Welcome to Half a House, Derek and Jeff's blog to keep people up to date on the progress of our major rehab.
The front view. You'll notice something, um, interesting here: There's no front door. The house was built without one. But it has three back doors and a side entrance! More on that later.
We moved in Dec. 18 - or at least started to. (Stuff is still trickling in from Jeff's Midtown apartment, which is month-to-month.) The move was extremely traumatic. The previous owner didn't really hold up his end of the bargain, but I never thought he was going to anyhow. He was supposed to remove all the original 1979 carpets, this disgusting artificial pond in the backyard and all of his possessions. None of those things happened 100%. No shock there. But we're moving on. At least most of the carpet is out, and I'm gradually getting rid of the rest of his stuff via Freecycle. I've found another contractor to remove the pond, since it's made with a bunch of stone that's worth more than the labor to take it out. That's a win-win.
Anyhow, that's all I'm going to say about the bad stuff. No sense in dwelling on it, because we are still super happy to be in this house, at this lake.
Because the place needs so very much work, we've decided to camp out in the dining room so that we can work on the upstairs. Then we'll move in for real up there and have a sanctuary to retreat to while the rest of the place is in disarray.
Our original plan was to start with the master bedroom. Like every other room in the house, it needs three major things:
1. Scrape the popcorn ceilings and smooth them out (ick -- nasty job).
2. Paint the walls and trim.
3. Install new hardwood floors.
By the way: Why the name "Half a House?" That's the name given to it by the nutso seller's agent, but it fits.
About that missing front door: The place was originally planned to have a huge addition on the left side, including a door and porch. It was never finished, and hence the name. We're going to do a door ourselves, but in a much more logical and pleasing way, we think.
About that missing front door: The place was originally planned to have a huge addition on the left side, including a door and porch. It was never finished, and hence the name. We're going to do a door ourselves, but in a much more logical and pleasing way, we think.
But the name will stick.
