The Befores

We all can appreciate a beautiful thing, but there’s something really fascinating about a beautiful thing that has become beautiful, and not always existed as such. There’s something mesmerizing about transformations. We’re hooked on them. They give us that WOW factor.

Many of us can recall sick days home from school, tuning in to Jenny Jones to watch the latest “you bullied me in highschool, well look at me now” drama. (Well, at least I can, maybe you were better than that ;) ) Even if you were more of a Price-is-Right junkie though, there are countless other popular shows and stories I could list in which transformations from “ugly” to beautiful are the main plotline. Think about it, maybe you’ve succumb to the temptations of some of these titles: Extreme Makeover, What Not To Wear, The Biggest Loser, Bulging Brides, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Restaurant Makeover, My Fair Lady, The Ugly Duckling, Cinderella? You get the idea. It’s everywhere! We’re makeover addicts consumed with “Before and Afters”; inspired by the beauty that can be found in even the most unpromising things. 

I’ll be the first to admit it. I LOVE being shown the potential in something seemingly hopeless. Even more, I LOVE being the one to discover it. Maybe that’s why Brad and I were so excited to buy this: our first house.

It’s funny sometimes how things work out.  Both Brad and I probably drove by this house hundreds of times throughout the last 12 years, and neither of us ever remembers seeing it.  It’s located only a couple blocks away from my family, and just a few further from Brad’s, and yet, none of us had ever given it so much as a glance.

In all fairness, it’s not much to look at, even if you did catch a glimpse of it beyond the 10 foot fence and bank in front, or the forest of trees enveloping it. Nevertheless, something about this dated, baby blue shark house (AKA the “house with the teeth” or, the “house with the moustache”) caught our attention upon that first walk-through, and there was no turning back.

            This house had been on and off the market a couple of times before the listing we viewed, and had also been listed for quite a few days before we even considered it; 73 to be exact.  We had been given prior warning from others who braved its orange laminate and stucco interior that it “must have been a drug house” and “it’s not worth looking at”.  However, not to be swayed by those scared of unpainted baseboards, we decided to have a looksee for ourselves. Here is what we saw…

            Aside from the unsightly shade of yellow paint in combination with the bright orange laminate and textured stucco walls, it wasn’t a terrible first impression. (something about it made me want to throw a Mexican fiesta...)
           Some of its other offensive cosmetic features were the brass ceiling fan and plastic accordion-style closet door. (which I’m convinced was a shower curtain at one point in its former life)

Upon closer inspection we noticed sloppy workmanship in the tile and laminate flooring; an amateur’s quick fix “updating” the house.

Here’s a view of the original living room taken from the dining room:

Notice the classy window valences and curtain hooks. I can just picture the lace curtains that used to hang there…

Further in, we found the kitchen:

Don’t let the picture fool you, take a look down the hallway at the height of the doorways (which are not your typical height by today’s standards either) and then look at the height of the fridge. Yes, it was a tiny fridge. Even though it was barely apartment sized, it probably would have worked for us, that is, if it would have worked at all…I was under the impression that fridges were designed to keep things cold, you know, to prevent food from going bad sooner…I guess the previous owners used this fridge as additional cupboard space, since it couldn’t even chill a can of pop any colder than room temperature.  We later found out that the fridge was not the only appliance that didn’t work in the house. The washing machine and the dryer were both past their expiry dates as well.

Other tasty tidbits found in the kitchen were the infamous sunshine ceiling, metallic gold fleck vinyl countertops, matching gold hardware, soy sauce bottles in almost every cabinet, a giant bag of used chopsticks, and the unyielding scent of cigarettes every time you opened a cupboard or drawer. (it’s safe to assume one of the first things we did was seal and paint the cabinet interiors, a task I would not wish upon anyone who values the use of their hands and back!)

          Moving down the narrow hallway,

          We get to the first door on the left, the office.

           Unfortunately this is the office after we painted over the baby blue walls and moved some of our stuff in. (I never did get a true “before” shot…) It was quite a small room, not big enough to be anything more than a small office or maybe nursery.

           Moving down the hallway to the first door on the right, we see; the hot mess.

Aside from the overall barf-inducing, bacteria-infested splendour, I suppose it wasn’t a complete right-off…I mean, it definitely could have been worse…the toilet, tub and sink could have been the color of a banana slug…

It was just dirty and dated, a dirty date, like Courtney Love on a good day. In our minds, this would have to be project numero uno.

Down at the end of the hall on the right, we found the “master bedroom”:

           I use the term “master bedroom” lightly because by today’s standards, there was nothing master about any bedroom in the 60’s, just that one was slightly bigger than the rest. The “master” in this house was actually a decent size (compared to other ranchers we’d seen). And by this I mean you could fit a king sized bed in there, with side tables, and a large dresser, and still have quite a bit of room to walk around. Which in our books, was as good as we could hope for.

The last door down the hallway leads to the second bedroom on the main floor. (AKA our renovation storage room as of right now)

This is the baby blue color that used to be in the office as well. The whole house was yellow and baby blue, as if babies and clowns were in charge of the painting…

This picture was taken after the great room renovation, so as you can see, it’s FULL of all the stuff we needed moved out of the way during demolition: kitchen stuff in need of a finished kitchen, boxen of books in need of a bookcase in the new office nook, shoes and coats in need of a closet organizer in the entryway closet...the list is endless... 

I mentioned my personality thrives on order and organization right? Well, needless to say this room drives me crazy every time I look at it.  Plus, the door and frame were removed to straighten the wall during the great room renovation, and since it’s directly across from our bedroom, I have no choice but to look at the mess all the time! I’ve come to the point where I now run past it with my eyes closed like a child runs past an open closet in the dark. Thankfully it won’t be like this much longer!

