Royal House Initial Tour

We bought the home in October 2003 from Todd Tonkin. He was making payments on an sales contract to Terry and Judy Broughton and owed $50.990 in principal. We paid $1,000 to Todd to assume his contract, and we promptly paid the remaining balance on the contract to the Broughtons. Then we paid about $6,000 in back taxes. Overall, we probably paid too much for the house considering its condition, but we wanted a challenge, and the house was only a block from where we lived in the Allen house.

Videos from August 12, 2003

The following two-part video was recorded by Dave Sullivan on August 12, 2003 -- several months before we purchased the home. Both parts are hosted on YouTube.

Part 1 explores the exterior of the home.

 Part 2 explores the inside -- the first and second floors.

Pictures from October 2003

The Friends of Historic Albany group volunteered to clean up the property a few weeks before we purchased the house. They removed an entire industrial-sized dumpster from the property of burned out junk. The following pictures show what the property looked like AFTER all that trash was removed.

The pictures below show our first tour through the house as new owners. Click the thumbnail images below to see larger pictures.

	View from the side.
	View from the front.
	Entering by the main front door, you can see through the parlor and into the living room at the back .
	The front parlor's chimney has no masonry lining and doesn't seem like a good candidate for a wood stove. Barb wants to hide the bricks by building a wood surround and shelving. Dave would prefer to leave the bricks exposed.
	The fire started in the kitchen and flames must have been shooting out of this open door into the living room.
	Standing the same spot, if you look at the ceiling, you can see how the flames spread across the ceiling. Quite artistic. It almost still looks like the fire is burning.
	We took this close-up view of the kitchen door because we want a "before" shot of its condition. We think it might be possible to strip all the charred paint from the door and refinish it. If so, it would make an impressive before-and-after combintion.
	The kitchen must really have been a ball of flames.
	We don't think we can salvage the kitchen sink.
	Barb examines the only bathroom -- and area literally cut out of the kitchen. We plan on removing this bathroom to expand the kitchen to be 17 by 15 feet. Then we will put a bathroom in the utility room downstairs.
	Here is what Barb was looking at: the only bathroom. No one will miss this place when we expand the kitchen.
	Barb takes a look at the utility room. Part of the utility room is likely to become the downstairs bathroom.
	Shelves in the utility room. Looks like these should go to the dump.
	The water heater and gas forced-air furnace don't look too attractive, but we hope they are in working order. We probably will want to screen them from the rest of the room.
	The front bedroom / office area received the least damage of any downstairs room. This view looks toward one of the home's two front doors.
	Heading up the stairs to the second floor.
	The landing at the top of the stairs. The holes in the wall look like they were cut by firefighters as part of putting out the fire. It was a chainsaw massacre.
	This attic area may become an upstairs bathroom. If so, it won't have much headroom.
	The main upstairs bedroom.