Before and not-so-before Part 6

In case you missed Larry's FB spoiler the other day, the big news is that we FINALLY have a contractor and his guys started working on Saturday!  There is now lots of activity at WBC.  But before I get to that, I wanted to highlight some of the other stuff that we did over the last 8 months while we were waiting for the real show to begin.  So here's the Before and not-so-before for the bathroom.  If it's true that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses, it should be no surprise that it took months for this house to sell.  It takes a very special/crazy group of people to see beyond the disaster that is the only bathroom at WBC.

Clearly, it's not entirely unredeemable.  That tub is pretty cool; I found a reproduction available for only $3,400.00, so I think we're going to keep it.  We are going to try and keep the sink too.  The toilet...not so much.  I have no sentimentality about the toilet.

The shower was added at some point much later, and apparently done badly because the outside of the house shows some resulting water damage and mold.

For the most part the paneling was like that in the kitchen and sleeping room.  It was cardboard like with wooden strips between the sheets.  So we first removed the strips and then pulled the cardboard off.

The shower surround was solid plastic and it came off in very large sections.  I was working by myself that day and getting the large sheets out the door was tricky to do alone.  To my disappointment, though, the glue residue on the wall is pretty bad.  We plan to tile that wall anyway, but unlike some of the other rooms, pulling off the wall board in the bathroom was not a major improvement.

The medicine cabinet came out in one piece so we are going to try and restore it too.

Check out how large that linen closet is.  Our thought is to relocate a tankless hot water heater here to give us more space in the mudroom.

And of course after we pulled off the wall board, we still had to pull all the old nails that held it up.

"WE" again in the general sense.  I don't think I was very helpful at the nail pulling.

That's all from Wisteria Bend for now.

Christy

Before and...not-so-before part 5

Ah the kitchen.  Always a hot topic on those home renovation shows.  Even without a finished product you can really see the potential in this kitchen.  So let's get started.

These are the original 1920s cabinets, complete with glass doors and most of the original crystal pulls. And even though the sink is in rough shape at one corner, we are definitely going to keep it. We were told that underneath the laminate counter is a solid piece of cypress. 

The stove and dishwasher were later additions and of course, the plumbing and electrical for those appliances is frightening. Originally, the house had a wood stove, and you can see the stove pipe cover.  Behind that jog in the wall is a brick chimney that we plan to expose later down the road. It's amazing to me how much more obvious the grime is in the photos. The same weird cardboard wall covering was used in the kitchen as was used in the sleeping room.

Just off the kitchen is a mudroom, which had been retrofit with a washer and dryer hookup, as well as the hot water heater.

The breakfast nook in the kitchen has the most water damage.

Check these two out! And yes, I bedazzled my pink hardhat. 

This was probably one of the filthiest things I've done in my entire life. Decades of dust, dirt, and vermin droppings in the Texas heat.  Yuck.

But you can see that beautiful wood beginning to peek through.

We tried to leave the ceiling for last because we knew it was going to be the most disgusting.

And it definitely was. The ceiling boards were so loaded with dust and nastiness that they came down with very little assistance in eight-foot sections.

It took some serious sweeping and vacuuming to clean up the mess.

And of course, you need proper supervision...

And there she is. Even with the termite damage on the right side you can see the sheen on that wood.

That's all from Wisteria Bend for now.

Christy

Before and not-so-before part 4

Today's before and not-so-before post is about my absolute favorite room in the house:  the sunroom, which we also call the sleeping room for reasons I will explain below.  The sunroom is the back of the house connecting to the kitchen and to the second bedroom.

Here's the before:

I'm not entirely sure what they were going for here.  It's almost as if they wanted it to look like the Tudor half-timbered houses?  I don't know...

We delicately removed the groovy 60s pendant light...surely someone will want it.

The paneling was on the walls as well as the ceiling; basically any place that wasn't a window.

It was some sort of weird particle board.  It wasn't exactly drywall, but not it was definitely some type of paper product.  It was nailed to the wall and then the rows of nails were covered with the strips of wood. After we pulled the strips, we could just tear the particle board off as if it was just a normal piece of cardboard.  But what was left behind were rows of nails that we eventually had to pull out too.

And the not-so-before:

With three of us working, it only took a day to pull it all down.

You can sort of see little bits beneath the window that we just couldn't get out.  We are probably going to leave those for the pros later.

After we got all the particle board off, we saw this writing on the boards:

Though it is tough to see, it says sleeping room. Isn't that cool?

That's all from Wisteria Bend for now.

Christy