                                                    
 This completes our tour of the upstairs…continuing on to the basement...

           Pictured above (in this mid-demolition photo), is the access door to the basement (the door on the right)…and the infamous staircase. You might be thinking…“hey, that framed in area looks pretty small to fit an entire staircase”…and you’d be right.

          Unfortunately this might come off pretty anti-climactic since we never got a shot of the staircase from the top. (we're kicking ourselves for not documenting these stairs properly)

But I'll do my best to explain the descent into the basement for those of you who never personally experienced it.

         The first step down happens immediately after you open the door from the upstairs, so if you aren't expecting stairs when you open the door, you're in for a surprise! (as my 3 year old cousin unfortunately found out...) The first 6 or 7 stairs descend much like a ladder from there, with no railing, and the stairs are too narrow to fit your whole foot onto (unless you're under the age of 5 or have freakishly small feet) and the rise of each stair varies (so you're brain never knows what to expect). Then, you reach the tiny landing in the middle, and realize you need to somehow contort your body sideways and duck 2 feet to get down the remaining 3 stairs without bashing your face against the ceiling. (compare the height of the door to the distance between the middle landing and the ceiling.)

         Finally, the basement door is half obstructed by this freak-of-nature staircase. Honestly, what would Mike Holmes say?!

           Anyways...

          Congratulations, you've now successfully completed the mental descent of our old staircase!

          If you managed to look up away from your feet during the descent, here is what you would have seen of the basement:

           Unfortunately, the previous owners “finished” the basement to get more money from the sale…which didn’t work out to anyone’s benefit since the layout doesn’t make any sense and it was finished so poorly. The wall’s are visibly not square, the electrical plan is questionable, the flooring is wavy, and the bathroom is comical to say the least. See what I mean?

           It’s hardly bigger than the bathroom you’d find in a trailer. Also, they didn’t even bother to put the plumbing into the concrete. They just built the drainage above the floor and framed it in. (oh people…you clearly should have been watching more HGTV…) Anyways, we already established that whoever did the “renovating” was motivated by speed and not quality (or the building code). 

          As for the rest of the basement, there’s not much to see…the picture below shows the 4th bedroom entrance off the foot of the stairs:

            This one shows the long narrow room at the front of the house:

          And this one shows the other “bedroom” on the far side of the house:

           The door leads to the hallway where the chimney, furnace and hot water tank reside. I'm not sure who wants an exposed pipe in their bedroom, but the listing seemed to think this was a "bedroom".

 So that's it for the house tour before renovations ensued. Other miscellaneous "before" shots are as follows:

                        The rear exterior:

                         Complete with party deck:

                  One half-acre of relatively private property: (it's split level, the bottom fence is the property line)

                               And the workshop:

Now, to clear up the “drug house” comment from the beginning of this post, here’s the full story.  Everyone who viewed this property was told “the workshop is off limits, you aren’t allowed to look inside it.” For most people, red flags go up at this statement…and we were no different.

Upon first impression, the house does give you a sense of unwelcome. The fortress of a fence out front, as well as the large rolling gate in back help fan the flame of any drug house theory. These people clearly wanted privacy. However, no evidence was found within the house to support such a theory. Wiring checked out, moisture levels checked out, check, check, check. We breathed easier knowing the house was safe. There was however, this foreboding feeling when it came to the “forbidden workshop”. We had to know.

Being the super sleuths that we are, we decided to…break...into…the workshop…cue the cheesy "dun dun dun"

Now before you get your judgemental undies in a bunch, you must realize that these owners were not as smart, nor as cunning as us… they left the door unlocked…so breaking in was as easy as turning the doorknob. I suppose the “forbidden shop” warning was enough to sway other potential buyers from turning the door knob. Not us. We don’t heed warnings. Good thing to, because the shop was new inside! It still smelled of framing! Even if it had been used for illegal activity at one point, there was no evidence of it now. It had no sheathing, so no fishy business could be hidden behind the walls. We could see all the electrical and bare framing all the way up to the roof, and all was good! What a relief!

We’re still unsure what they were hiding in the shop, but our theories are as follows: A) they were thieves storing stolen goods B) they were murderers storing dead victims C) they were secret agents storing classified government information Or D) they were dishonest salmon farmers selling illegal fish to unsuspecting sushi restaurants?

They were Asian and they did have a more-than-humanly-possible supply of soy sauce and chopsticks in the kitchen, so I’m ruling option D as most plausible.

Anyways, after we had a thorough inspector confirm the safety and structure of the house, we spared no time making it official. It was such a relief to know that the place we wanted to live was not only a solid house we can improve upon and make our own, but a safe environment we can raise our future children. (Without fear of them growing a third arm or second bellybutton)

         And there you have it; our 45 year old first baby. We plan on nurturing this house into our home, one room at a time. We’ve already tackled some areas with great pride and enjoyment (I’ll post on those later) and are looking forward to tackling the rest in the years to come, slowly unveiling the potential we saw back in June 2009. Some of you may agree with the changes we’re making, and some of you may not. Regardless of our choices in style and layout, we hope you will at least appreciate the transformation. We hope you’ll find some sort of enjoyment watching us turn our dirty date into a thing of beauty. And maybe, it will inspire you to search out the beauty in other seemingly “ugly” things as well.

Lord knows, there’s beauty in even the most hopeless things, sometimes it just takes the right people to bring it out. And I’m not just talking about houses here. ;)