The Money Pit - Before & Later

Four years ago today, escrow closed and I officially acquired my money pit.  So first of all, let it be written and let it be known - I am a saver, not a spender.  So this whole mortgage thing, and fixer upper (money hemorrhage), has been quite an interesting experience.

Why'd I do it? Well, In my twenties I had this notion that if I wasn't married when I turned thirty - I'd buy a house.  But houses (especially out here) are super expensive, and I never actually thought it would happen.  Besides, I was thinking farmhouse, or ranch out in the country, somewhere I could buy the thing outright.  But then the housing market crashed.  And my first niece was born three weeks before my 30th birthday, so I didn't want to leave the area and miss seeing her (babies are my favorite!).  And affording a house in the Bay Area became a slight possibility - if I got a large mortgage.  Blasted debt, guess there's a first time for everything!

So I started looking nearby, and surprisingly found a fixer-upper with most of my requirements.  I wanted a fixer, needed the manual labor to put my focus into - to keep me sane (and drive me nuts).  It was in a safe neighborhood, had a big yard, newer roof and water heater.  It was a short sale.  I offered 2/3 of what the house had sold for two years earlier and 50k less than their asking price (thank you housing market crash).  They took my offer but left it open for other offers - which they didn't get, and a couple months later the bank approved it.

Happy New Year 2009, let the renovations begin.  And the spending.  Talk about painful.  But I learned something about money.  There's no sentimentality attached to a dollar.  You can always make more.  And when your projects take A LOT longer than you expected, you don't run out of it so fast.

Originally I thought, a couple months and I'll have the house and yard pretty well done.  Haha, four years later I still haven't started the front yard.  Granted, I have taken a year off, but ya live and learn.  And realize how little time you have when you are just one person and have to go to work every day, and can't focus entirely on projects.

Here's the house when I bought it - kinda lame that the garage door is open and you can't see it in the pic.  It was awesome.  Super old one panel, totally sliced my hand trying to open it manually on the old spring.  And it's hard to see the bars on the windows since the badly untrimmed tree is hanging so low.  Yep, bars.  Illegal bars with no release.  Only house in the neighborhood with bars.  Story from the realtor was the garage got broken into once, and the family had a cousin, who would do the bars cheap, so they did.

And here's a later pic.  I haven't done anything with the landscaping yet, that's on hold for the moment for a few very good reasons.  But the bars are gone.  My brother-in-law sawed them off with a saws-all since the bolts were welded to the frames.  And I paid a company to put in a new garage door with super quiet opener (best decision ever).  Put in a new front door.  Had to have the chimney rebuilt because it was cracked clean through (probably from the 1989 earthquake).  And I painted the house.  Yep, did that myself.

Whether it's painting a canvas or a wall, I know my way around a paint brush.  The house had been painted the not-so-lovely (in my opinion) bright yellow less than a year before, so no prep work was necessary other than hosing it down.  I used a tiny fan brush to do the edges by the eaves (I've sworn off painters tape - vile, useless stuff), and painted one wall a weekend for a month, voila new look.  Much better.  Why green?  Well, I grew up in a green house, but left for school one day and came home to find my parents had the painters paint it gray.  Guess I never got over that.  So I went back to green.

Moving to the inside.  The former owners had, shall we say - brighter/bolder taste than I.  The shade of yellow they used on most of the inside belongs quite nicely on my favorite Mexican restaurant down the street - not on my walls.  Lots of primer and paint layers later - totally different place.  And here's what I have to say about painting interiors ... painting one room - no problem! ... painting an entire house, insanity!  Many thanks to the friends and family who came to help at the painting parties, couldn't have managed without you!

This was the front wall in the living room.  Note the lovely 1950's soffit (pointless, nothing was under it), the fake brick facade (glued on top of nice real brick), and the fun discovery that the wall wasn't drywall - it was two thicknesses of painted over paneling.  So glad my brother-in-law loves demolition!  But the one thing I did save was the wall mounted mantle.  I liked it.

And a later pic.  Paid to have someone put in new drywall (I will try it myself someday, it's totally on my bucket list, but I was in a hurry). Also paid someone to put in "can" lights over the mantle and re-route the electrical outlets in the wall.  I did get very familiar with electricity switching out all the outlets and most of the light switches in the house for new ones.  But not rewiring.  If I want to tackle that, I can replace the old knob and tube stuff still going in half the house... a fixer upper is never done!

What did I do? Besides the obvious change in wall color - put in new molding around the reclaimed original brick fireplace, and new base boards and crown molding, built new window sills (with help from the bro-in-law!).  Wonderful that he worked at a cabinet shop and had access to necessary tools.  And some decorating.  That large blank wall is on purpose.  It was a requirement in my housing search - need a sufficient place to project movies on!

And a close up of the mantle - showing off the lights!

