proclivities, way before you even start looking for your dream house. Too often people fall in love with a house & as much as it is true that love is blind in human relationships, so it is with old houses. The wraparound porch, those beautiful old, wavy glass windows, those stone columns- they will hypnotize you as quickly & as thoroughly as any handsome, smoothing talkin’ man, who turns out to have wives & kids in 3 states.
I tend to be a starry-eyed idealist, tempered by 40 years of running a construction business & restoring 5 old houses in different stages of disrepair. What this means is that I dream big, but I always have a plan. That doesn’t mean that I never jump off a cliff & build my wings on the way down (Ray Bradberry gets credit for that one) but in the main, I protect my heart by carefully evaluating what I want & what I need to have to get it. Especially when it comes to money & believe you me, old houses love money!
Following my advice will mean that you may choose to walk away from many projects into which you would have blithely leaped. So, some houses might not get saved. On the other hand, if you do follow my quaint words of wisdom, you are more likely to succeed & maybe do 2 or 3 more down the road. (Though you will feel like a horrible person for turning your back on a house that is crying out for help. Just know that upfront.)
Many of you are in the middle of bungalow restorations now. I have some ideas in my article, WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF RESTORING AN OLD HOUSE? that might help. I am not a construction consultant, just an old lady who knows some stuff, so evaluate my words & see if they apply to you.
This is a large subject & I’m going to break it down as much as possible. Off we go!
TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL BUNGALOW RESTORATION, Know Thyself
1. I beg you to consider whether restoring old houses is the passion you most want to stoke. Make sure that restoring a historic bungalow aligns with your basic life goals before it takes over your life- because it will. There is every chance that it will cause you to skip getting your teeth cleaned “just this once,” forget your husband’s birthday, miss a ballet recital or 2, & run up that credit card that you stashed 5 years ago for emergencies only & it will cause you to lose many nights of sleep. Guaranteed.
So why would you decide to do it anyway? Because like the singer who must sing, the artist who must paint or the musician who must play- you HAVE TO. Restoring & advocating for old houses is how I communicate with the world. If I were to have to swear off the reno’s, or step off my soapbox, my soul would be muted. I would wither & & die. Not really. I’d probably just gain 50 lbs. & whine a lot! No one within miles of me would be happy.
2. Will you enjoy the process? Kurt Vonnegut, in a letter to high school students, wrote, “Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, [including restoring old houses] no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”
Depending on the condition of the house that you buy & what your dreams are for it, the tunnel may stretch for several miles before you see even a flicker of light, any money or fame, or even a room in which you can sit & read a book without having to wear PPE. If you cannot love the journey, every step can be painful. It’s hard to be a good cook if you don’t enjoy chopping the veggies. (I hate it.) You might as well skip the garden if you don’t enjoy the weeding. (I love it.)
I enjoy most everything about the construction process. Rolling out the plans with the architect, trotting down to City Planning to submit them for approval makes my soul grow. There’s something to me that feels right about looking at a pile of materials in the garage & anticipating the arrival of the carpenter
No, I don’t like having no kitchen for a couple months or walking in after a brief absence to see that the tile was installed in a very weird pattern around the sink, but all in all, I enjoy the process as much as I enjoy the final product. And it’s a good test of what’s inside of me.
3. How much mental stress do you want/tolerate? Do you like to live a quiet life with few surprises? I personally don’t recommend it, but I know that I have a certain tolerance for random crap & try not to invite much more than I feel I can deal with. There’s always more than anticipated. These bungalows are o-o-o-old houses. Surprises are part of their very nature.
How mentally nimble are you? If black suddenly becomes white, can you quickly rearrange your thinking? Can you look at what is really there in front of you without flinching (Taking the afternoon off to get used to it is ok!)
4. Can you tolerate having to tell people what to do? Can you correct them & tell them to do it again? Can you admit to yourself & someone else when you’re wrong? The care & handling of tradespeople is a vital skill. Sign up for my newsletter & you’ll get a guide to hiring, but like all other human relationships, it can be bliss & it can be torture.
5. Can you tolerate the scarcities & delays in receiving materials? (Who knows when it will get any better?) Every timetable that you have worked out is probably going to crumble.
6. How well organized & intelligently planned do you tend to be? Can you keep order when on any one day, you may be speaking with 5 tradespeople on the jobsite, 3 on the phone while sorting out a jumble of 20 receipts.
Strangely enough, planning & being nimble go together. The better planned you are the more easily you can hop from Plan A to Plan B because its already sitting there for you. You don’t have to scramble for it. For example: Do you have a place to live if a sudden situation requires it? Can you round up the clan & get everyone out of there with no notice because you have gotten your evacuation ducks in a row?
