Here's a peek at the house (built in 1908) – pre $150,000 renovation lawsuit-blood-sweat-many tears:
The front, obviously. Do you like the wire hanging from the ceiling where a light fixture should be? When it rained, water would pour through the hole, and when it was cold, we would get a lovely icicle.
And the back…notice the black tarp on the left? The man who owned the house before us had dug out a bunker under where a porch use to be…by hand, with buckets. Odd.
Don't worry, I have more pictures. To make a long, heartbreaking story short, when we were about $80,000 into the reno, we realized that of the 26 items on the original estimate, only 14 had been started, and not one had been completed. NOT.ONE. We weren't living in the house at the time, so when we would come out to check on the progress, the contractor would make promises and give explanations…we were so deep, we thought the easiest way to proceed would be to move into the house (with no hot water, finished kitchen, or bathroom doors) and keep a closer eye on things. We quickly realized that we had made a terrible mistake by trusting this contractor.
We were left with a house that was maybe 25% finished, and we only had about $10,000 left to finish the project (which we quickly realized was not nearly enough) So begins the blood, sweat, and tears part of the story. The hardest I've ever worked – and we planned a wedding and had a baby during it too. Instead of 3 months, it took 3 years. Here are a couple more pictures – showing before and after. Sorry some of the pictures aren't so great, unbelievably, we didn't really take "after" pictures.
FOYER – There use to be a low ceiling in the foyer. We had it removed and the correlating wall, but the contractors couldn't figure out how to finish the railing to match the existing lower portion of steps. The wall and closet on the left were removed, the picture on the right shows what was left.
This is how the contractors left the newly created laundry room...knowing we were moving in that day. (Before they started working there, these floors had been in perfect condition.) Oh, and they never hooked up the plumbing, so the 1st time I did laundry...water was pouring into our basement, which as you'll see below, had dirt floors.
Basement...or something. The rectangular mound on the left was once a 10 foot deep abyss.
BEFORE- On left, original master bath - and only bathroom in the house. On right, once they tore down kitchen ceiling below the bathroom, they found serious water damage, so the whole bathroom floor came out.
Originally, a parlor for the master bedroom, but we added a hallway to make it a small 3rd bedroom.
Original kitchen. These were all of the cabinets, the opposite wall just had a stove on it.
Thankfully, we survived, so there are "after" pictures to share. This post has reminded me to take lots of pictures of our next house, I can't believe how few I have of the last house!
Thanks,
e
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