I have some final reveal photos to post!! It’s DONE! In fact, it’s been done for about a year now. And while I did have it on the market, I ended up finding a renter faster than a buyer, and now it’s tenant occupied. While there’s good and bad to that (I’ll be the first to say that I definitely get anxiety over land lording), one of the really GOOD things is it’s still MINE!!
There was plenty of work, drama, sweat, and many, many tears between my last post and the completion. Then there was waiting on an offer or tenant. And getting the tenant settled in, and a few bumps along the way after (I mean, no one had lived there in a few years, then it was pretty much overhauled top to bottom). But it’s done. And I’m glad I had a mid-life crisis and bought a project house instead of a Jeep (there’s a story there too) or something. But what everyone really cares about, is what did this crazy mess end up looking like, right?
So without further ado, the final reveal-a completed Brick Bungalow Project, with befores/afters!
Living room, facing fireplace:
Living room, facing other direction:
Dining room:
Peach room:
Kitchen, where the chimney cupboard was:
Kitchen, bathroom/basement doors:
Kitchen, built in (yes, a fridge does fit there):
Blue room:
Downstairs half bath:
Mudroom:
Stairs:
Upstairs bath (I did keep the medicine cabinet and the “soap dish”, which actually was a cup/toothbrush holder):
Upstairs hall:
Kitchen Bedroom:
Kitchen bedroom closet (this was the one with the roof leak originally-we did the cedar ceilings in all three upstairs bedrooms and in the peach room downstairs):
Dormer bedroom:
Pink room:
What's funny is, looking at the before/after photos, it looks mostly like it was just cleaned up. You kind of lose the hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and...you get the idea...of work between the two. Almost all the interior walls downstairs and some upstairs got new drywall, along with most ceilings. In the end, outside walls and a few ceilings were saved, along with the original plaster in the hall/stairs (under the wallpaper that was scraped) but a lot of the original plaster was just too far gone. There was repair, reworking (here's a fun fact-the kitchen windows are lower than standard counter top height-hence the butcher block that was carefully cut to fit around them), and tedious sanding and painting. There was scraping. And every single door needed repair (I lost track of how many containers of wood filler I used!). And the blown in, ugh, the blown in (insulation). There was hauling away of countless loads of plaster and yuckiness. Ironically though, that was kind of the point-to make it look like a the beautiful old home that it is-not a remodeled flip.
There are a couple things that changed along the way, and a few I would change looking back. The bathrom floors went from ceramic tile to the black and white peel n stick. I LOVE the look, but would have gone with single piece vinyl looking back. I might have tried to move the upstairs hall light location (rather than using the original location) because it’s hard to change the bulb. Rather than laying new laminate floor over the old flooring, I “saved” the original floors-I’m pretty much ok with that decision. I actually really liked the painted floors upstairs. I also ended up really liking the single paint scheme (white walls, gray trim), despite having picked out a couple different colors along the way. Originally I did it for resale and to save time but in the end I would do that again. I would have pulled all the baseboards on walls that got the ¼” drywall so the trim didn’t get buried-but the house is SO quiet, I ended up liking the extra layer for sound deading. I’m REALLY glad I replaced vs repaired the windows, even though I truly love the old wood sashes.
As a neat side note, the gentleman that bought the windows and sinks had a grand opening of his hotel a few weeks ago too! His project was about 5x the size of the Bungalow (at over 10,000 sq ft). Unfortunately we weren’t able to make it there for the opening, but plan to visit eventually.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have cause to update this blog again, but for anyone that followed the saga-thank you! It’s been a truly crazy, fun, stupid and gratifying experience. I learned a lot-including that it's hard to breathe using a respirator when you're sick. And sometimes you have to accept imperfection. And next time, buy a smaller house (oh, wait, did that already). And that my generally distrustful nature is usually right, and I will continue to expect to be disappointed in people and their promises outside of a very select few, and the one I can always count on that's just completely awesome. I can’t even put into words what it meant to have someone believe in me and stand by me through all of this, and encourage me to dare to take on this completely, absolutely insane dream of mine. You know who you are-thank you!!!