7. Do you have the physical strength to trot around a jobsite in the pounding rain, brutal heat or freezing snow? Can you tolerate the chemicals that you might encounter on the site? How about the dust, the mold, the toxic materials used in old houses? Are you willing to research what you need to do to keep yourself & your family safe? (Here are some helpful videos if the answer is yes.)
Can you navigate around work & materials? If you’re living in the house, can you deal physically with the noise & fumes & the constant messes? Can you keep yourself & your family safe?
8. Some people see money as it is, something that you can exchange for something that you want to have. Some see it as a scarce commodity, anxiously monitoring every penny in, every penny out.
Money is going to be flying around like leaves in the wind in any restoration. There are so many unpredictable factors in any project that you need to have a bit of a casual viewpoint about money, or develop one fast.
9. The neighborhood. Many old houses are in old urban neighborhoods that have seen better days & may have more than their fair share of crack houses. I am in awe & admiration of the intrepid pioneers who come in despite the blight, despite the crime & bit by bit, turn it into a real neighborhood. Are you ready to be a pioneer?
HERE’S THE DEAL ON HAVING A SUCCESSFUL BUNGALOW RESTORATION
I am not suggesting that you limit yourself. You are capable of more than you know. You can develop these tolerances as you go.
Learning more about the bungalow, about construction, improving your health- all these things are your feathers with which you can build your wings as you figure out how to soar. And that’s why I’m typing away at this merry blog.
Meanwhile, search your soul. Take honest measure of your passions & your pitfalls. Hearing the grateful thank you of a house saved from neglect or remuddling is a wondrous thing.
I think it might be like holding the baby after 36 hours of delivery. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then she looks into your eyes & grabs hold of your finger with her tiny hand. Definitely worth it! But it is imperative to truly know thyself, before you can have a smooth & successful bungalow restoration.
But wait, there’s more to having a successful bungalow restoration! If you have a significant other who will be impacted by your project, read Part 2.
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So there you are. Standing in front of a derelict house whose potential charm & beauty just need to be revealed by the loving hand in a successful bungalow restoration. Sounds perfect. Well, let’s take a look at this perfection before you decide that it will be your hand & not so incidentally, your purse & just as importantly, your sanity & your marriage.
There are probably 1,000 articles out there on getting loans, finding a home inspector, but, this step is before that. It’s just after you have decided to KNOW THYSELF.
In my 45 years in the construction industry, I cannot tell you how many times the house went on the market immediately after we completed a large project. The happy couple came to us all excited about the new house/the big addition/the major restoration. We met with them together & grew fond of them as a family. Being the flooring guys, we were always the last ones on the job, & too often by the time we got our final check, the payment was going through a lawyer.
I wanted to address this issue because though our marriage has weathered the storms (Read that- storms of driving rains, back to back lightening flashes & high decibel thunder.) of 5 projects, I have seen reno/building stress tear relationships asunder.
According to a law firm specializing in divorce, these are the 5 most common reasons for a couple to get a divorce. Let’s see how that might apply to bungalow restoration so you can head these off at the pass.
THE 5 MOST COMMON REASON WHY MARRIAGES FAIL
Infidelity
There’s a great deal of opportunity in a restoration for infidelity, which can be defined as “physical or emotional engagement with someone outside a committed relationship.” One partner’s love for the house & passion for the project is often much greater than the other’s leading to an abandonment of previously made agreements, a diminishing of communication & accord. It can cause people to grow apart.
Weekends used to be fun nights out, or cooking with friends, but now one partner is too tired or too obsessed with finding doorknobs & tells the other to just go alone. And out he trots, to be introduced to friends attractive, newly divorced cousin. She’s easy to talk to & is interested in the same things he is, one of which, notably, is not old house restoration!
Lack of intimacy
Any idea how tired you’re going to be at the end of the day? Work from 9-5. Come home & survey the work that got done during the day while you were gone, make your list of questions & punchlist items, or, pick up the heat gun & strip paint until your eyes cross.
After a lively discussion about said punchlist items, as seen from your differing viewpoints- he’s firm, she’s more, easy-going- & a shower to get the plaster dust out of your hair. All you want to do is hit the sheets. “Not tonight, honey.”
Communication
What we saw in every one of these marriage failures was the lack of communication from the very start. They each went into the project making assumptions about how the other one thought or felt because they hadn’t discussed the prime issues & 1,000 pieces of miscellaneous minutiae that pop up like weeds in spring, in even the smallest construction project.
