House Tour: Upstairs Bathroom Before

I can remember the first time mom and I walked through this house. The owners were showing it themselves, because it was up for auction. I stepped into this bathroom, turned and said to mom, "we're going to have to factor a bathroom remodel right into the budget for this house." She agreed. We both knew it couldn't stay like that for long.

Once the paperwork was finalized and the P.O.s moved out (five weeks of me renting to them), I finally got the house all to myself. Little did I know then... But I always knew this bathroom had to go. I've even thought it could have made a good entry for American Standard's Ugliest Bathroom Contest. But they don't seem to do that anymore.

These photos were taken in September 2003. Once upon a time, there was a claw foot tub in here, but it was long gone by the time I arrived. I'd guess 1970s?

The ceiling was low, the lighting was ugly, the floor was squishy, the tub was shorter than normal at 4-1/2', its faucet leaky, any natural daylight was almost completely blocked by the weird shower wall addition, daddy couldn't even get to the plumbing access panel...

...that's about 10" there, people.
If your eyes can get past the nasty, teal with gold veins ...laminate?... wall panels, you can see they butchered the poor header on the medicine cabinet with that hideous 80s lighting.
The toilet also leaked. Alot. We woke up one morning to water dripping from the ceiling right onto the kitchen counter! I would have been a whole lot more disgusted if we had actually been using the kitchen at the time. Anyway, the downstairs bathroom wasn't yet completed, so my dad's solution was to turn the water off to the toilet (luckily it was the ingoing water that was leaking, not the, erm, outgoing). This did not render the bathroom unusable, however, because all we had to do was collect water dripping from the tub faucet into a bucket, and voila! Instant use of wasted water. The tub faucet was leaking about a gallon of water every two hours. Daddy intended to fix it, but he said the whole thing had to be replaced, he couldn't reach the plumbing, and we were going to gut this room in less than a year, so...

Check out the gold vein on that counter surface. Not matching, but coordinating.Just wait till you see all we did to this room. You may not recognise it. Once we realized how bad the water damage was, this room had to be torn down to the studs. And then some of those even had to be sistered. We bumped two walls out, raised the ceiling, leveled the floor, well, you'll see...

House Tour: Back Bedroom Before

Oh, my, folks. Here we are, nearly at the end of our house tour, and we find ourselves in the room where it all began. This is the back bedroom. It fills the back dormer of the bungalow. Once upon a time this was a rather small bedroom, with a sleeping porch. Somewhere along the line, a P.O. (a stupid P.O.) enclosed the sleeping porch to make a larger bedroom. Okay idea in theory. In practice, however...

Porch floors are meant to be sloped away from the house, so that rainwater will drain off the floor, much like a roof. Well, this particularly lazy P.O. couldn't even be bothered to level the floor, or replace what were most likely already rotten floor boards. Nah, let's just glue cheap office carpet over the whole shebang. And never mind the drop in ceiling height. Doesn't that look ridiculous? Unfortunately, at this juncture, there is nothing reasonable that I can do to fix this. It would cost an arm and a leg to do what I'd really like to do: recreate the roof over this section so that it blends seamlessly with the rest of the house. Oh, well. Maybe if I win the lottery.

So this section of roof and ceiling is more problematic than just aesthetically displeasing. It had also been leaking for a very, very long time when I got the house. In fact, before Jeff the electrician had put one tiny hole in the wall, this ceiling came a-tumblin' down.

I wasn't even living at the bungalow yet, but stopped in daily to check on progress. One evening, late, I popped in just to see if Jeff had gotten started yet. As I was looking around the upstairs bathroom, I kept hearing this dripping sound. I followed it to the back bedroom, where a great sheet of drywall from the ceiling had come down from the center, almost like it was on a hinge. I couldn't even comprehend what had happened at first.

As it turns out, my P.O.'s P.O.s had known the roof over this section was bad more than a decade before. My dad and grandfather actually submitted a bid to do the repairs, but when the owners saw the price tag, the balked. Apparently they decided no action was the route to take.

Fast forward to November of 2003. So I see this huge section of drywall hanging onto the ceiling by nothing more than drywall tape at one end, and I hear the sound of dripping water, the carpet is saturated. Then I look up. The insulation is all wet, dripping. And dark. Really dark. Oh my God. Black with mold. Panic. Frantic call to mom, cutting up large trash bags to cover the floor, as if that would protect it. Little did I know, that floor was way beyond saving.

Over the following few weeks, all the rotten and moldy stuff was torn out by Bill, who then replaced the rotten floor with one that is solid and mostly level. It is an old house after all, and while Bill is great, there is only so much one can do in some situations. Bill also tore out all the wet drywall and moldy insulation, swabbed the remaining structure down with Clorox, allowed it to dry, then replaced the insulation and installed blueboard. Many months later the plaster guys gave that blueboard a nice skim coat.

