Over the past 25 years she has bought and then moved several houses in Gainesville. She lives in one of the rescued homes and two of them, which are now joined together, are on Thompson Bridge Road.

"I like other people’s rejects," said Reed, a Gainesville resident. "Jackson (her mixed-breed dog) is a good example; other people’s discards that they see as problems, I see potential.

"Fortunately for me not everybody likes old, but I really, really do. This one is for sale, but these old ladies aren’t everyone’s cup of tea ... I’m waiting for the right buyer."

The hand-crafted Victorian structure has been restored to its original style after a long and tedious move for both homes.

The larger of the two homes, which are about 130 years old, was moved from property owned by the Quinlan Visual Arts Center. Called the Redwine house, it was moved, in about two hours, from the corner of Green Street and Candler Street in 1998 by Looper’s House Mover’s Inc.

"It (the cost) depends on the distance, the size of the house," Reed said. "You can only move 17 feet (the height of the building) to get under the power line, including the truck and the wheels.

"You have to have a parade permit to move ... you have to do it during standard business hours and it creates a nightmare," Reed said.

When it reached it’s destination about a mile away, the old house had to be backed up a hill.

"A house can be a certain way while it’s still on it’s foundation, and pulling it up this hill was memorable, too," Reed said.

The other smaller home, which is similar in construction, moved from Jesse Jewell Road in the mid-1990s. The home was located where Gainesville Paint now stands.

The two homes were pieced together by Stan Fuller Contracting in Murrayville.

"They moved it down there and Donna got me in on it right after they set it up and leveled it," Stan Fuller said. "I put all the roofing back and all the inside work and outside. I was a time-consuming job and it worked out good; it took a little longer than it should have because of all that old stuff."

It took about three months to connect the two historic homes because, "a lot of the stuff that we replaced was hard to find, the older stuff ... had to be about 100 years old before we actually used it."

Larry Brown, inspection services manager for the Gainesville, said the homes didn’t have too many upgrades to make for their age.

"We didn’t really ask her to do very much as far as the layouts are concerned ... everything worked really well and she did a great job on it," he said. "Donna wanted to keep them as original as possible so it was a challenge; well, I know it is a challenge to maintain the historical integrity of the structure and to also try to make it meet today’s codes for accessibility."

Through the renovation, the homes had to be rewired and new plumbing installed along with adding a fire wall.

"Because of the size of the buildings, after they were joined it was so large there had to be some fire separation," Brown said. "Once you exceed a certain square footage you have to separate it, in case you have a fire it wouldn’t spread so quickly."

Reed said the success of the structure was all a credit to her excellent crew. Now the building, which is zoned commercial, is a striking homage to the Victorian era.

"My view is to change as little as you can," she said. "I try to stop it at what I think is it’s highest, best era. I find that like people with character, I like buildings with character, and they seem to both come with maturity."

The home has the original windows, stairs, pocket doors and mantels, along with many other interesting details like two of the original doors that led into Brenau University’s Pearce Auditorium.

The two doors serve as the windows that connect the two homes.

"Then I got really lucky and those are the original doors from Pearce Auditorium," Reed said. "It pains me to see people take these 19th century or 20th century houses and try to modernize them to such a place that they lose the character."

Fuller said elements of the home that impressed him were the interior details.

"The stair case in the big house and the ...pocket doors that still work great," he said. "There are 12-foot high ceilings and the doors are 10-foot high. It has all the original pickets (on the stair case) and hand rails on it."

Reed said she was shooting for a bit of originality in the ever-changing Gainesville area.

"Houses moan and groan when they move," Reed said. "This house was happy to move, I think because it was in such need. It was horribly neglected when I got it, and I hope Mrs. Redwine is pleased."