Sam and Kathleen Stringfield moved to Baltimore with a definite picture of the home in which they wanted to start their married life. Their search was simplified somewhat because they weren't afraid to demolish walls, polish floors and scrub worn shingles.
The couple wanted to live near the Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus because Mr. Stringfield thinks it's important save gasoline by walking to work. His route is 1 1/4 miles.
Mrs. Stringfield wanted a spacious yard for a garden that would bloom almost year-round. She also wanted a cozy, city neighborhood.
"And we wanted windows on all four sides of the house," she says.
They picked a two-story home on a half-acre in the 400 block of Winston Ave. in Radnor-Winston off York Road. The home, at least 125 years old, cost $119,500. They have spent about $30,000 on renovations and yardwork.
"Especially in the summer, you can't tell you're living in the city," says Mrs. Stringfield, 44, executive director of a condominium association in Towson.
The couple has lived in the 2,000-square-foot home for four years. She moved from Seattle, and he from Denver, where they had met on a blind date.
She had owned a home, but this is the first time her husband has paid a mortgage.
"The levels of nesting instinct that come out, you wouldn't imagine," says Mr. Stringfield, 45, who does research on education. "I can go out in the back yard and just sit there and smile."
He's proud that his wife created a garden that boasts color from late February, when the crocuses pop up, to late November, when the 28 pink Simplicity hedge rosebushes that line the driveway continue to bud.
"Every season there's something, somewhere that's showing off," Mr. Stringfield says.
The couple renovated the home, which includes an upstairs apartment, themselves.
They replaced the pink paint accented with avocado green tile in the living room with natural colors highlighted by one wall painted a deep red. In other rooms, they tore out fake paneling and drop ceilings. They found layer-upon-layer of paint and wallpaper.
"You hit upon different people's ideas of aesthetics," Mr. Stringfield says.
"It makes me kind of humble about the things we've done. Someday, someone will say, "Can you believe what they did?"
One of the biggest challenges was the upstairs bathroom, which resembled a bowling alley because it measured 3 1/2 feet by 11 feet.
They widened the room by a foot, removed an old bathtub that took up too much space and installed an antique mahogany buffet as a cabinet around the sink.
The couple's favorite spot is a sun porch that faces the back yard. They knocked out a wall to connect the room to the kitchen and have furnished it with two comfortable chairs. Here they read, watch TV and admire their garden.
"Now we're working on dream furniture," Mrs. Stringfield says.