Notice that little door there? Well that leads to a storage cubby under the eaves. The other three eaves are utilized by bedroom closets, but this one is next to the bathroom. It is a pretty cool feature, kids seem to think it is cool, and Oli always insists on following me in there, even though it is a small space.Take note of that dead space behind the door. When we get to the after pictures, you'll notice a change. And of course, another giant closet, complete with loose, real linoleum.

House Tour: Side Bedroom Before

Well, I guess most of the trouble with this room was merely cosmetic.

The chestnut trim in this room received its first coat of paint in the 70s- purple. Yup. I've spoken with two grown-up ladies who lived in this house as teenagers during that time, in fact their mother was the first to paint the woodwork, and they told me that this had been their room. So when their mom was in her painting frenzy, the girls got a purple bedroom. Well, purple and white are our school colors, you know. In fact, my aunts are about the same age, and they also shared a purple bedroom. Go figure.I'd say, aside from the ugly ceiling fan, hideous curtains, and the bad stenciling, this room was in fairly decent shape. Oh, yeah. Except for under the windows. You see that strip of paint off the wall under the left window? Well, that paint has peel off, not off of plaster, as you might expect, but off of plywood. Yes. Plywood. Painted to blend with the rest of the room. Hardly noticeable. Only trouble is, hmm... why is there plywood under the windows? Could it be... a water problem? Ding, ding, ding! That's right! A water problem. Now, P.O.s, why would you address the cause of the water problem, when you can just cover it over? Why go to the added expense? I'll bet you already had that hunk of plywood lying around, too, didn't you? Idiots.
And that little Wal-Mart gem of a carpet should look just fine in the basement someday. Nice generous closet here, too. This one seems to be a bit bigger than the others, and has a bit more headroom, therefore, Lewis claimed this one for his own.

House Tour: Front Bedroom Before

Welcome to the front bedroom. This bedroom is the front "dormer" that you can see in pictures of the front of the house. This is the only room in the whole house whose trim work was never painted. The floors were in pretty good condition, too. Now, the curtains hiding that beautiful chestnut trim had to go. As well as the cheap and ugly ceiling fan.
Gotta love the basketball hoop attached to the back of the solid chestnut, five-panel door. And the commercial grade garcy strip shelving system. Neanderthals.
Someday I'll get around to removing the paint from that brass collar on the glass knob. I can't even figure out how it got painted, since that door is in original condition. P.O.s baffle me.
The attic access is through the closet, which is under the eaves. I'm really lucky to have such big closets in a house this old. It was definitely one of the selling points.

House Tour: Upstairs Hall Before

In September of 2003...
This is the upstairs hall, looking toward the front of the house, door to the front bedroom straight ahead, door to the side bedroom on the right, door to the linen closet on the left, and just next to that is the staircase to the first floor.
This is a good view of bad plaster patching. Don't worry, that's all fixed now. The open door on the left is to the back bedroom, and the open door on the right is to the bathroom. We made some major modifications to this area to enlarge the bathroom, but nothing you would notice today if I didn't point it out. Which I will do. So keep this spot in mind when we get to the back bedroom and the upstairs bathroom.

House Tour: Staricase Before

In September 2003... Bland carpet, painted balusters, painted woodwork...
The view from the upstairs hall, showing the landing and its window. Nice curtains, huh? Gotta love that skinny wallpaper border, too. Really. The crooked, aged plaster ceiling is where you want to draw the eye, right?

House Tour: Downstairs Bathroom Before

The downstairs bathroom in September 2003... I was very glad to have a second bathroom in the house at all. And it served its purpose. But when we realized we were going to have to tear out the whole bathroom upstairs, I decided we needed to have a place to shower during the renovation of the upstairs bathroom.


This teeny-weenie sink and toilet would go, and they would be reversed in position before it was all said and done. This was the only way we could fit a sink, toilet and shower into this tiny space. Plus, it kept all the hot water lines along an interior wall.
Also, I'll never understand why they would have gone out and purchased a cheap, hollow-core door for this room when there were two five-panel doors, original to the house, in perfect condition, stashed away in the attic. Duh.

This disgusting little pantry closet (part of the back hall) would become the spot for the shower. I really can't believe they kept food there. It had no ceiling. It was just open at the top. Open to anything that might be living in those two feet above the drop ceiling. Ew.

House Tour: Oliver's Room Before

In September 2003...
The view from the kitchen to the back hall. The open back door leads to the back yard.

This is the back hall, a tiny space with a big radiator, 70s paneling, vinyl flooring, and drop ceilings.

I suspect the wire hanging above the radiator was a place to dry clothes.
The back hall is adjacent to this room, which we called the back porch room for the two years before Oliver arrived.

