The house we tore down was quite a mish-mash, having been built in 4 phases over 100 years.  When it was built, it was built rather plainly, not at all ornate like some of the other craftsman type homes of the original era the old house was built.

At one point we had one of our neighbors come over to asses what was worth saving.  She and her husband had bought and restored over 60 homes in the Santa Barbara area, and she owned and ran an antique store.  Her comment was that nothing in the house was really worth saving, only what might be sentimental to us.

But we did want to carry the spirit and some of the history of the old house forward to the new one.  To that end, we recovered some of the nice redwood materials, pulled out the leaded glass windows, and saves a few light fixtures.

The redwood is still waiting for a purpose, neatly stored in a new wood storage rack in our back yard.

You can also see the old cast-iron bathtub in the picture above.  We are thinking of some use for it as a water feature in the yard.

We had someone come by to look at the leaded glass windows, which had bowed significantly over the years.  In short. they needed to be taken completely apart and all the lead replaced.  We would really only be re-using the glass, and some of those panes were broken.  The cost – about $400 per window.

There was one light fixture that we liked, kind of an interesting glass work (perhaps if only to us) with a pattern, but on a rusty brass base.  The solution was to sand and repaint the base, and add a new chain, wire, and socket.  Here is the result.

So, we did manage to save something from the old house.