Meet our latest project!

Last week we did it. We bought a foreclosed house. I tease my husband that we're really doing this whole home buying thing backwards. When we got married, he already owned a nice little two bedroom townhouse. After about a year of marriage, we sold it and bought  a 4500 sq ft (square footage includes finished basement areas) 5 bedroom, 3.5 bath dream house for a great deal, albeit the short sale process was truly brutal.  Three and a half years later we sold that house to buy our current home - a pretty average 2500 sq ft two story with 4 beds and 2.5 baths that was again, a stellar deal.  Now here we are, just over two years later, selling this house to move into a little bitty ranch. Seriously, our current furniture is not even going to fit... But no worries! It's just another step on the road following our dreams!

So why on earth did we sell our comfortable, beautifully finished home to downsize yet again? Here comes the dream aspect. It's a goal of ours to, Lord willing, own 3-4 rental homes eventually. We'd also like to own our own home outright and live completely debt free one day. It's a ways off, but this house is the first step! According to the terms of our purchase agreement, the house must be owner-occupied for one year. So after we move in next month, the clock starts. Once we reach the last six months, we'll start looking for our next project and hopefully buy another rental type home to fix up and move into while we rent this one out. But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, let me tell you about the new house.

The house is a small ranch with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a fully finished basement, and a one car attached garage. It's actually pretty cute I think, with a few funky aspects. It was built in the 1940's. A den and master bedroom with a half bath were added onto the back side of the house at some point. Here are some initial photos of the house.

Entry into living room

Front Living Room

Dining area of kitchen

Kitchen (doorway goes to garage & basement)

Den addition (located off of dining area)

Master Bedroom addition

1/2 Bath in Master Bedroom

Smaller bedroom (has 2 doors, one into Master, one into hallway) 

Larger front bedroom

Main Bathroom

I haven't taken any photos of the basement yet but it's actually pretty neat. The stairs are a bit steep to navigate but it's completely finished with a full bathroom, a non-conforming bedroom (no windows), a small living room with a fireplace and believe it or not a complete kitchen! I assume they had another adult living down there full time. There's some water damage and repairs needed but we won't even think of getting to that for at least a few months.

The house has some quirks, like the door shared between the smallest bedroom and the master. But both rooms also have a door leading in from a common area so you don't have to pass through the small room to get to the master. Also there's a door in the kitchen dining area that I've opened twice now thinking it was a pantry and instead finding super steep attic stairs. I've never lived in a house with an easily accessible attic like that before so it gets me every time. Being a 1940's home, there's also a few things I think are neat like the telephone shelf in the hallway and the shape of the open doorways.

Seriously, I need an antique phone to put here...

So now you've seen most of the house! There's quite a bit of work here and honestly we're pretty short on time thanks the hubby's busy job and upcoming travel (being in Tokyo for a week for a work conference isn't the best thing for our project timeline). Can't complain about that though as his job does all the funding for both houses! :) The work we're doing here will be a bit different than our last project. Knowing our goal is to rent it out, we want to make it look fresh and welcoming while spending the least amount of money to do so. Sometimes it's hard to remember that when we're talking about what we want to do! But on this house, every dollar spent is a little chunk out of our profit. We've got to view this project as a business venture instead of making decisions with our personal tastes and preferences.

Stay tuned! The work has already begun. Updates will be posted as I find time between raising a toddler and baby, keeping this house going, packing all our worldly goods for the move and working on the new house to get it ready in time... Good thing I don't sweat the small stuff! Buckle up! It's gonna be a ride and I can't wait to share it with you!

Keep Dreaming!

Kate

Day 723 - At long last!

We bought the house on 69th street officially on March 6th, 2014. Now, 1 year 11 months and 23 days later I am finally doing the final completed house blog post. Procrastination people. It's a beautiful thing. Or it's just a lazy thing. Whatever, I digress.

I know you've felt as though your life was incomplete having never seen the final results of our house transformation (you know except for the hundred or so of you who have been to our house in the last two years). We took this house from practically uninhabitable filth to shiny and new over the course of the last two years. Most of the work was done those first two months with just a few things, like the basement, were completed later. So without further adieu, here's the final product.

Not much has changed on the outside. Just some cleanup. Oh and we got rid of the cardboard box for stray cats off the front porch... So that's an improvement I'd say.

Unfortunately I don't have a before of the front door but here's the original stairway. Use your imagination for the door - before it was a really old, red wood door with a giant crack running up the bottom half... 

Also this large hole was right in the entry way ceiling. Note the tape "fixing" the pipe leak. Classy.

Living Room

 

Office - And yes, we do have the world's most giant home printer... Don't ask.

  

 

Kitchen - To save $$, we just painted the original cabinets, installed new updated hardware and tiled over the dingy existing counter top. That shiny stove has a good story with it... more on that later.

 

Dining Room - The only thing missing is some nice wainscoting. I wanted it but we were too busy making the rest of the house livable so I gave up that dream.

 

Powder Room - Just now noticed we have a light bulb out...Oops!

 

Master Bedroom

 

Master Bath - the before picture cannot adequately capture the grossness... Suffice it to say the previous users didn't appear to know that toilets and showers actually need to be cleaned. Yuck.

 

Bedroom 2

 

Bedroom 3

 

Bedroom 4 - I dunno on this one, maybe our guests would have enjoyed that lime green sponge rolled ceiling better. I guess now we'll never know.

Guest Bath - I actually don't even have a pic of this before because there was literally nothing here, just a wall with the bottom half ripped out and plumbing all exposed. Not sure where they brushed their teeth in here before... the shower?

 

Basement main room - also known as Maria's beloved play room

Additional room in basement

 

Basement unfinished area - laundry and storage. You're welcome for not taking before pictures of down here. It would have haunted your dreams. Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad. But they honestly had about ten cats living down here so I'll just leave you with that thought.

So there you have it! Honestly the very worst part of the house when we bought it was the overwhelming smoke and cat smell. Thanks to gallons and gallons and gallons of KILZ and paint and new floors and new trim and new light fixtures and new... well, you get the point, I can assure you that the house smells much better now. Even with the occasional poopy diaper.

And here's why I'm finally updating you on all this... wait for it... drumroll please... WE SOLD IT LAST WEEK! That's right! This very house that we poured our blood, sweat and tears into went on the market. These photos are from our realtor's photographer. The listing hit the sites early Wednesday morning without any photos. We had a showing that evening at 6:30 pm that resulted in an offer by 9:30 pm. While doing some negotiating, they showed the house three more times on Thursday. One of those showings came back again on Friday and made a full list price offer even though we are keeping most of the appliances.

So where will we live now?! Guess you'll just have to read the next post to find out... Stay tuned.

Dreams are coming true!

Our house, our dreams