The back porch room suffered many afflictions: 1950s paneling, no lighting, an ugly ceiling fan, no heat, another "trailer window" which did not open, a lowered ceiling covered in tiles. Remember my previous owner's affection for wall shelves?
However, this room did have some snazzy built-ins. Monsterously heavy drawers, built out of plywood and paneling, sometime in the 1950s. These had to go, but we kept the drawers, built new frames for them, put them on heavy-duty gliders, and they now house tools, painting supplies, etc. in the basement.
Take a close look at the floor in the photo above. That is a change in the flooring. On the left is the portion that used to be part of the dining room, then there was a transition strip of duct tape, then the original porch floor. They just had a piece of carpet loose over this floor- no padding.
The lovely French doors, painted white, that lead to the dining room.

I certainly wouldn't have wanted to use this room as my bedroom: no heat, no ventilation, no natrual light, no privacy. Nice, huh?

House Tour: Kitchen Before

The kitchen in September 2003...
While the kitchen had a lot of cosmetic issues, it had one good thing going for it: all those cabinets.


Now, I don't think they are original to the house, but I suspect they date to the 1950s. The hardware that was there was that black stuff often seen between the 50s to the 70s, which wouldn't have been so bad, but at some point someone decided it would all look better if spray painted gold. But then the gold started to rub off and you could see the black again. Nice.


Then there is the "trailer window". It was placed too high for me to see out of, didn't open for ventilation, and didn't let much light in. I would hate to think this was original, I sort of doubt it, but I have no way of knowing for sure.


Speaking of the lightning, there were only two light sources in this kitchen: the fancy swag light, not placed near any work surface, and the scary flourescent tube above the sink, with its brittle cord you had to plug in to turn on. The previous owners left all of the kitchen appliances. The fridge, which is on its last legs, the electric stove, which was in full working order, the gas stove, which had never been used (did I mention they had a fear of losing electricity?), and the roll away dishwasher. I did appreciate the dishwasher, but it really made for a crowded workspace with all these extra appliances.

Also, please note the lovely laminate counter and walls. They had streaks of "gold". That must have inspired the repainting of the knobs and hinges. While we are talking about the surface coverings, don't you just love the 1970s paneling on the walls? And the ceiling tiles? How about the vinyl flooring, with the rectangular cut right in the middle? Really special.

I took great pleasure in tearing the flooring out myself. The ceiling tiles came down after we realized the intake water supply to the upstairs toilet was leaking. Right onto the kitchen counter, right about where the green fan is sitting.

Have I mentioned how much the previous owners liked shelves?

And there is a good shot of that swag fixture, casting more light than it did in real life.
The door way above leads to the back porch room, now known as Oliver's room.

House Tour: Dining Room Before

The Dining Room, as it looked in September 2003...

Really, no too bad. Bland wall color. Really poor treatment of that beautiful bank of windows. The glass shelves across the windows were really special, too. These people really had a thing for wall mounted shelves. They were all over the place. The plate rail around the top wasn't bad, but it had to be removed when we moved the wall, and we discovered that it was definitely not original, and was very cheaply made. Also the chair rail was added at a later date.
It took me a little while to figure out what was wrong with this room. The proportions were wrong, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. In the picture below, to the left of the French doors, you'll notice a strange lumpy line running down the wall, right above the radiator. It is hard to tell from these pictures, but that is the edge of the bump out. You see, sometime in the past, probably in the 1950s or 60s, someone enclosed the back porch to make a bedroom. And they moved the dining room wall to make the bedroom slightly larger. Once I figured out what threw this room off, I knew it would bug me until I would be able to move it back to its original location. I just didn't know it would be so soon...
Note the fabulous press-board entertainment unit the previous owners left for me, mostly because they couldn't fit it on their moving van.

There are two radiators in this room. They should be about the same size, and they flank the window bump out. As some point, probably when they moved the wall, someone swapped the second small radiator from the dining room and put it in the living room. They took one that was almost twice as big and made it the second one in the dining room. I can only assume this was done to provide extra heat to this tiny, make-shift bedroom. Even now, it is cold back there, and before we rearranged walls there was no heat source in that space, which is also over an un-insulated part of the basement. Burr.

The doorway to the kitchen was also no longer in its original location. It should have been about 32" wide with a swinging door. The door is still here, and it is in beautiful condition. I was very lucky. Many of the original doors were still tucked here and there around the house. Also, don't you just love the 60s-70s "chandelier"? Brass AND wood.
Although I like the plate rail, we never put it back up after we moved the wall. We would have had to replicate the brackets (which I have hung on to), and by the time we were even at the stage to even think about it, almost all of the shelf board had been re-purposed.

For such a simple room, it really looks different today.

House Tour: Living Room Before

In September of 2003...

Notice the one tiny radiator for this big room.
Don't you just love the thermal drapes- too short on the big tripple window, way too long on the itty-bitty square windows. Classy.
And the disproportionately small gas fireplace.
But, overall, not bad, right? At the time, I thought we would just paint, clean, and I would move in. Boy, was I wrong.