Fixer Upper Number 3

Remember I posted last summer and mentioned that our house sold?  Well, that post was slightly premature since we ended up waiting five months for the sale to go through.  That waiting period was so hard and we wanted several times to just quit the sale and do a rental instead.  But the sale did finally close the week before Christmas.  We are so thankful! What a wonderful Christmas present for us!
In the meantime, guess what we did? 

Dan started getting antsy about not having a project to do, so he looked for a house online, and found one which we walk thru and I didn't like or think was a good idea.  The next day he called a realtor on another house and he and the realtor walked through that house once.  He came home, told me he thought we should buy it, I agreed without looking at it, and three days later, we owned it! 

 

It had some foundational issues, so Dan did some extensive work digging the foundation clear and basically rebuilding much of it. 

It all happened so fast that I didn't get many pictures taken.  Two days after we made the purchase, Dan had the whole thing re-roofed. 

So there's my exciting bit of news!  Fixer upper Number 3! Who knows what will happen next!?

Guess What?

Guess WHAT??

Our Granville house is finished!  Actually, Dan finished it in July...

 

 

 

 

I made Dan pose with the for sale sign...

 

 

It was listed in July, we had an offer in 5 days, we accepted it, and just found out that the buyers were approved for their loan.  So it's almost officially sold.  The sale is pending. 

We're very excited.  It was a long hard road for Dan because it seemed like each time he started a "small" project, it ended up being much more extensive than we'd originally thought it would be. 

 

This is the upstairs bathroom.

 

The smallest bedroom.

 

The bedroom that used to have stickers all over the walls...

 

The biggest bedroom...originally brown walls.

 

And the bedroom that used to have Orange, Pink and purple stripes painted on the walls.

 

Upstairs hallway

 

This is the addition entertainment/family room with the bar.

 

Mudroom/new laundry room Dan made

 

Downstairs bathroom sans lovetub.  With an ACTUAL shower/tub instead.  :)

 

The kitchen

 

Formal dining room.

 

Front living room.

 

Garage and patio area

 

 

If you care to see the before pictures, check here, here, and here.

 

Of course, there are more posts than that, but those are the first few. 

We're very happy to be finished with this house.  It's now a beautifully restored Victorian home, and I'm so proud of my husband for seeing it through and doing it the right way. 

I can say again, it's a "Fixer upper no more!"

 

Stay tuned for more life updates!

 

 

House Updates

My apologies for being absent from my blog for so long.  We have been keeping busy feverishly working on the outside of the house before the REALLY cold weather sets in.  I scraped paint from the bottom portion of the house, but didn't really feel comfortable being higher than a tall step ladder, so Dan did the higher parts.  Also, the house is so tall that in order to effectively scrape and then paint the upper part, we had to rent a lift for a week.  The chimney pictured here was falling apart, so Dan also rebuilt it and replaced several slate shingles.

 

 

 

This is the first coat of primer.

 

This side of the house was by far the worst.  It hadn't been painted correctly in over 20 years probably.  It's also the side of the house that was covered with vines.

 

We had some dreadfully wet weather the week we rented the lift, hence, the mud pit. 

 

Dan's view from the roof.  This is looking out over the new metal roof he put on last fall.

 

First coat of paint.

 

Dan accidently sprayed himself in the face with the paint sprayer.  So of course, I took a picture. 

 

After paint.

 

We also bought new, vinyl windows for the house since the windows were all original (from 1900) and needed updating.

 

 

 

They were delivered one day and Dan started installing them the next day!

My job was to haul the old windows out to the garage.

 

Also, a few weeks ago, Dan and I laid these huge slabs of stone and made a patio out of them. 

 

Some window install in process.

 

The house after painting was complete. 

 

 

This house has been the talk of the town.  I walked into the town municipal center today to pay a water bill and the lady there talked to me for about 15 minutes about how amazing the house looks now and kept profusely thanking me for helping to bring the old house back to life. 

 

People stop several times a day to say similar things to Dan. 

 

I appreciate that they appreciate an old house being restored.

 

I hope all of you have had a good month.  It's hard to believe that October is nearly over and that tomorrow's weather forecast calls for snow flurries here!  

What a Fixer-upper!

 I've mentioned before on my blog that we are fixing up a house we bought.  We were able to buy this house for VERY cheap.  Although it has good bones for the most part, most of the exterior has to be completely replaced if we want the house to last.  Of course, anything can be jimmy-rigged and made to "last" a few more years, but that's putting off the inevitable. 

 

We decided we'd try to fix this house up the right way.  That's good, but it can mean getting discouraged (especially for Dan) because there is a TON of fixing that needs to be done.  Almost all of it is fixing rot or preventing future rot.  Every now and then, we'll take a break from the real needs and do something easy that makes us feel encouraged like we're really getting something done.  This was one of those projects. 

The side porch was rotten and also made it really difficult to plow the driveway in the winter time.  So we decided to simply do away with it.  You can see how old this photo was...I was still pregnant in the picture.   

 

It came apart easily because of the rot.  I don't have an "after" photo, but the empty space makes it sooo much easier to drive to the back of the house. 

 

 

This is the work that Dan has been doing.  There were cedar shakes on the addition before, and rotten wooden siding on the left portion of the photo.  Dan replaced it all with new wooden siding. 

I've included these next two photos to give you a visual of what it looked like first, when we bought it, and the second, after we pulled the weeds, but still hadn't done any work on it yet.    

 

And this is NOW!

 

 

 

 

After he replaced this side, Dan sprayed it all with paint which we got on sale from a Memorial Day sale on paint Lowes had.  Of course, it's just the first coat, but wow...what an improvement! 

 

 

 

This is the back of the addition after Dan put up the new wooden siding.

 

 

And the back of the garage after the siding was patched and replaced where it was needed, and then painted, just the first coat.

 

 

 

 

 I didn't include any pictures of what I've been doing, because what I'm doing doesn't make the house look BETTER.  haha.  I've been scraping paint.  I've finished both sides and the front of the house as far as I could reach.  Now I'll be starting to do the same, with a ladder.  Last time I went (it's been rainy weather the last two days), I was caulking, which is always fun. 

 

That's where we're at with the fixer upper!  I'll keep on updating as we continue fixing.  This coming month of July, we have a lot planned by way of the church.  The 8th is our anniversary Sunday, the 15th begins Vacation Bible School, and the  29th, we're beginning a project of re-graveling our church parking lot.  We're excited about all of this.  Just as a brief update, Gwendolyn is doing terrific!  She was weighed last week and has gained over 2 pounds!  She's such a good baby...We're extremely blessed to have her in our lives. 

Until next time! Thanks for reading!