Ms. Inez
It’s hard to believe this was an Italianate Victorian. Built in 1890, it had been stripped of all her grandeur; she needed some love. It had sat empty since 2010. The previous owner butchered/gutted the inside to create what he had planned to be a 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house, but stopped work in 2014 after passing his plumbing and electrical rough-in inspections. At closing, he told me he had wired the 3rd floor to accommodate a 5th bedroom. I didn’t share his vision.
One of the full bathrooms he placed on the 1st floor reduced the size of the kitchen. The bump-out on the rear of the house, I assume, was built when indoor plumbing became available; it housed a waste line for a toilet room. He left it in place and framed for a full 3-piece bathroom. I removed the bump-out because it wasn’t constructed to modern code, and closing off the back wall allowed me to enlarge the kitchen. I created a powder room on the first floor instead. It appeared he had torn out two walls to create an open-concept living and dining room. Looking at the patches on the floor, it also looked like he had torn out the fireplaces, which was disheartening.
On the second floor, he created three bedrooms. What had been the middle bedroom, I converted into the primary bathroom and a 2nd-floor laundry closet, leaving only two bedrooms on the 2nd floor. The existing roughed-in bathroom on the 2nd floor remained. His 4th bedroom on the 3rd floor became my third. When complete, it was a 3-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house.
I had hoped to restore the exterior to its original wood siding, but discovered that underneath the vinyl siding was a layer of asphalt siding. My budget could not justify the expense of removing it. I removed the yellow vinyl siding to restore all the windows to their original heights. When the vinyl siding was installed decades ago, the owner at that time reduced the height of the windows, removed the original wood windows (except for the two in front), installed shorter aluminum windows, and completely covered two windows on the rear of the house.
Purchase Price: $75,000. Timeline: Projected Nine Months.
Sold Price: $288,150. Timeline: Actual 15 Months
Following are pictures taken from the real estate listing followed by an equivalent after picture. To see more after pictures see the blog post Restoration Complete
(previous owner removed two walls)
(bricked in, not functionable)
(previous owner removed walls, room on left is his 2nd bedroom)
(will be my Master bath/Laundry room)
(will be my 2nd bedroom)
(will be my 3rd bedroom)
(potential off street parking)
