Thursday, August 12, 2010

Our House!

The Lord has blessed us with a foreclosure home that we completely remodeled cosmetically.  We prayed for a foreclosure because after watching loads of HGTV, we knew this could be a great investment regarding the current housing market.  Lo and behold our amazing realtor, Marvin, found a great investment in an established neighborhood.  Here is the story about this home:

A woman and 15 others (kids, grandchildren, etc.) were living in this home with no intention on keeping it up.  The house wasn't the only thing being disrespected.  You should talk to some of our neighbors!  After the family was evicted, we came to look at the house at night with no electricity.  We said "we'll take it"!  So we put in an aggressive offer that was thankfully accepted.  We arrived at our home with the keys and Edwin carried me over the threshold.  In this instance you might think of how incredibly romantic this is, however, the stench of the interior and size of bugs around us quickly made reality sink in:)  Talk about a mood ruiner!  We realized how much work was ahead of us!

We started right away with ripping the disgusting carpet out of four bedrooms (without a dust mask).  Just imagine years of stinky kids and spilling sippy cups of milk dried to the cement under the carpet!  I practically dry heaved in each room.  We called the bug man right away after hundreds of ants started spilling out of our master bedroom wall when the carpet was ripped up.  It was a horror story!  You could HEAR the ants crawling....that is how many there were!  The bug man did an amazing job as now there are NO bugs in this house!  Amen!

For the next week we worked from 8 a.m. each morning until after 9 p.m. each night!  We washed the walls then put two coats of fresh paint on every wall!  We put new floors in all bedrooms along with new baseboards. We put new toilets in the bathrooms because I could not imagine going to the "princess" room where 15 other behinds sat down!!!  We also put new curtains up in every room to dress it up!  I personally sanded and stained the kitchen cabinets to a dark mahogany color...little did I know the cabinets were not all wood.  Let's just say it has a very rustic appeal:)  We just recently finished our screened in Lanai too so that is a major praise item!

We could not have completed this house without our friends Adrian, Anna, Marvin, Rudy, Mike and Megan. They were such a blessing to us because of all the work they did!  We love them:)  Of course, Edwin and I got really sick when everything was done...I think it has to do with the five pounds of saw dust I inhaled when I sanded the cabinets...oops!

Below are a couple of pics.  I will post more pics as I get the opportunity! Of course, you are never finished with "projects" when it comes to a house but we have a place called home and we adore it!






Sunday, August 8, 2010

.....And They Lived Happily Ever After!




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