So now we know why the previous tenant had a $2000 gas bill...

The furnace runs full tilt, not sure if it's a thermostat issue or what. The gas had been shut off right after we closed in July, and trying to be frugal, the significant other decided to deal with it later. After proving he was the owner, the gas was finally turned back on. Hot water, yippee! We actually spent New Year's Eve in the house, and I woke at 3 am in a tropical heatwave.

The furnace also makes some amazing noises, so we're back to the space heater solution for now. The only real issue with the space heaters is that everything is on the same circuit, so there's a very, very minimal amount of work that can be done when it's cold. You can run a shop vac, but throw in another tool and everything grinds to a halt pretty quickly.

I have also found a tiny piece of history. Joe removed the smoke detector at the bottom of the stairs, and apparently the previous owners didn't bother to remove the smoke detector when they stripped the wallpaper or re-plastered. It almost looks they plastered over the wallpaper, actually. During the summer I found some pieces of plaster in the floor with vintage wallpaper from the bathroom, but for the most part we haven't had many remarkable historical discoveries. There is some wallpaper/brown paper covering in the closets but it's so damaged it's not all that interesting. This looks like a schoolhouse of sorts.