Weekend Two: Demolition

Demolotion is my least favorite part of the renovating process. It sounds fun in theory; you rip apart a house, remove everything that makes it functional, and you don't worry about destroying something because destroying is the name of the game...awesome! But it's also frustrating, dirty, and exhausting, and nothing ever comes out as easily as it is suppose to (especially vanities and cabinets!).  However, Eric thinks it's much funner to wield a sledge hammer than it is to wield a paint brush, so he volunteered his brute and brawn this weekend...and thank goodness he did! My mom would have spent hours hacking a vanity to bits and pieces with a hack-saw if Eric hadn't come by and muscled it apart in a mere 15 minutes!? My husband, my hero!!

And here he is, teaching that said vanity who's boss!

It was a quick weekend though, and we got everything we needed to accomplished and demolished. We started on Friday afternoon, and were finished by dinnertime on Saturday...which was a miracle!? In no particular order, we...

• Removed all the kitchen cabinets...I hate cabinets!

• Removed two bathroom vanities and one pedestal sink. I hate vanities.
• Removed three toilets. My mom tried to plead a case to save one that "didn't look so bad," but after dealing with the horribly rusted on bolts and seeing the disgusting inside of the tank, I adamantly refused to save it. I shouldn't have been suprised at her suggested to save it, however. When she renovated the house I grew up in 25 years ago, she kept the 100-year old toilet, and it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I finally talked her into replacing it, after years of begging and pleading on my part. I had hated that old toilet my entire life! And the new toilet is absolute heaven...and yes, a toilet can be heaven. Trust me, $75 for a new toilet is a small price to pay for a lifetime of peace of mind, cleanliness, and functionality.
• Removed the trim from every door frame, window, corner, and ceiling...there was ALOT of it...everywhere!? And it wasn't fun to take down...but we did it.

• Removed paneling from the downstair's bedroom. We'll leave the paneling up in the upstairs bedrooms, as the paneling is super heavy duty, and the plaster beneath the thick paneling is pretty ugly to work with. So, we'll do beadboard along the bottom of each room, with a heavy, neutral, paintable wallpaper covering the paneling above. It's not ideal, but sometimes you have no choice but to work with what you've got.
• Removed all of the linoleum.
• Removed all the carpet.
• Removed the celing tile upstairs. It was only in two areas, but it was perhaps the grossest, dirtiest part of the demo!? I shudder just thinking about it...

• Removed a make shift closet. In the room pictured below, there was an added-on closet in the corner of the already teensy-tiny room. We removed the added-on corner closet and hired a local handy-man to make a door into the closet on just the other side of one of the walls. This provided access to the neighboring bedroom's giant closet. So, now we have a bigger room, with access to a perfectly good-sized closet, which also shares a closet with the next room over. And the best part about this little closet scenario? The closets are connected. We had originally planned to close them off from each other, but if you were a little kid, wouldn't it be the coolest thing ever to have a secret passageway through the closet into the next room!? We all think so.

Let's see, what else...

• We took 6 truckloads of debris to the dump, with two more loads ready to be hauled up when the dump opens again on Tuesday. Here in Cokeville you can't just pay for a dumpster to be delivered and later hauled away. You have to haul it ALL away yourself. It sucked. But we did it.
• Removed the make-shift shelves from the pantry.
• Removed all the make-shift shelving from the closets.
• Removed all the plug and light switch face plates.
• Removed all the window shades, blinds, and curtains.
• Bug-bombed the place with not one, not two, but THREE bug-bombs when we were finished for the weekend. No more bugs, please.

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of weird and strange things you find in a house while doing demolition. For example, old newpapers from 1945  (the San Fransisco Examiner, to be specific) under linoleum in the bedroom. Did someone just forget to clean up their newspapers before laying the linoleum? Was this a secret hiding place? Was this newspaper worth thousands and it was there for safekeeping? And we tossed it without thinking twice? (Well, we did think twice, but lacked the desire and motivation to think further about it!?) I guess we'll never know. It will forever be a mystery to me.

