Crack House Love

I've been holding out on you guys.

Yep, these past several months John and I (but mostly John) have been working behind the scenes on our biggest project to date:

A (former) crack house.

Cue the scary music!

[blood-curdling scream]

Yep, that's our baby! Or was, back when we bought it last November.

Brief back story: the house is a few streets down from ours, and we'd noticed 'For Sale' signs going up and down for over a year. We'd also been talking for a while about investing some of our savings in the neighborhood instead of the market, so finally, out of curiosity, we called on it. Turned out it was going up for auction that very afternoon, so after a hasty tour (yikes) we decided to put a low-ball bid in. And, huzzah! We got it!

Of course, our jubilation was short-lived when we realized we'd just purchased a total dump whose last occupants were forcefully evicted by the DEA. Hm. Yeeeeah.

We decided to leave the house until spring, because I had a book to write by February, and I needed John's help to keep the blogs going while I did. Then we started looking into insurance for the house, and realized we'd have to have it up to inspection standards within three months of closing to qualify for the insurance we needed.

Whoops.

So that's how we embarked on completely renovating a former crack house during the three months I had to also write CW book #2 and keep two blogs running.

It was...interesting.

John made the deadline with literally only hours to spare, and then we spent another month or two on the final finishing details.

But, now we're done! And I HAS PICTURES!!

So sit back, relax, and prepare to be scared wit-less by my 'before' photos. [evil grin]

First, a closer look at the exterior:

That's the front door on the left. (And also John's hand.)

Actually, compared to the inside the exterior wasn't so bad. There were shutters missing, lots of overgrown weeds, and plenty of wood rot on this side (the rest was concrete block), but to me the worst part was the big hump in the front yard, which looked like it had a septic tank under it:

Ok, so it's hard to see here, but trust me: there was a big ugly hump there.
(Fortunately we learned later there was no septic tank, though.)

Here's the other side of the front:

Ready to see the "after"?

Ta-da!

The yard hump is gone, plus all of the overgrown yuckiness. Those are all new bushes, plants, and stone edgers, plus new wood siding around the glass doors, not to mention new doors, windows, lighting, and even grass, which has grown in a lot more since this photo was taken.

Everything is freshly painted, too, although I convinced John to use a similar soft green (just a few shades lighter) because I liked it with the red brick.

Now, to the inside!

This was the large open living area, which has a vaulted ceiling:

The floors were a combination of peeling stick-down tile, bare concrete, dirt, and duct tape.

Facing the opposite direction, looking down the hall:

To the right were glass sliding doors, which led out onto some kind of zombie apocalypse:

Seriously, aren't you expecting to see homicidal brain-munchers pop out of that jungle any second?

You can just see the steps up to the rotting deck out there, too. It was built so that all the rainwater flooded backwards into the house. Nice.

Here's the "After":

New tile, trim, doors, vents, electrical, paint, drywall, texture...um, you get the idea.

Once John and a few handy friends finished ripping out the rotting deck, they found a concrete foundation under it. Trouble was, one corner of the concrete square was completely gone - cut or broken away. So, after a little puzzling, this was our solution:

We made that corner into a plant bed! Not too shabby, right? Then John painted the concrete (which already had several chippy layers of paint on it) and cleared out most of the jungle that was the backyard. Now it's actually a nice place to sit in; no more zombie hidey-holes.

Believe it or not, this was the kitchen:

Those top cabinets were rusty metal, and barely hanging on to the walls. And don't get me started on the giant mirror and bathroom vanity lighting. [shudder] I don't have more photos because this was the first room to get ripped out, but believe me: the whole thing was nasty.

And here's the dramatically different kitchen today:

I begged John to knock that hole in the wall over the sink to open up the room. He had to re-route both plumbing and electrical to do it, but I'm so glad he did; I love the look.

Here's another angle, showing off our Ikea lighting:

In fact, other than the countertops and handles, the whole kitchen is Ikea. We've now installed at least four complete Ikea kitchens, for ourselves and for friends, and we'll probably never use anything else. You just can't beat the price and the quality.

Here's a before view from the dining room:

As you can see, this was taken after the kitchen was ripped out.

Now here's the after:

Oh, and see that door there? It leads outside, and used to look like this:

We also found random bits of drywall that were cut out and propped back in place, we assume as hiding places for nefarious goods. Ah, the former homes of drug dealers...

Who's ready to tackle a bathroom?

Groovy.

Drum roll, please:


And can't forget the shower:

That was fun. Let's do another:

Ew.

Double "Ew".

Muuuch better.

I don't have many before photos of the bedrooms, but they all kind of looked like this:


And the ceilings looked like this:


All the doors had extra locks and bolts on them, too, and were scratched up and filthy. Cheery.


Now all the bedrooms look like this:

Again, it's new everything. So nice and clean!

And finally, there was the garage-turned-mother-in-law-suite. It was a decent room with its own bath and exterior entrance, but...

...it was in about the same shape as the rest of the house.

Plus it had a plumbing leak overhead:

The water had caused the ceiling to fall down, so it was nailed up around the edges.

This bathroom was in the best shape of them all, since it was only about 20 or 30 years old - as opposed to 50 like the others:

Still, due to the plumbing trouble, John had to re-plumb much of the house. So all the bathrooms got torn down to the studs.

And in the end:

Here's the view from the door:

Those sliders lead out to the driveway. As garage conversions go, this one's not too shabby.

And that's our crack house remodel! Hope you enjoyed the tour. John's poured his blood, sweat, and colorful curse words into this thing, and after re-plumbing, rewiring, and in many cases building from the studs up, we can honestly say it's beautiful both inside and out. In fact, the building inspector (not knowing John had done most of the work) told him it was some of the best plumbing, wiring, remodeling, etc. he'd ever seen in a house. You should have seen the grin John couldn't wipe off his face that week. It was adorable.

SO...

...anyone want to buy a house?

:D

Yep, with our unexpected tax bill this year, and all the extra expenses to repair the many surprises, I'm afraid we have to sell our beloved crack house. (Not to mention stop calling it "the crack house." Ha!) Keep your fingers crossed for us, guys; it's not an easy time to sell a house, as I'm sure most of you know. Still, I'm hopeful some family is going to see it and love it as much as we do now.

I'll leave you with my favorite shot: the front door.

I made the magnolia wreath (for only $14!) to go with the big magnolia tree in the yard. Isn't it pretty?

What's that? You want a close-up? Well, if you insist:

Well, [dusting off hands], that's done. Time to turn our attention back to our own house.

Oh, Jooo-ooohn!