Onward!

Well, we sold it. Didn't quite get our asking price (largely due to the hellhole situated across the driveway), but close enough - and still over 40% more than what we paid for it five years ago. Not a bad little return on investment, actually, even though I have no interest in totaling up renovation costs and time spent working to see how much of that +40% was really profit.

Okay, I wouldn't mind knowing that, but I'm too busy (read:lazy) to go back through all the receipts. I did, however, make a list of all the different fix-ups, renos, and projects we did to the house, and if you're interested, you can see it after the jump. Along with some pictures of how the neighbor's house looked towards the end there...

So this kind of marks the end of the blog. Not the end of our renovations, though - not by a long shot. You see, we had to move SOMEWHERE, and given our budget, the neighborhoods that were most attractive (read:no Langford rejects living twelve feet away), we kinda had to look at fixer uppers. And then buy one. In Broadmead.

You can follow the new adventures of Captain Injury Report and the War Department at Don and Amy's Broadmead Reno.

The Final List
So, here's a list of all the things we did to that little house, starting before we even moved in (not necessarily in order):

• Completely gutted and replaced most of the upstairs bathroom, including tub, pedestal sink, flooring, and window. It was so much fun, we did the drywall twice.

Before:


After:

• Removed old carpeting and refinished hardwood flooring in both of the upstairs bedrooms. Painted over the ghastly shades of crap they were before, too.

Before:




After:

• Installed home security system, including hard-wired smoke detectors.


• Replumbed pretty much the entire house, including service line, hot water tank, and sewage drains. Replaced outdoor tap with freeze-proof version and earth-quake proofed the hot-water tank.


• Installed second bathroom. That's a pretty big one all on its own, I should think. Here's what that bathroom looked like in the MLS listing:

• Gutted and renovated the entire basement, including walls, insulation, and flooring.

Here's a before shot from the day we moved in:


After:


For more after shots, oh, I dunno - just look at the archives, I guess.

• Rewired almost the entire house, including upgrading the service to 200 amp.


• Ran electrical service to the garage and installed a sub-panel.


• Removed rotten footing from east wall of garage, replaced with pressure-treated 2x4 and reinforced wall studs. We also dug in a drainage trench and installed a mini retaining wall so it wouldn't happen again.


• Installed divider wall across back portion of garage to serve as garden shed. Also replaced the non-functional side door to provide access to new "shed".


• Removed cheap-ass peg-board walls and dropped the jury-rigged ceiling in the garage. Insulated walls and recovered with 1/2-inch plywood.


• Broke up crappy old concrete pond and replaced with a flower bed.
  You can kind of see the pond on the left here (this was taken from the kitchen window on the day we took possession):

During:



After:

• Replaced the fencing in the backyard.


• Tore down a poorly-built lean-to on the back wall of the garage and hauled away the shit-ton of garbage from inside it:

• Removed the old, smelly oil tank.

Before:


After:

• Replaced the old, smelly furnace. Important note to anyone with an oil furnace: do you smell fuel oil every time the thing starts up, and periodically while it's running? There's a good chance you have a hole in your firebox, and there's carbon monoxide pouring out into your home. Get it replaced, pronto.

Before:

• Had gas service installed for new furnace and a gas line run to the kitchen for a gas stove.


• Installed clean-outs for the weeping tile on all four sides of the house, and one in the front for the sewer line. Also had the sewer and storm drains repaired at the junction with the city.

Here's the hole the city dug in our driveway:


So yeah. That's certainly not an exhaustive list by any means, but you get the idea. Pretty much the only room we didn't do anything to was the living room. Well, aside from cutting a gigantic hole in the wall for the new vent stack for the downstairs bathroom and then repairing the damage. There was that.

We did a lot of work to that house, and I have to admit that it was tough to leave it behind. On the other hand, everytime I wondered whether we were doing the right thing, I'd just look out the back door and see something like this:


Or I'd go out to the garage to get something, and have to pass by this:


Or I'd be walking home from work and have to look at this:


And yes, it looked like that the entire time we were trying to sell it. We are well rid of that whole situation to be honest, and I'd regale you with more stories about those idiots next door, but I'm done with them. (Which doesn't necessarily mean I won't go into some of the more sordid details if they become relevant at the new blog, of course...)

Anyway, we've been out of there for a month now, and I've got lots to share and talk about with the new place, so I think I'll wind this down. Thanks for reading about our adventures with the basement, and I hope you'll join us at the new digs as we renovate our way to an early grave. Er, I mean, a nice house. Yeah. The second one.



So long, little blue house. I hope your new owners appreciate you as much as we did.