As I was ripping off trim at the end of the second day, I seriously thought about asking Eric to remind me to never do this again...because demolition is long and dirty and terrible!? And then I knew I'd eat more words if I said anything, so I kept my mouth shut. A day later, I'm already forgetting how much I hated it...it wasn't that bad!? Right!? 

And here we are at the end of day two in all our dirty glory. This picture doesn't do justice to how filthy we were, but trust me, we were most definitely toxic!? And don't forget to take notice of my mom's new plunger. If she couldn't keep the toilet, she was at least going to keep the "perfectly good" plunger!? :) Oh, how I love her.

And now, it's just making stuff look better from here on out, which is definitely the fun part. Patching, painting, buying, installing...here we come! We have electrician re-wiring the entire house up to code. We have a roofer coming to put on a new roof. We've hired a guy to replace all the windows. We will be getting a plumber to hopefully replumb the entire house. We've owned the house for a mere 9 days, and we are well underway. We're making progress.

Weekend One - Exterior Paint

This last weekend we started this project with exterior paint. Winter comes to Cokeville early...in October!? So we wanted to get this outside project out of the way before the snow flies. Here is what we started with...

I arrived in Cokeville on Thursday afternoon. We scraped paint on Thursday evening, and I started painting on Friday morning. We worked all day on Friday and even managed to recruit my two aunts, Clyda and Bonnie, to help us paint...bless their souls! With their excellent help we were able to finish most of the lower painting. And by the end of Friday, this is what we had done...

On Saturday we worked from sun up to sun down. We were rained out in the morning and ended up cleaning up the yard a bit waiting for the house to dry. It didn't take long to clean things up and de-clutter, but we managed to accumulate a myriad of weird clutter to take up to the dump. But before it was all hauled off, a few local boys came by and thought they found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!? They were SO excited about our "junk" and were ready and willing to haul off a good portion of it. But not before my dad, Bill, swore them to secrecy, making sure they didn't tell their parents where they got all their new "treasures." I'm sure their parents were so thrilled!? But let's be honest, what little boy can't use old empty beverage bottles, rocks, bricks, broken hoses, and old mats?! You'd a thought they'd won the lottery by how excited they were!? Those adorable kids were certainly the highlight of my day...

By sundown on Saturday evening, this was the result...a painted house!?

Although, truth be told, we didn't quite finish. We're probably only 2/3 done. But we ran out of white trim paint, and we plain ran out of time. There was no way were going to tempt God by climbing ladders on the sabbath, and the only painting left required ladders!? So we called it a weekend. But give us one more day and we'll have it done. Although if I'm really lucky, my mom will finish most of it by next weekend. She's a crazy fast painter, and can't leave a good project undone for too long.  

And here is where I can brag to you that "my mom is better than your mom." Would your mom scale a huge, wooden, rickety, ladder like a monkey climbing for coconuts, without thinking twice? Well my mom does. And would she offer to paint all the really high stuff (aka the gables), so that you don't have to? Well, my mom did. She's pretty much amazing!?

And here is the dramatic before and after view...

What do you think? Is it an improvement? And what about the color? Do you like?

The Grand Tour...

I'm sure you're all just dying to see what we've gotten ourselves into, and so here, my friends, is the grand tour...

First up? The exterior.

That right side add-on is a little droopy. Obviously no footings were put under it when it was added, but we'll put some in...or rather we will hire someone to put some footings in. We will also paint, put on a new roof, install new windows, add some decorative window shutters, and clean up the yard. It should shine a like a new penny when we're through... 

Then we have the kitchen and the dining nook.

We'll keep the basic layout the same, but will add all new cabinets, counters, appliances, fixtures and paint.

This is the half-bath off the kitchen.

We tried removing that viney paneling/wallpaper stuff, but that was a bad idea. It doesn't come of clean, and leaves a wierd, fuzzy residue. We could just paint over it, but the vines are embossed and would show through, which I wouldn't love. So, we will be priming it and then putting some nuetral and modern wallpaper over it instead. And then we'll add a new pedestal sink and fixtures, spruce up the awesome built-in cabinet and call it good... 

