re: Restoring vs. Stripping material and rebuilding on an old home

I have a good bit of experience with this, and I would recommend tearing it down, unless you really want to live in a historic house.

Some if not most of the grants that you can get will require you to restore it to the way it was when first built. So, no moving walls, no adding AC, unless you can do it in a way that doesn't affect its historical character, it will take a ton of research, and a contractor will charge you a ton to make sure they get all of the details right all the way down to the profile of the molding and the window details. For a true historic preservation, it will cost way more than $50/square foot to get everything right.

Now if you don't care about grants, you still have to consider that you don't know what kind of shape the foundation is in, you have to run AC throughout and if it has a low ceiling on the first floor, you will have to get creative with the duct work. Also, the walls aren't insulated, so you will need a lot of AC. Most of the paint will be lead, and asbestos will be everywhere. As already mentioned, the electrical and plumbing will have to be replaced. And even if you do a complete renovation (which will cost more than $200k) it will be in constant need of maintenance, so think of that as you get older.

If you just want a nice house with some historic character to it, you should build a shop in the back and take apart the old building, plane the wood, and store it in the shop. After you are done salvaging what you need, get a company who will pay you to come in there an salvage everything else. You may be able to get them to pay for the complete demo in return for the remaining wood. You can do this slowly over the next 5-7 years and then build a house that is the right size, and use the salvaged materials where you want them.