Fixer- Upper # Two

In July of 2017, when we moved to Granville NY, Dan and I began looking for a fixer-upper to purchase and fix.  Because Dan has the ability to fix anything, it makes the most sense to invest in a fixer-upper.  Also, we are firm believers in investing in real estate rather than in the stockmarket. 

After looking for only a day on Zillow, I found this green house in downtown village of Granville. 

 

 

 

It had been vacant for five years and had gone through several owners before that who had to go through foreclosures.  It was bank-owned and had been on the market for awhile.  Dan and I toured the house and small property and he was able to assess the damage and estimate the cost and labor of fixing it all.  We made a low offer and it was accepted right away, so by the end of August, we were homeowners of our second fixer-upper!

 

I got to work right away on the things that I CAN do.  I'm not very handy with fixing things, but I can pull weeds and clean.  So I started with this front flower bed, taking all of the colored slate out and re-stacking it nicely. 

 

 

 

This was when I finished.

 

The side porch is basically completely rotten, so this spring, we will tear it down and build a new, smaller (because this one is big and annoying to drive by) one. 

But in August, I just started by pulling all of the weeds out...

 

The back of the house is in the most rough condition.  You can probably see the rotten wood on the backside of the house.  This is due partly to the fact that the house has no gutters for the rain to be redirected.  It would just gather and sit, causing the rot.  The addition (on the right hand part of the picture) was rotten through as well; at least the bottom few feet of the structure.  The roof of the addition also was.  The shingles were old and leaked water, plus they were not installed correctly.  The slope of the roof was too gradual, and not steep enough and the water would sit there as well.  As for the ground...

The entire back side of the house has dirt built up around it so much so that the water had nowhere to drain AWAY from the house.  Instead, it would sit until it seeped into the wood, causing it to rot.  The basement was pretty wet as well because of this. 

 

The outside basement entrance was covered only with these rotten boards...

 

The previous owner must have desired to use the wood furnace, so he dumped a truckload full of wood blocks down the steps, breaking them and the door in the process.  He ended up never using them...so all of that wood which had water sitting in it, rotted.  Al came over and helped us clean the whole thing out.  You should have smelled the mold and rotten wood...ugh.

 

Of course, there were random piles of stuff the previous owners just dumped outside and let sit for years.  There were seven bicycles- all rusted through and trash though...

 

I WAS able to pick through the trash and find three trash bags full of plastic bottles and aluminum cans, which I was able to recycle for $6!  :D

 

This was after I cleaned out the back of the garage enough to actually be able to see the neighbors shed!

 

And this was after the backyard was finished.

 

As you can see, the garage roof was completely rotten with huge holes in it.  Someone had previously thrown a tarp over it, but by 2017, the tarp was rotten through as well. 

 

This was after I finished cleaning the backyard. 

 

The left side of the house was completely covered in wild grape vines and bamboo.  I took this picture after I had been worked on pulling them out all day.  Before I started, they were covering the first floor windows entirely. 

 

This was after I was almost finished. 

 

I don't want to bore you all to death with my fixer-upper pictures, so I'll post them in different segments.  We tried to take advantage of the nicer weather in September, October and part of November before it got so cold to do outside work.  Beyond re-plumbing the house, nothing has been done to the inside yet.  In my next "fixer-upper" post, I'll show you all the work we did to the outside of the house.  Actually, Dan did the work...I helped pull shingles off and carry trash to the dumpster, but otherwise, he did all of the work. 

 

I'm already looking forward to the spring when we can really get to work!