I bought this house from an estate in March 2012, it was so cute, and I figured it would be cheap to renovate, since is only 700 square feet, 2 bedrooms 1 bath, kitchen and living room.
After viewing this house twice we came to an agreement on price, 2 weeks later I got the keys.
Almost immediately the boyfriend starting looking at how much renovation it would need. He had not
been in the house.
been in the house.
When we pulled up the gross carpet in the bedroom we could see out through the wall, it had moved
almost off the foundation, I almost threw up, I was so shocked. So he made a plan on how to deal
with this wall and got it put back to normal. (I think he loves me a lot to do all this work)
It was time to tackle the bathroom, we tore out the horrible toilet, rotten vanity, and grungy tub,
oh, I forgot the blue paint, it's everywhere, walls, ceilings, shutters, rain gutters, baby blue everywhere yuck.
Upon ripping out the bathroom we found that the whole floor including the supporting floor joists had rotted from years of water penetration, so we ripped that out too, along with the insulation and drywall, that's when we found that the ceiling fan was just going into the attic, which led us in another direction, but I will come back to that. So after 3 weeks without a bathtub, ( we showered at relatives homes) we had paint on the walls, new everything, tub, toilet, vanity, mirror, tiles, wiring, it looks awesome, with only a little decorating left.
This is the after photo:
In the process of rebuilding the bathroom, we ended up tearing out the kitchen since it is back to back with the bathroom, all the plumbing was in one little wall.
We discovered even more rotten lumber, I haven't added up how much this re-foundation has cost, the house has a 3 foot crawl space, that's at the highest, the poor boyfriend spent weeks under the floor and then finally tore out the whole floor as it was rotten, I hope the local building inspector never sees this blog, eek.
I had to buy several floor jacks to lift the wall back into their proper position, but it is done now.
When the kitchen got ripped out we had to move the water heater which meant more wiring and plumbing, which was simple enough since we are both very experienced renovators. But to move the water heater meant tearing down the chimney that went through the middle of the house, the boyfriend brought in his brother to help, what a mess, soot everywhere.
This is the view from the kitchen door right through to the bathroom, no kitchen left at all. :(
In the process, notice the drywall, yayyyyy
The view of the kitchen from the living room, yep we tore out all the drywall and disgusting insulation, and that window is now a door.
We have since completely re-wired the house, we found too many junction boxes in the attic and live wires just laying around, the previous owner had hired an electrician to do this, apparently he didn't do his job, it was scary.
At this time we are trying to find cabinets for the kitchen, kijiji is where I have found lots of building materials also some furniture, since we sold or gave away most of ours, it wouldn't fit in this little house lol.
The boyfriend is off working on another project, so I am refinishing furniture I found at a flea market, and working on my landscaping, which brings us to another bizarre revelation, the entire yard is flowers, all kinds of them, tulips and daffodils by the hundreds, he had half the yard torn up for a vegetable garden, I have no idea how he thought veggies would grow under all these trees. I have embarked on a war to destroy the millions of orange lilies surrounding most of the house and covering half the front lawn, thank goodness I was a landscaper for years, oohh and rocks everywhere.
A word of advice, DON'T BUY A HOUSE IN THE WINTER. You just don't know what is in that yard until the snow goes and plants come up. I bought a previous house in the winter, I found a truck axle in the flowerbed after the snow went, and found old metal wheels, huge rocks, all sorts of weird things under the snow and overgrown lawn.
I battled orange lilies at my previous home, it came down to hiring a backhoe and dump truck to haul them far far way, I am so glad I could trade my drywall skills for his backhoe time.
This is what the yard looked like when I moved in, over grown, strange planters and beds, brush fallen everywhere, I think we hauled away 12 loads from the yard so far. The entire grassy area was covered in moss from poor soil and poor fertilising. I used a moss killer, it took 3 weeks to die. Then raked it all out.
