Adventures in Home-Repair

So our rental property is all set to go. We have tenants-- a sweet couple who don't have excellent credit but who are trying. They have three cute kids and love the house and I think they have paid the same rent for a real craphole in a bad neighborhood and so are thrilled to be getting something much nicer in a better neighborhood. In other words-- they know what is out there and they know how much we ROCK. I really really wish we had thought to take "before" pictures. The place was such a mess-- dark, smelled musty and old-lady, with ugly 30 year old curtains that fell apart when I moved them that had been stapled to the walls to keep them tight, ugly ORANGE carpet in one room, blue dingy nicotine stained wood paneling in one bedroom, three layers of wallpaper from various periods peeling but stapled (seriously) to the walls in the hallway/foyer. Lamps that looked stripped, as though if you tried to change the bulb you'd get a shock. Etc, etc.

We finished up the last little things last week. I put up wallpaper, we had our handyman refinish the wood floors. Yes, when the tenants tried to move in a fridge, the movers scratched the floor a little (figures). I put up "lace curtain Irish" pretty curtains. We put up the pretty little part glass, part nice plastic chandeliers you can see in the picture-- from Lowe's, not super expensive but soooo pretty.....

It just rocks. Seriously. I love this little house. If I were living there, I would probably make some of the rooms bright, bold colors, and we did this place in white, mostly, but I still really love it. One of the things that I feel good about is fixing up a historic house from a sad state of disrepair. And when we get the roof done, that will be even more so because while the roof isn't yet leaking, it's not long til it will be and that would just trash this "diamond in the rough" home.

So I'll shut up about it and post some pictures. The first is the view down the Living Room/Dining room area. You can't really see the big awesome china built-ins. But that's allright. The other picture is Maia. While I was doing the last bits of cleanup (vacuuming, picking up shreds of the ancient wallpaper from the closets) she wanted so much to help. I put her to scrubbing up the bits of white paint that someone (Andrew, maybe?) tracked over the fresh wood shiny stuff. (It didn't work. And the place is NOT perfect. But still.) Our little Cindermaia, hard at work.

I just have to finish off saying that I truly hope the local authorities don't freak out so much about this incoming Hurricane if it isn't truly coming this way. It looks like it's going to Houston (where my sister just moved, funnily enough...) so we do not need to cancel everything here in our little town. I JUST got my syllabuses re-organized, please!!!