Surprise!!

The other day I met my contractor at the house to check on progress. As we're talking he lets me know about a "development". Someone (not sure if it was him or one of his guys) went up to the bathroom, lifted the seat and found themselves staring at a rat. A rat?!?!?!?! YES! A RAT! The house had been winterized so the pipes wouldn't freeze, I'm not sure if the little fella climbed up and couldn't get out of the bowl and died, maybe got stuck on the pipes and floated up as the water filled the system, who really knows? Who really cares? All I needed to know was that the rat was there and now I have to get him out.

Work started

I'm still trying to play catch up here. I did a second round of demo work but don't have pictures as of yet, but will be posted as soon as I can get over there. So things are bit out of order here but I guess it really makes no difference.

My contractor started in on the work I've asked him to handle. As I mentioned I'd like to do as much on my own but there are things that need to be handled by someone who knows what they're doing.

One of the support posts had rotted out at the bottom and needed to be replaced. The city was also requiring plinth blocks be put under all the remaining posts. Since he was going to be messing around with them anyway I decided to have him go ahead and replace all the posts. Because of this new footings needed to be poured for all the posts. The pictures I have in this link are of the progress they made on day one of work.

Demo Work Round 1

Once I closed on the home I wanted to go in and start swinging the sledge hammer. I made a smart decision and took a week to think through a plan of attack. Once I finally got in and started ripping things out I made some fabulous discoveries. The picture on the top left is what happens when the idiots that thought it would be a good idea to put fake wood paneling up not only nailed it, but also glued it, to the plaster walls. Thanks for that. Now I'm stuck with walls that need to be replastered or torn out and drywalled. The second discovery came to light after I pulled up the cat piss stained carpets and pads (which by the way were still moist). The picture on the top right is of the burnt wood floors. I don't know what caused it but its there and I now get to replace some flooring. Yaaaaay costs.

Click here for the link to pictures of demo work rd. 1.

More to follow tomorrow.

"Before"

As promised here are the "before" pictures. Its the house as I saw it the first time, and as it was when I closed. The things that really attracted me to the house were the wonderful seventies fake wood paneling, and carefully chosen green carpeting. Ok, so maybe not. It really was the stain glass window, leaded glass window, the banister going upstairs (I know the picture isn't the greatest), and the wood floors. Click here to see the album.

I'll post pictures from after the first round of demo work next.

So much for keeping up to date

Here I am a  month after closing, weeks after starting work on my place, and I have yet to post anything. I know the followers won't be many, I know that no one even knew of this blogs existence until now, but here goes nothing. 
I recently closed on a category 2 vacant home in the lovely city of St. Paul. You may be asking yourself, "what exactly is a category 2 vacant home?". The long and short of it is that its a condemned home. There's a number of different ways homes reach the category 2 stage, if you really want to know more please contact me but I don't want to bore those who have no interest. I'm not really sure what prompted my home reaching this prestigious level of recognition. I do know that the moment I walked into it I fell in love with it. I saw past its ugly blemishes and saw what could be. 
I've got "before" pictures I'd like to share but there are too many to just post here. I think I'll be putting up a link to a Flickr page, it may be easiest route for now. For now I've added a picture of the house from the street.