How to measure progress?

The porch emerges - next up is to get windows into the areas that are boarded, and get smaller windows painted and reinstalled.

New roof, ready to schedule exterior paint and ready for landscape to be removed

DURING - Kitchen is bare. Really bare.

BEFORE - Carpet and paneling of porch

PORCH DURING

Review of the starting point - pre-sale pictures.

Looking into dining room

Kitchen comes w/out range and w/out fridge, but does come w/a broken microwave and a bad dishwasher!

Front of house - came w/foreclosure notice on door and bad a/c hanging out front window!

Lovely leaded glass windows in front room

There's a porch here somewhere!

Beautiful curved steps, with curved leaded glass window

"Master" suite??

Deck off master suite?!

Bedroom

3rd bedroom

View of back yard

Back of house & garage

What's behind the upper porch panels?

Windows!!

The front of the house is a porch, but from the street it looks very closed off. From inside the porch - which the previous family had converted to a family room - the space begs for more light and air. In other words, it should be a porch.

So Don pulled off a horizontal panel along the top of the porch, and we found  a window. It's been painted, but it's a window!! We are excited about this, as We are on our way to an improved porch!!

Here's Don with the painted window, partly scraped clean.

Current view of front of house. Wouldn't it look better with the panels opened up as windows?

Wine and Chocolate

As we met the painter to get a bid for the exterior, there was a bottle of wine and a card on the back step. A "Welcome to the Neighborhood" gift. How sweet!

Bid comes from the painter soon. And we contacted a kitchen designer... Which led us to tear out the current cupboards. Good riddance!

Carolyn continued pulling carpet staples out io the steps. 

And then the kids stopped by with some chocolates from the downtown candy shop.

Wine and chocolates. We think it's gonna be a great neighborhood!!

Cables, Staples, & Neighbors

On Sunday, Don & Carolyn divided and conquered.

Don pulled many - an entire big black plastic contractor bagful - of cables off the house. How could one house have so many cables? Old land line cables, old DSL cables, old satellite tv cables. It was crazy! He also did a little repair. The outside of the house has a cleaner looking finish now.

Carolyn pulled many, many, many old carpet staples off the steps. The steps are almost done and they look much, much better!

We've also met the neighbors on either side of our house. Very nice and welcoming! They are sharing stories of our house and lot. Most believe no work has been done on the house since the early 1990s. That appears to be true! There's also a little confusion about our lot line. We will deal with that in the future. As Don has said, "we're not looking to own more land!"

Supplies for heading to 4th Street House

Before Steps

Got Consult?

At this point, everyone is a consultant! Do you have contractors you recommend? Who has redone a bath or kitchen recently? Who knows a good architect?

And we are listening to everyone's ideas!

What if we turned the front enclosed area into a screened in porch?
Are you going to raise the ceiling back to the original height in the kitchen?
You should redo all this landscape!
What if you only did a first floor addition?
Put your laundry in the second floor!
I'd put your grand piano here! And ... You're piano is not gonna fit there.

...and these are only a fraction of the ideas we've heard or thought about.

If you want to stop by, give us a call! We value everyone's opinion.

If you can recommend contractors, let us know that too!,

Triangle!

Every time Don asked for a tool, Ian handed him The Triangle.

Don asks for a hammer. Ian gives him The Triangle.
Don asks for a cat's paw. Ian gives him The Triangle.
Don asks for a beer. Ian gives him The Triangle.
 
Picture here... The Triangle

Well, that was worth it!

On Sunday, the four of us headed to the 4th Street house to rip out carpet in an upstairs bedroom, upstairs hallway, downstairs dining & living, and the front porch.

What were we going to find under that carpet?

Before

During

 

After!

Detail Around Fireplace

Another view

Family Preview

Our families came by to see the house in early July. Lots of hands to help out! We did some quick kitchen cupboard painting, simply to get the area tolerable until the true renovation.

Afterward, we all gathered at our Emerald Court house for celebrating family and Bettie's 86th birthday. Looking forward to this kind of celebration at the 4th Street House.

Does the house need a lot of work?

Is a new roof, new exterior paint, tree clearing, landscape re-do, new floors, new kitchen, new bath, and a two-story addition a lot of work?!

Yes! The house needs a lot of work. But this is what we signed up for!

And where to start?

Well, we couldn't get insurance until the house was re-roofed, so let's start there. We hired a crew that appeared to have a lot of fun with lots of singing and laughing. That was on day one of what was supposed to be a one day job. Day two there was a little less frivolity. Day three has not yet been scheduled.

The contractor thought there would be one, maybe two layers of shingles to remove. Turns out there were three, including a layer of cedar shakes. Thus, the pile of roofing material they took off was two feet deep and about six feet wide around the house!

But they've done a great job so far. I hope they return with their day one energy!

The Empty Nest

In 1964 we were born a day apart in the same hospital, in first grade Carolyn's family moved direclty across the street...Oh wait. You already know that part of our story.

Now its 2015. Wow does time fly! Anna is off to her last semester of college at UW-Stevens Point. Ian starts his freshman year at DePaul University. That leaves Don and Carolyn with two dogs left behind in our current house (not pictured above).

So what's next for the parents? Stay busy, they say. Start a new hobby, they say. Go back to school, run a marathon, get a puppy. #No to all of that!

Move back to downtown Hudson. Renovate an old house. Work on the project together.

1000 4th Street

Hudson, WI
(Pictured above)

This is our new Empty Nest.