So we closed on our house on Friday...finally. I'll tell you it was, at times, NOT going to happen. God directed this one (as if He doesn't direct ALL of them?!?) and we really have to trust Him that this will all turn out good in the end.
The story we have, and Dee, if I am wrong, please fill in the blanks in a comment, but this house was sold a few years ago on contract to a gentleman (perhaps with his wife) and his business went under and he couldn't afford the house any longer. Since he defaulted on his contract, the house was taken back by the original owners and they wanted to sell it again. When they came to see the house (they live out of state) they found the house in this unlivable condition.
Apparently, while the house was being purchased by the contract sale man, he basically gutted the house to remodel it, without the permission of the people he was buying the house from, and he made many changes to the house. Then, before he could complete the renovation, he went bankrupt. When the owners came in town and saw the condition of their home (of over 14 years), they were devastated, to say the least. The house was put on the market in "as is" condition, and the rest is history.
The sun was shining right into my camera lens, so this isn't the best shot, but good enough.
Home sweet unfinished home. Be patient with us. We will take good care of you!
When you walk in the front door, you see the stairs. You can tell that though now they come straight down, they used to have a little landing and then turn to the right. I think we will change that back, just for the character of it. Tim is NOT in favor of the time it will take, or the inconvenience it may be to have to get furniture up a turned stairway, but I guess the inconvenience doesn't really matter to me. I like character.
This is the room to the right which is the living room, I guess. I am not sure if we will use it as a living room or if we will close off that opening to the dining room you see there and make the living room into an office...or maybe we will put french doors there instead. I don't know. We don't really need a formal living room. We don't have furniture for it.
This is the family room, and it is to the left when you walk in the house. The mantel is torn off, as you can see. The crown molding is torn off as well as the brick for the fire place and a couple of little half walls that divide the family room from the eating area. This is one of the only rooms that has original flooring in it, but in case anyone was wondering, he tore out the hardwood that was on this main level. I mean, why not. He was on a role, after all.
The kitchen is among the most needy rooms, as you can see. From what we heard, the refrigerator water line was leaking and ended up flooding the basement, but that must be why the drywall is torn out of the kitchen. Nothing explains why the kitchen is torn out of the kitchen.
This is the eating area where it looks as if maybe some part of a wall was torn out or starting to be put back in, I don't know.
I guess the good news in all of this is, that with our laughable budget (others were calling for more that twice what we are allowing for), everything that the guy tore out of the house is in the garage...including the brick for the fireplace. ????.
I am excited about this space. This is the door to the back yard. There is a nice walk in closet across from it and the rest of the space is the laundry room. It is basically huge. Coming from my tiny room that barely fit my stacked appliances and a sink, this is paradise! C'mon laundry. Hit me with your best shot. I can run circles around you in there. Literally.
This powder room is in decent condition. It is a touch dated, but only needs flooring and paint to be in full working order. We can update later!
This is back in the family room again and I am not sure whether the guy was building the faux beams or if he was tearing them out. I am totally keeping them and going to wrap them in wood, perhaps a rough sawn cedar.
This picture begins the journey to the basement...where all the magic happened.
Those are the cabinets from the kitchenette. Unfortunately they are mold-ridden and I don't know that we can salvage them.
I believe off to the left is where the kitchenette used to be. There is some storage area behind it all.
There is a full bathroom down here and thankfully this guy was kind and left the tile floor unscathed. I don't know why. He was on a role, right? This bathroom has a nice huge closet for extra storage. I was trying to get Tim to use it as his office/recording studio/ but for some reason he turned me down. Hmm.
This is the entrance to the rather large and unusual master bedroom. We are still trying to figure out what to do with it. I believe it measures something like 17x28. It's nuts. Our wimpy furniture is going to get so lost in here. Notice the ceiling fan with no blades. They are on the floor, in case you were wondering. Most of the screws are there too.
The whole upstairs, except for the girls' room, is covered in linoleum. And not just one pattern either. He was creative. The word on that is the guy's wife couldn't handle the dust, so they removed the carpet and put this in. Don't they realize that at least carpet would hold the dust and not let it fly around as you walk by?
As for the bathroom, this is the original single bowl sink, I think, with a walk in closet, but "Red Green" took care of that for us...oh, and that lovely flooring you see is more white linoleum. The plumber comes on Wednesday and I will see then if we can get our whirlpool tub in here. It is going to be hard to configure all this, and since the master closet was removed to make room for the tub, we have to build that closet somewhere, I think, but at least there is space in the bathroom.
This is out of our room and down the hallway. to the left right by that railing is the girls' room.
This is the girls' room. It is nice and big and has a walk in closet. Even the carpet, which I don't care for in the girls' room, is in almost perfect shape. It makes me wonder what was in the rest of the upstairs and makes me groan all the more that he removed it all.
It looks as though he did remodel the kids' bathroom upstairs, even giving them an elongated toilet bowl, which I would have wanted.
But our guy removed the 5 foot vanity and replaced it with this single, miniature sink of a deal. Again, ????.
This is what I would call the bonus room space, but it used to be divided into two rooms, and you can see the line on the right where the wall used to be. We are putting that wall back up and the area you can see will be Levi and Titus' room. The rest will be Elijah's room. At least it looks like the guy built in some closets for this space, something we would have had to think about and now we don't. There are some things that were thought out...I think.
This is Elijah's portion of the room. Again, you can see where the wall was, to the left.
We are really grateful that the girls' room has the flooring because when we started the work the other day, the kids have a room they can go to and romp and play their DS's and not get filthy! Thank you, God!
Here's our big daddy building that wall in the boys' room. We have progress already! Yay.
So helpful we are...
Two of our boys really like being shirtless. They like to show off their skinny little bodies. Titus is one of them. The skinny little thing that he is, he's lucky his shorts aren't falling off.
Well, if anyone reading this knows of an HGTV show or a DIY Network show that would love nothing more than to invade my space and help me out, PLEASE OH PLEASE call them up and turn us in. In the meantime, we are going to tool around and make something happen. Stay tuned for other updates. Just pray that they have the opportunity to start happening quickly. We started work on Saturday. Tim got sick on Sunday and when dad went to go work on Monday night, the power was turned off. Sigh.
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