We were either very stupid or very smart....

The closing process drug on for weeks, during which time David and I couldn't get our hands on anything in the house.

We took possession towards the end of May, and then started teaching summer school just a week later. That meant our weeks were completely jammed and we crammed 6 months of reno into about 7 weekends.

During this time, we had no central A/C (previous owners had taken the compressors) and no working plumbing. It took a complete septic overhaul to the tune of $1400 before we didn't have to pee in the woods anymore.

But before I get into the details of what we tackled first, let's take a tour of how the Orange Monster looked on Day 1. Let me be clear: David and I STOLE this house. We paid almost $100K less than tax value (and it was probably undervalued to begin with). We would not/could not have taken on a project like this unless the financial gods had thrown us a bone.


Downstairs you walk into a large entry.

There is an office to your left, and a master bedroom with ensuite bathroom. Towards the back of the house is the living room/dining room/kitchen and the largest laundry room I have ever seen.

The office wasn't too bad. Sure the orange paint wasn't pretty, but it was liveable, and had tons of natural light.

This semi-gloss orange paint was in every room downstairs and most of the ones upstairs too.

Lets continue on to the master bedroom:

 This was taken we we first started working on painting ALL the cedar moulding. 

Here I am trying out paint colors. This hallway leads to the master bathroom. You can see the filthy carpet above. 

Off this room is the Living room, and here is where the WTF'ery really gets turned up a notch (or six). The laminate flooring that is shown in the office picture had been ripped up in the living room. There wasn't much appealing about it, so I wasn't sad to replace it.

These beams were one of the biggest selling points! I fell in love with them. 

I should note here that it's now been a year since we ripped out the carpet and laminate and I'm still living with plywood floors. I will feel so high-class when I don't live in daily fear of a splinter. 

 Living room looking into dining room. The blue is the underlayment from the ripped up flooring. 

HAHAHA. This was the kitchen. Where do I start?!

Upstairs there were 4 more bedrooms, another fireplace, and 2 more bathrooms. I'll just give you a brief photo tour so you can truly appreciate the previous owners design-sense. 

The cedar stairs in all of their glory.... ugh.

I'll leave you to marinate on those images in all of their peach and orange glory. David and I were completely overwhelmed and completely excited with all of the potential of this home. It didn't have my green shutters, but I could see the great bones through all of the disaster.