How Young Couple Renovated a 'Really Old House' [Video]

A young couple's casual stroll through their Cincinnati neighborhood turned into a home-remodeling odyssey when they came across a historic house that started giving them "ideas." Brad Kihnke and Allison Erwin lived only a couple of blocks away from a row house built in 1829 and Kihnke's first look inside, in the company of a real estate agent, made the couple (pictured below) wonder if the house had been condemned, since it was in such rough shape.

"I only saw the first floor," Kihnke said. "And just a peek at the second floor, because we were afraid to go to the third floor.: But even though Kihnke found the house to be "really kind of bare" and needing "a lot of work," he decided to buy it because, he said, he could see "the potential behind all of the chaos that was going on."

"The history of the house has revealed itself to us over time," said Erwin, and among the most interesting finds were what the couple describe as "ghost doors" -- bricked-up entries to the adjoining home, a modification to the original structure that they believe dates to the late 1800s.

But turning the house into a livable dwelling wasn't the only challenge. "Brad and I did struggle a little bit with: How do we balance the age of the house with some of the modern amenities?" said Erwin. View their solutions in the video above.

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