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We’re coming up to 6 months after moving, and it’s nice to see the changes that have happened already. I’ll post some ‘after’ pics later. I give us ~ 10 years till it’s all ship shape.
This house is a bigger ‘thing’ than I can adequately describe. We knew we wanted something that wasn’t a cookie cutter house, that probably needed some work, was quite central and walkable and (hopefully) had some land. It has filled every goal (which we thought was impossible) and then some!
The lady who sold it to us is the daughter of the man who built it ~60 years ago. They came from up north when this whole area was orchards, (Campbell is known as the “Orchard City”) and built the house while the family lived in tents. For the last 10 years the lady had been living here with her mother, and when her mother died last year, the lady’s siblings wanted the house sold. It’s quite sad really, but the lady didn’t want the house ‘flipped’ and we can guarantee that’s not what we’re doing.
We knew it needed some work….. here’s a sample of what’s happened.
There used to be a diner type kitchen nook below, but the contents of the seats were hanging out, and there was 10 years worth of cat pee down the back. We ripped out the whole thing, and put up some temporary dry wall. The boys get to decorate it. When we redo the kitchen, we’ll probably put a new nook up. Maybe in the future we’ll put a door to a deck and stairs to the garden.
Kitchen "nook"
More nook
Before we moved in, we had the living room and bedrooms painted, bathroom sink and counter replaced (surprise job), cat pee covered particle board floor in laundry room pulled up, toilet replaced, door replaced, carpet in the boys’ room, er that’s it and a bunch of minor stuff. This is the kitchen, which I was trying to bleach from top to bottom, while our friend was using it for his work stuff.
Kitchen
Not the best pic.
The bathroom sink pre-replacement. We thought the tap was the only thing that needed it, but when we tried to remove the old, leaky tap, the whole sink broke. It had been corroding for years. The sink was recessed, so the counter had to come off. They built things ‘well’ 60 years ago, so there was 2″ of cement and chicken wire under the tiles. We’ll see how we manage changing the floor one day.
Like the hardware? Should have sold it on Craigslist to some retro-fiend.
A big surprise repair was the pipe to the water main. We had noticed a corroded faucet outside that (upon closer inspection) was leaking. We dug down and found a nice big puddle. Our friend came by with a band of merry men and dug up the mains pipe. The whole pipe was so corroded that it had to be replaced.
Notice the unconnected pipe?
The unconnected pipe, we guessed, was someone trying to replace a portion of the old pipe, deciding it was too difficult and filling it all back in! We replaced the pipe from the mains to the house but it didn’t end there. It turns out the chap who built the house had some interesting ideas about plumbing. After our friend replaced the pipe from the tap to the street none of the toilets worked. After digging everything back up, he found that the toilets were added as an afterthought, and were plumbed separately to the mains. We thought that extra pipe to the leaky faucet was the defunct sprinkler system (still haven’t found the connection to that).
One of the merry band.
More pipe!
Our friend brought his daughter over to play with the boys. They had a lovely time getting muddy.
Muddy handprints everywhere.
Replacing the door downstairs meant cutting out some of the floor, as the lady had installed (nice) pergo over the old floor, raising it an inch or two. New, energy efficient doors come with snug frames and very little clearance of the floor. So we had to lay some tile.
The tile place threw in the Fleur de Lis fo free.
Walter mudding... or something.
Back door during installation. The chickens made themselves right at home.
Hello. Feed us.
Spot the boy in the moving mayhem.
Lastly, our first breakfast in our new house. This was wasn’t uncomplicated either. The lady took the fridge when she moved, and we thought she was leaving it. The one I bought was delivered 5 days after we moved in. Lucky it was winter! The milk even lasted. It probably helped that the thermostat was busted, so heat was eratic too.
Nothing like bacon to get over the shock.
I love this house!
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Dude, where's my country? 