for us the house had been renovated many times keeping it in remarkably good repair, but as we all know the downside is that not much effort was made to preserve original detail materials.I am especially jealous you still have the original cooking fireplace. the one in our keeping room is long gone, I figure they used that flue when the steam boiler was first put in and walled it over, and then when the last owners fully rebuilt the chimney they didn't retain the hearth. Where our keeping room opens into our ell there is a small cooking fireplace and ovens but from the size I guess it was a later 1800's attempt to replicate a coking hearth... its way to small.
And I hear you guys on the beams. When people come to our place they expect that all over and are surprised to see nothing but plaster. I always have to explain that anytime after the revolution the beams would have been covered unless the builder simply couldn't afford it, its only a modern "restoration" trend to expose them,
Once again simply phenomenal work.......
-Jeremy
The "exploration" of these old homes can be exhilarating, but can also come up short of exciting. It was the finding of old doors, old window slipstock, old wall boards and such that had been ripped out and used as nailers here and there in the 30s. One hundred years earlier, in the 1830s, my original clapboards from the back of the house were removed when the ell was added and used as battens in the attic flooring. So it was cool to find them there with their original hand beveled tops, mitered laps and original red paint. I found my original basement two board door now being used as the middle landing on my basement stairway. I found another two board planked door filling the original window opening that was no longer needed when the ell went up in the 1830s. 
