First look

Today I’m going to give you a bit more of a glimpse into what our house looked like when we agreed to purchase it.  (So be prepared for a pretty long post) The house had been a foreclosure and was vacant for about a year.  A real estate group purchased the house in December, to begin the work of renovating it.  

2 months later is where we come in.  We had been looking for houses for a while and finally found one to put an offer on.  We were outbid but the seller happened to be this real estate group.  He suggested we come and check out this house and they would offer it to us at the same price as the one we just lost out on.  The house was definitely in construction mode when we saw it for the first time.  They had removed a couple walls and the house felt very open and had a nice flow.  Because it was in the beginning stages of a remodel, we were told we could have a say in some of the finishes and paint.

To give you an idea of the state of the house, here are some photos of the day we saw it for the first time.  (please pardon the blurry cell phone photos)

The first photo shows the kitchen and dining room.  They took down a wall between the two and had framed out where the cabinets and bar would be going.  They had also put down the tile on the kitchen floor.  The entire house had the green paint on both the walls and the ceilings.  The walls were also covered in stains and dirt.  

Gross, right?  But we continued on.  We have one full bathroom on the main floor.  Here is what that looked like…..

This room was being used as a catch-all at this point.  They had ripped out the walk-in shower, toilet, vanity and all the tile.

The basement may have been the worse part of the house.  According to several people we’ve talked to, the family that had lived here had as many as 12-15 people living in this house at one time.  The basement had a small kitchen and another full bathroom.  All the ceiling tiles were either stained or just missing.  There was even some adult magazine and medical paraphernalia scattered on the floor.  

We loved the fact that the basement so big and open and had a fireplace and bathroom.  Eventually we will add a small kitchen or wet bar in this area.

Oh look, there’s the kitchen cabinets they took out.

While there were many things about the house that we were concerned with, there were a lot of pluses.  The windows, furnace, water heater and kitchen would all be new.  It had 2 full baths with the possibility of a 3rd downstairs. (we plan to do that one ourselves at some point)  There was a 2 stall garage with, get this, an attic and a basement!  For my husband, that was a big one.  He loved the idea of having a basement in the garage.  I refuse to go down there, it’s gross, there are no lights and there are plenty of things living down there that I do not want to encounter. The neighborhood is great and is one that I always wanted to live in.  We have met several neighbors and it’s funny how many of them say that they know our house because of what a wreck it had been prior to us getting it.  That really makes me want to spruce it up and make it look like it once did before it was used and abused.

So, there you have the first look at what our house looked like.  What do you think?  Would you have agreed to purchase a house that was in that state?  

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