The dining room.  Same story, paint, moldings, oh and let me talk about the floors.  The previous occupants had little dogs, and smoked.  Carpet was super nasty.  When I pulled it up, found it was supposed to be light beige.  AND I found a sticker saying it had been put in only two years earlier!  So crazy gross.  But we left it at first in lieu of painting tarps, and then ripped it out when the painting was done.  Once again paid someone - this time to refinish the existing hardwood floors throughout the house.  Turned out pretty fantastic!  Oh, and I do have curtains for those windows, they just weren't up when the picture was taken.

Here are the bedrooms, pretty much more of the same - floors, paint, molding, oh, and I did get new windows in this one:

Exchanged original wall color, for something more my style.  And I bought a floor rug for this room (not wall to wall carpeting, just a rug that goes wall to wall), since it's the kiddos playroom and carpet is way more comfortable than hardwood.  And I removed a wallpaper border that had been painted over - didn't realize two of the walls were also entirely wallpaper.  Oops.  Someday maybe I'll remove it.

My room.  Was a nasty gray-green color, even in the closet...

I prefer a warm off white (and white inside the closet).  And yes, I do indeed have a princess bed.  Always wanted a four poster canopy someday, but then I thought, what if I marry some dude and he doesn't want to sleep in a princess bed?  Haha, so I bought it for myself, like eight or nine years ago.  Marriage hasn't been a problem yet...

And the last bedroom, the office.  Here you get a good look at those illegal bars that were on ALL of the windows.  So awesome.  First thing to go.  I don't particularly like feeling like I'm in prison!

And a more current picture.  This has become Destructo's sanctuary since the big fight...  The "rug" in this room is just a bunch of 18x24in carpet samples ($2 ea) from Home Depot with anti-skid stuff under them.  Makes it super easy to clean a section.  I remember when I was little, my brother had patchwork carpet in his room, and I always loved it!

Oh yeah, and I installed closet doors in the office.  That was fun.  Measured the opening and bought louvered bi-fold doors, but got home to discover that the closet header was designed for sliding type doors... oops.  So I put the project off for a while.  But no worries, I did get them in eventually, all it took was a steady hand with a jigsaw and a lot of sanding.

And now - the bathroom...!  Note to self: if ever you go to another open house, or walk-though, make sure to pick up the bathroom rug to make sure there aren't ancient remnants of one cemented to the linoleum!  Kudos to my sister who spent several hours with a bottle of cleaner and a plastic knife scraping it off - good as new! 

Other than that - I think I painted the walls five times before being happy with the color.  I detest the little swatches you get at the store to pick a paint color, so useless.  I finally just bought some tints and mixed my own custom color right there in the bathroom.  Yes I can be a bit of a control freak - and I'm used to mixing my own paint colors, so much easier than trying to describe to the paint people what changes I want.

I painted the cabinet and mirror deep brown, and replaced the hardware, toilet seat, put in a new light fixture.  And the caulk on the tub.  Totally disgusting.  I think it was cement.  Had to chip it out with a hammer and chisel.  And paid plumbers to copper re-pipe the house.  Water pressure was pretty bad.

As for the rest of the house, don't think I got before pictures of the yellow hallway, or the dark brown interior coat closet. But once again, some coats of paint fixed those.

So last but not least: the kitchen.  It took me about nine months to do the kitchen.  Nine months of living with a two cubic foot fridge and a tiny microwave.
My healthy eating suffered a bit...

The before pic doesn't do it justice.  Way yuckier in person.  White textured wallpaper.  Grease coated maple cabinets with flaking off finish.  And a floor that looked dirty even when clean.  The ancient windows wouldn't even open!  And super ugly florescent light fixtures with matching wallpaper pasted on the ends.  That stove contraption was awful.  No bueno.

But the cabinets were custom, hardwood, and with nice glass inserts.  So I decided to try my hand at refinishing them.  Which is why it took so long.  Stripping finish off cabinets in a sweltering kitchen on a 100+ degree day in the middle of summer is not one of my favorite memories.  I don't think I did a very good job on the cabinets, got fed up at the end and no longer cared.  But it was my first try, so oh well.  Now I will know better if I'm ever crazy enough to try it again!

And - the after.  Wallpaper gone.  New windows.  Replaced lighting with fancy track lights.  Personally installed a floating linoleum floor over the old one.  So, I got a little perfectionisty with some of the cuts on that floor, probably 3 hours each to cut precisely around the molding on the door jams, but I'm glad every time I look at those pieces.  If you come over I'll show you.  A professional dude would probably have just cut it close enough and filled the gaps with caulk!  Anyway, refinished cabinets, and all new appliances.  Oh, yeah, and put wood under the cabinets at the toe kick - after ripping out the old plastic stuff.

I like it.

And yes, I left the original teal formica countertops.  Someday maybe I'll replace them with granite, or corian, and put in a nice backsplash.  If they had been tile, I definitely would have replaced them - I hate grout.  But formica is functional, free (since it's already there), and the color is fun.  A bit whimsy, nothing I would have ever picked out in the first place.

And that's the status of my money pit.  Always projects to do if I want them, and (knock on wood) nothing new has broken recently, so I'm enjoying it.  Love not sharing walls or having people living under or above me.  So with all the headaches and expenses, I guess I still would recommend the experience.