The buyers: Brooke Saylor, 40, COO; John Giordano, 47, IT consultant

The house: A 3,700-square-foot, single-family home in Mount Airy with six bedrooms and three baths built in 1866.

The price: Listed for $625,000; purchased for $615,000

The agent: Maurice McCarthy, OCF Realty

The ask: John Giordano had never been eager to buy a house. At 47, he was renting in Northern Liberties, and the idea of taking on a mortgage for a rowhouse in his longtime neighborhood didn’t seem worth it. “He just couldn’t get down with the concept of paying property tax on a little concrete piece of sidewalk in front of your house,” said his wife, Brooke Saylor.

But that changed when the couple started began considering Mount Airy. They spent a lot of their weekends in the northwest neighborhood, and Giordano liked the area’s single-family homes. With big yards, these homes seemed worth the property taxes. Giordano knew he wanted a detached house. His other must-have was a garage.

Saylor wanted the opposite of a “new-construction townhome build.” She wanted something old. Something charming. Something with rooms.

“I don’t like the open concept thing,” she said.

The search: The couple officially decided they wanted to move to Mount Airy on the Fourth of July. Two days later, Sayer spotted a listing she liked. They didn’t have an agent yet and hadn’t been pre-approved for a mortgage. “We were not serious about the search,” Giordano said. Still, they decided to check out the place on East Johnston Street. It was listed for $675,000, which was more than they were comfortable paying, so they didn’t bother going inside.

Months passed and they did casual browsing — “looking, but not looking” as Giordano put it. Then in December, Saylor saw that the East Johnston Street house was back on the market with a $50,000 price cut.

They engaged an agent and asked him to show them the house. They also looked at two others in the area, just to be sure. One, on Midvale Avenue, had a strange layout. Another, on Lincoln Drive, had cracks, odd finishes, and a yard they didn’t love.

The appeal: The East Johnson Street house was full of the kind of character Saylor had been hoping for. The layout made sense for their family. The kids could have rooms on the third floor, and the rest of the house had enough space to feel grand.

“It was beyond my wildest dreams,” Saylor said.

“It was just humongous, and it was ridiculous,” Giordano said. “It was decadent. It was a mansion.”

It was also old and imperfect. The windows needed to be replaced, and several sets of shutters were missing. Inside, the floors were uneven, and the joists were rotted. “It definitely needed some love and TLC,” Saylor said. “But we just kept talking about how it is such an incredible opportunity. There’s so much room to improve it.”

The deal: The house was listed at $625,000 when the couple saw it the second time. They decided to offer the full asking price but requested a $25,000 seller’s assist. There were no other offers, and the sellers accepted.

Then came the inspection. The couple already knew the house needed structural work, because the seller shared the engineering report. But their own inspection showed that the house needed more work than the old report had shown. That gave them room to renegotiate.

The sellers agreed to cut another $20,000. Part of that came off the purchase price, which dropped from $625,000 to $615,000. The rest was added to the seller’s assist for closing costs.

The money: Giordano and Saylor put 10% down, or $61,500. There was no previous home sale to draw funds from or any inheritance. “Just regular old savings,” Saylor said.

“We’re really good at budgeting,” Giordano added. They cook at home, don’t spend much, and save extra money they earn from side hustles.

Their monthly payment is a little less than $4,000, right below what they were paying in rent, which was one of Giordano’s conditions for buying a home. “Even if we’re only one dollar under,” he said, “we’re still under it.”

The move: The couple closed on March 3 and moved in two days later. “That surprised a lot of people,” said Saylor. But they were ready to be in their home. Saylor actually started packing the day they found out their offer was accepted.

“Every night after work, she would come home and pack boxes all on her own,” Giordano said, “She single-handedly packed a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house.”

Any reservations? Giordano’s biggest concern was that the house would become a money pit. Friends in construction told him it was a mess — uneven floors, rotting joists, crooked floors. To Giordano, every problem looked like another bill.

“I was just really scared it was going to be a disaster,” he said.

Saylor says she has no regrets or reservations. She thinks the house is “just perfect” for her family. “I’ve lived in homes that I’ve liked,” she added, “but I’ve never felt this way about something. I feel like it’s a member of our family.”

Life after close: The work started almost immediately.

The couple hired a contractor to address the sagging joists and add support in the basement. They also started their own DIY project: turning the utility room behind the kitchen into a pantry.

That project taught them what it means to work on a house that is more than 150 years old. Nothing is square. A nail gun can hit stone and fail. A one-hour job can take four.

Still, conquering the pantry has given them confidence.

“After the pantry, there’s nothing we can’t do,” Giordano said.

Saylor has focused on getting the kids’ rooms settled so they feel at home. She and Giordano have also been careful not to rush every design choice. They want to let the house “speak” to them, Saylor said.

One recent evening, they spent hours on the porch watching the sunset. “The reason we came here is for these moments,” Giordano said.