More pictures

Here are some pictures just to get everyone caught up!

As you can see here, our windows are really cool and just crank open :)

Now, several rooms with the floors pulled up - yay! Special thanks to Grainger and Will for getting on their knees and scraping up all the sticky gunk that was underneath the tiles...

Now...to the kitchen. Some shots along the way - with cabinets, without cabinets, with walls, without walls!

Our wonderful neighbor, Lynn Walker, who also loves demo! :) GREAT helper!

Technically, our first dinner party :) Will's family all came to see the progress and brought dinner. Now, for our table, it is actually 2 sawhorses that are supporting an old door...Martha Stewart (Will's grandmother) brought tablecloths and it was a fine meal!

Pictured: Will, Grainger, Thompson (Will's cousin), Martha, Sherrie, and Harrison.

Master Bath - Start of demo

Now to the upstairs bathroom: We started to slam the tiles with the sledgehammer to take out the two upstairs bathrooms and for the first trip, we actually loaded the wheelbarrow and took it down the steps....NOT FUN....so Will decided we should just poke a hole in the floor and sweep the tiles/debris through the hole and into the wheelbarrow below - brilliant plan! But then we had a hole in the floor....oh well!

Of course, all the tiles were stuck to several inches of concrete and this crazy wire mesh that is MISERABLE to get out! Thank you, crowbar!

Now....moving on to the TREES. So, I know we all hate cutting down trees, but almost ALL of the trees in both the front and back yard were Sweet Gums....meaning we had TONS of gumballs everywhere! Since no one likes gumballs, we decided to just start from scratch.

Side of the house - during and after:

Clean front yard!

video tours of the digs

Sorry these are dark. You should get the idea though.

Tour!

OK, here are the first photos!

Front of the house from the street.

Back of the house...those shrubs are only a BIT overgrown :)

And our jungle in the back!

We have a garage.

Close up of the really cool windows that are all over the house - and the good news is, almost ALL of them still work!

The front door kinda looks like a dungeon...but we're working on it. The plan is to replace the door with a glass or partially glass door so that some light flows through to the foyer.

Now...for the interior...

The dining room looking out towards the back patio. Not sure why they put 2 doors on the outside, but our plan is to switch it up and put windows on the outside and french doors in the middle so you can walk out onto the patio in the back.

The living room - very open room with lots of light. There is a fireplace in this room but it doesn't have a chimney...which presents a problem! haha - we'll probably end up putting gas logs there.

The true "dark room" used to develop photos (and dental x-rays...the former owner was a dentist). Since this room is adjacent to the kitchen, we will knock this wall out and expand the kitchen area.

Check out that 50's oven...amazing.

The wonderful kitchen

Eating area in the kitchen with sliding doors out to the screened in porch.

The screened in porch, which is right off the kitchen.

The outdoor patio in the back. This looks in on the dining room.

That is a real boiler that powered the radiant heat system in the floors. Plan...REMOVE.

The rest of the laundry / boiler / mud room.

The den - this room is probably in the best shape of any room in the house. It has wood paneling everywhere so there's no paint to chip, etc. Overall, love this room! We probably won't do much other than paint the panels so that it lightens it up a bit. We'll keep the beams on the ceiling dark as a contrast though, so that should look neat.

Another view of the den. That fireplace DOES work and has a huge chimney that covers the whole right side of the house.

The staircase in the foyer headed upstairs.

Upstairs hallway.

First guest bedroom (faces the backyard).

Guest bathroom. There's a tub to the left of this photo (across from toilet).

Other guest bedroom that faces the street.

Master Bedroom!

Master closet (aka, hallway...).

I will tell you, I think we counted a total of 16 closets in the entire house - they are literally placed everywhere! So the fact that the master closet is just two sliding doors was really not that bad. We are knocking out several of those closets, but we'll have to rearrange the whole master bath/closet area anyways.

Master Bath....

Shower in Master Bath....naaaaasty.

We're pretty sure it hasn't been used in the last several years. If you think it's odd that the sink and toilet look nice and shiny, we do too! This sink, along with all of the toilets in the house were the only things that were replaced prior to putting the house on the market. The house wasn't vacuumed or cleaned at all...so it was apparently absolutely necessary to replace these items.

Upstairs office that technically counted as a bedroom on the MLS listing because, of course, it has a closet! :) Plan here might be to break through the wall on the left hand side and connect it with the master bedroom.

Well that's it for the tour! We've got some videos that we want to add but I'm having a bit of a hard time uploading them. I'll post them when I figure it out.... Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Let us know what you think!

Our house!!

Hey everyone!

Will and I have just bought our first house and it is a BIG TIME fixer upper! Although we want all of you to come join us and help us do the work along the way, the next best thing is being able to share with our friends and family the progress that we're making, as we're making it. We hope that you will send us your comments and suggestions, as all help is greatly appreciated. We are trying to do as much of the work on our own as we can and are looking forward to the challenge :)

History of the house:

The previous (and only) owner built this house in 1958 in a contemporary style. Although at the time it was top-of-the-line, the house has had little to no work done since. Some interesting facts: it is built on concrete slab with radiant heat all through the floors on the first floor; there is no AC on the first floor; there was an actual dark room next to the kitchen; it has 3 bedrooms and an office (that technically counts as another bedroom); and many others...!

Our history with the house:

We were looking for a house in town that had a great location but one that we could get a good deal on because it needed a lot of work. When a friend told us about this house around the corner, it was exactly what we had been looking for! Although a bit terrified at first since there was so much to be done, we decided to make an offer. After some negotiating, we settled on a price with the sellers.

We closed on the house on May 31st and have taken lots of pictures and videos from Day 1. I wish we had thought to start this blog sooner, but don't worry, we'll get you all caught up! Pictures will follow soon :)