Different people have different points of view, different tastes, different ways of handling life. All of these have the potential to blow up during the weeds of a project. My suggestion is that both of you take a look at KNOW THYSELF on your own & then discuss what you find there with your partner. (I know that I already linked it once. I’m being more emphatic this time.)
Just work it all out before you start making decisions, writing checks & finding out that you need new plumbing & foundation repairs & there’s a rat problem. Create a strong team & you will save yourself much $$$, time & heartache.
Speaking of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
You need to appraise your finances together, taking into account your combined earning power & the whims of the world economy. In other words, what can you really afford, not what can you squeeze out of every possible bank account, retire account, investment, credit card, relative, kids’ piggybanks, etc. How much $$$ have the 2 of you decided that you can afford to throw at this beaten up bungalow before your children start looking gaunt & ragged?
And, do you have such an abundance that it this current inflation of materials continues, can you cover it?
And if you get into this project that seems so simple & straightforward but is actually just a mess held together with termite spit, can you fund that without causing a disruption to your family’s plans?
Bottom line- what priorities as a unit do you place on your money? Is investing time, money, energy & love in a house part of your allover life plan together? If he wants to send the kids to an orthodontist & an Ivy League school & you are fine with crooked teeth & community college, there’s going to be enough discord to make the neighbors start shaking their heads, even if you close all the windows!
5. Addiction
Well, who hasn’t been driven to drink during a restoration project? It’s tempting to see the situation as temporary & get into some ba-a-a-d habits. Perhaps at this point I should suggest my article on becoming discourage because it actually doesn’t suggest that you settle in with a bottle of vino at the end of a hard day. Even together.
I just want to urge you to take a look at your priorities together- time, money, family obligations. Many folks are willing (& able) to sink fortunes into houses that may never hold a great deal of financial value. Are you this person, or do you consider your house to be an investment on which you would prefer to show some return? And as importantly, what does your significant other feel? Get it worked out before your relationship is tried by the fire of a restoration project.
Bungalow Heaven, a neighborhood of 800+ historic homes in Pasadena, CA, truly is a paradise. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the area was built between 1900 & 1930 & designated in 1989, as a local landmark district. Thankfully, this status has been instrumental in protecting it from the pop design of HGTV.
Like the rest of the organization, it was finely-tuned & well-oiled. The tour, only one of the group’s many activities, is a massive undertaking due to the amount of volunteer coordination & the directing of the hoards of attendees. They also have to ensure the protection & comfort of the homeowners, so each task is clearly delineated & drilled in the weeks before the tour. It was great to receive this training & experience & provided us with the template that we used to form our own fledgling committee.
Additionally, the modest homes of Bungalow Heaven were within the reach of the working class. People of moderate means could afford to live in a beautiful city with views of the San Gabriel Mountains, enjoy well-built homes with a variety of attractive details & friendly front porches, & had the added benefit of being near transportation, commerce & job opportunities.
STAY IN THE BUNGALOW KNOW!!!
Brothers Charles & Henry Greene can be understood as men through the study of their 
INSCRIPTION:
As muses & artisans of the Arts & Crafts Movement, women inspired & changed the course of history through their works, both in the early years in England & later here in America.
If you want to have a successful bungalow restoration, you need to take a hard look at your own goals, your own tolerances, your own proclivities, way before you even start looking for your dream house. Too often people fall in love with a house & as much as it is true that love is blind in human relationships, so it is with old houses. The wraparound porch, those beautiful old, wavy glass windows, those stone columns- they will hypnotize you as quickly & as thoroughly as any handsome, smoothing talkin’ man, who turns out to have wives & kids in 3 states.
3. How much mental stress do you want/tolerate? Do you like to live a quiet life with few surprises? I personally don’t recommend it, but I know that I have a certain tolerance for random crap & try not to invite much more than I feel I can deal with. There’s always more than anticipated. These bungalows are o-o-o-old houses. Surprises are part of their very nature.
7. Do you have the physical strength to trot around a jobsite in the pounding rain, brutal heat or freezing snow? Can you tolerate the chemicals that you might encounter on the site? How about the dust, the mold, the toxic materials used in old houses? Are you willing to research what you need to do to keep yourself & your family safe? (Here are some 
I am not suggesting that you limit yourself. You are capable of more than you know. You can develop these tolerances as you go.
So there you are. Standing in front of a derelict house whose potential charm & beauty just need to be revealed by the loving hand in a successful bungalow restoration. Sounds perfect. Well, let’s take a look at this perfection before you decide that it will be your hand & not so incidentally, your purse & just as importantly, your sanity & your marriage.