Starting points

As I mentioned earlier, the house on the tick farm came as-is, in a partially renovated form. This is the view from just inside front door:

Aside from some formerly exterior walls, the place is stripped to the wall frames, with only doors, baseboards, trim, old HVAC ducting and most of the old wiring remaining. I need to finish ripping all of that out before I can do any new work.

The windows off to the side are in what used to be an outside wall, before the Florida room was enclosed. I started by knocking them out:

In the process of opening this wall up as much as possible, I'll be pulling off this "exterior" siding and reusing it as needed on the outside. I can't proceed with [re]moving most of the interior walls until I get some professional advice on just what is truly load-bearing, but in the mean time I'll finish the demolition.

In parallel, I need to replace all but four windows, close off the useless exterior door in the Florida room, and patch up the siding as needed. I'll probably stucco the whole exterior eventually.

I will need to chase out a nesting cardinal and perhaps a squirrel two before I install soffits under the eaves, but after that, the windows, and a little bit of siding patchwork, the place will be weather- and critter-tight and the next phase can begin.

My general vision is to split the main house roughly in two, with a large master bedroom suite occupying the north half. The southern half will be opened up, built around a large-ish kitchen, although the exact details depend on how clever I can get with the load bearing walls. The current finished section will probably become an office.

There's a ton of work to be done, and it'll take a couple of years before it's all done, but the results will be well worth it.