Next up is the living room.
We will raise the ceiling (as it's just a simple drop ceiling), and put in new flooring and paint.

Here is a bedroom and full bathroom off of the far side of the living room. We will remove the lovely paneling, add carpet, and fix up the bathroom.

And here is the lovely staircase going upstairs.

We'll get rid of the paneling and add carpet to the stairs.

And here is the upstairs.

There is a big open space at the top of the stairs. Some visitors have considered this open area a waste of space. I, on the other hand, LOVE it. It's nice and open with big windows to let lots of light in. And it could provide a nice toy area, or a desk area, or a sewing area, or a reading area...the possibilities are endless!? And then there are four modest bedrooms and a giant bathroom.

And there you have it...the grand tour.  What do you think? Do you see potential? Or are you void of any and all vision!?

And here are the numbers and logistics of how this is all going to work out over the next few months...

Purchase Price: $15,800.00
Budget: $50,000
Timeline: 4 months (before Christmas...there is no way I want to be driving through snowy Logan Canyon in January!?)
Logistics: We will split the profits 65/35. Mom will get 65% as she is the one actually funding this project, has all the tools, has 58 years of renovation knowledge, and will be there to make sure things keep rolling. I will get 35% for my monthly payment contribution towards the funding off this project, my accessibility to supplies (aka Lowe's and Home Depot), my access to trade workers if we can't hire local, and my four work days a week.  I will be in Cokeville every weekend...usually Thursday afternoon through Sunday.
Estimated Sale Price: $115,000. Although we might not sell it right away. We might just rent it out for a year or so. Or if, by the grace of God, my parents sell their house (which is currently on the market), they will simply move in for a year or two. Or we might just sell it if someone is breaking down our door to buy it. There are multiple possibilities for this baby, and we'll just have to wait and see what pans out.

Conclusion: A house fit for living in, a bit of extra cash, and the thrill and exhileration of doing what we're really passionate about. We could not be more excited!

Bonnie's House

Bonnie had lived in this house for as long as I had known...for at least the 24 years since my parents had moved there, probably much, much longer. How much longer? I have no idea. This house was located a mere half-block away from where I grew up, just down the back alley. When I was in Elementary School, I would walk past this house every, single day. Her big dogs would bark at me ferociously, scaring me half to death every time, even though I knew the barking was coming and tried to brace myself for it. I would hurry past, as fast as my little legs would carry me, reminding myself over and over again that the dogs were chained up, they weren't going to get me, I was perfectly safe. I knew who lived here but had never taken so much as a glimpse inside. This house was a mystery.

This last spring Bonnie moved and the house went up for sale. It sat empty and "for sale" all summer long. Then one weekend in August, my sister, Heather, and I spent the weekend in Cokeville, helping my mom with her big house-painting project (it was porch-painting time). On our way back from getting our daily fountain drink at the Flying J, we drove past Bonnie's old house and as I noticed the "for sale" sign still up, I enquired as to how much they wanted for it, and if there was any potential within those walls. Within 15 minutes we had a key to the house and were giving ourselves the grand tour. It was a like a tomb of mystery suddenly revealed. This house I had walked past frequently my entire life was suddenly not so mysterious. And it was actually quite charming. I fell in love quite quickly. The floor plan was decent, and my goodness, there were 5 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms!? It was huge!? Was there potential? Most definitely. I could see it, and luckily, my mom could as well. 

And so for the remainder of the porch-painting that day we discussed this old house...and it's potential...and what we could do with it...and how lovely it could be if we were to take on this project together. And how FUN it would be to work on it together. Heather was quick to prophesy that we would kill each other by the end, which we might (we have had a few renovation squabbles in our lifetime). But we assured each other that compromise would be our mantra. And even if did try to kill each other periodically, we all know that Obergs bounce back quick and within days of any squabble, all would be forgiven and forgotten. We're good like that.

So that next week my mom made a few phone calls and we waited a few weeks for the title company to get all the paperwork together. And we started planning and scheming and I started creating excel spreadsheets by the dozen in order to track our progress.

And as of September 16, this beauty is all ours. Ours for the fixing...and fix it we will...