This is a view from the same spot, as you can see, no grass yet, the weather got too hot to plant grass seed, it will wait until fall now. The big ugly shrub is gone, turns out it had multiple trunks, so about 5 stumps were chopped out of the ground, the boyfriend and I took turns with an axe I borrowed, only took about an hour.
The plants at the back are hostas I have been digging up all over, they are too precious to toss out, and they are huge, I still have another 10 - 12 big hostas to move, as well as 5 big bleeding hearts.
At this point in time (July 2012) we are waiting for him to finish the job he is at, and get back to work here, we have 1 room left to demolish, a little floor jacking at that corner, then we start dry walling at a fevered rate, the kitchen is on hold, I have my fingers crossed that I win the contest I entered for a complete new kitchen, only 84 people entered and mine was the worse by far. I did have the money for the kitchen reno, but another family member didn't pay what they owed on my mother's funeral, so it fell on me.
That's all for now
July 11, 2012
We discovered even more rotten lumber, I haven't added up how much this re-foundation has cost, the house has a 3 foot crawl space, that's at the highest, the poor boyfriend spent weeks under the floor and then finally tore out the whole floor as it was rotten, I hope the local building inspector never sees this blog, eek.
I had to buy several floor jacks to lift the wall back into their proper position, but it is done now.
This is the view from the kitchen door right through to the bathroom, no kitchen left at all. :(
In the process, notice the drywall, yayyyyy
The view of the kitchen from the living room, yep we tore out all the drywall and disgusting insulation, and that window is now a door.
We have since completely re-wired the house, we found too many junction boxes in the attic and live wires just laying around, the previous owner had hired an electrician to do this, apparently he didn't do his job, it was scary.
At this time we are trying to find cabinets for the kitchen, kijiji is where I have found lots of building materials also some furniture, since we sold or gave away most of ours, it wouldn't fit in this little house lol.
The boyfriend is off working on another project, so I am refinishing furniture I found at a flea market, and working on my landscaping, which brings us to another bizarre revelation, the entire yard is flowers, all kinds of them, tulips and daffodils by the hundreds, he had half the yard torn up for a vegetable garden, I have no idea how he thought veggies would grow under all these trees. I have embarked on a war to destroy the millions of orange lilies surrounding most of the house and covering half the front lawn, thank goodness I was a landscaper for years, oohh and rocks everywhere.
A word of advice, DON'T BUY A HOUSE IN THE WINTER. You just don't know what is in that yard until the snow goes and plants come up. I bought a previous house in the winter, I found a truck axle in the flowerbed after the snow went, and found old metal wheels, huge rocks, all sorts of weird things under the snow and overgrown lawn.
I battled orange lilies at my previous home, it came down to hiring a backhoe and dump truck to haul them far far way, I am so glad I could trade my drywall skills for his backhoe time.
This is what the yard looked like when I moved in, over grown, strange planters and beds, brush fallen everywhere, I think we hauled away 12 loads from the yard so far. The entire grassy area was covered in moss from poor soil and poor fertilising. I used a moss killer, it took 3 weeks to die. Then raked it all out.
This is a view from the same spot, as you can see, no grass yet, the weather got too hot to plant grass seed, it will wait until fall now. The big ugly shrub is gone, turns out it had multiple trunks, so about 5 stumps were chopped out of the ground, the boyfriend and I took turns with an axe I borrowed, only took about an hour.
The plants at the back are hostas I have been digging up all over, they are too precious to toss out, and they are huge, I still have another 10 - 12 big hostas to move, as well as 5 big bleeding hearts.
At this point in time (July 2012) we are waiting for him to finish the job he is at, and get back to work here, we have 1 room left to demolish, a little floor jacking at that corner, then we start dry walling at a fevered rate, the kitchen is on hold, I have my fingers crossed that I win the contest I entered for a complete new kitchen, only 84 people entered and mine was the worse by far. I did have the money for the kitchen reno, but another family member didn't pay what they owed on my mother's funeral, so it fell on me.
That's all for now
July 11, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment