House Update

Ok, a lot of you have been asking how the house next door is coming along. It's a rainy day in Georgia, not fit for man nor beast. So, while I have some spare time, I thought I would blog some photos of John's progress.
We have owned the house since May 30th, and he's been working on it since then! This place was in some pretty bad shape when we took the keys. I couldn't believe John wanted it. But, with some TLC and lots of elbow grease, it's realy starting to shine! It's a small house, but it has some charachter. And our upgrades are bringing out the good features.
The house now has brand new energy efficient windows, A/C, and a brand new roof.
Here is the view as you enter the front door.

This area was painted a pale 1980's seafoam green. The hardwood floors are original, and John has hired a guy to sand them, and bring out their natural beauty. The floors in the "after" shot are covered with saw dust and dirt, we haven't done anything to them yet. He painted this area "malted milk" which is a soft beige color. I think the white trim really pops against the beige. He replaced the lighting fixtures, and I repainted the french door, which you cannot see in the after shot. The french door leads to a small room which we will be calling the home office. It was the original porch of the house. Right now, there are no porches. :-(
Now for the bathroom. Probably, hands down, the WORSE room of the house! It was just disgusting! We tried to salvage the tub. Judy scrubbed it, and scrubbed it, but it was just too far gone! John hired Bath Fitters to come in and redo the tub and surround.


A HUGE improvement! He also replaced the vanity, sink, flooring, and light fixture. Since everything else was new, he went ahead and replaced the toilet as well. This room still needs work. When the wallpaper came down, there was a lot of damage to the sheet rock. After the painting was all done, he discovered the wall with the window is rough. He's going to have to sand it down, remud it, and repaint! Also, the wall behind the vanity is not level. He has to fix that before he can hang the mirrow.

Another huge project has been the kitchen. Us ladies did not like the layout. The stove sat on a wall all by itself, with no countertop next to it for food prep!

We convinced John it would do much better where the fridge used to be. Which of course meant rewiring for the oven to be moved. He hung a microwave over the stove, instead of just using a hood.

Next came demolition! Once upon a time there was a wood burning stove, with a chimney that ran in the wall between kitchen and dinning room. During one remodel, the chimney was boxed in. John wanted the chimney off of the roof, since there's no stove. Then, he took out the wall that had encased the old chimney. Which was an area just big enough to move the fridge into! William helped put up the dry wall, and John hung the cabinet, and is now working on the floor where the fridge will go.

In the above picture, the fridge is not moved into it's place yet. It will sit under the small cabinets.
Today John is placing tiles where the fridge will go, and replacing some of the old, cracked tiles, as well as removing all of the grout. Then he can go back and grout the tiles, move the appliances where they belong, and finish the painting. The kitchen is a soft shade of bluish-grey to coordinate with the counter tops. We don't have money in the budget to replace the cabinets and countertops, so we have to make them work for us. The trim needs to be painted, and the kitchen will pretty much be done!
There's still a lot of work to be done, but it's coming along nicely. We had hoped to have it ready by September to rent out. I don't think we'll make our original deadline. But, hopefully October!
When the weather dries up, I'll get more photos. And of course we'll have the official before and after shots.