The Horror

The doggies wanted to say hello to everyone, and show off how cute they are.

Have mercy, what have we gotten ourselves in? This is what you see when you walk into the front door of this ugly house. One of the ugliest rooms. Note the black closet this just a little bit to narrow to hang a jacket in and the puke green shag carpet that the dogs think is grass and lets not forget about the black paint that is everywhere There is a vanity as you are coming or leaving the house, also the lovely broken 70's bug catcher of a light. If only it was a disco ball.

So you see it just keeps getting better and better. Just think how it will look when we get done! If that ever happens????? Just kidding it will, just not right away. The wall where the black shelves and vanity are is the one that is coming DOWN!!!!! It will open it up so much more. I can't wait.

It's been awhile...

Here are some pics of the phone booth bathroom. As you can see it is quite small and is inline for future demo. The wall to the right is going to be removed to open the space to the new part of the house.


The last two pics just show some more detail from the living room. Check out the landscaping blocks placed around the perimeter of the fireplace hearth. Classy. The accordian door here leads to the room of HORROR!! More on that later.

Lastly I wanted to apologize for the lack of updates. It seems that blogger has been having some issues and would not allow me to upload any pictures. Then I got really busy at work and didn't have the time to make the updates at work. And lastly and this is my own fault and nobody elses. I have been playing World of Warcraft in my spare time at home and if anyone knows what that is you know that it's a HUGE time sink. Well it seems that blogger has their problems sorted at least.

One last thing I just wanted to congratulate Aaron and Jill on their engagement. It sounds like the date is July 15. Congratulations Aaron and Jill.

the other half heard from

Well I hope everyone is loving this site. I really thought Ben had a good idea and he makes some great post. In keeping everything up to date. This has been a dream come true for us. Now that we get to put our own personal touch on our home. We have big plans for this house. Hopefully it can withstand us. hah hah! This is our journey and I hope everyone will enjoy being on it with us.
Thank you to all that helped us move and anyone who will be helping us in the future. We are going to need all the help and support we can get. Enjoy Tr

My First Post

Hey guys just wanted to see if I could do this or not.

Trisha

The Third Ugliest Room In the House

These shots all show one of the most unique (ugly) rooms in This Ugly House. Yes that is some type of upholestry on the walls. I think it's velour. The legend goes is that the original owner saw some custom van interiors done in a similar style and thought that they would look great on the walls in his living room. Thus the Green Room was born (we think the original owner was some sort of swinger in his days...there are mirrors everywhere in the house and this upholesry...shivers). We plan on gutting the entire room including the VERY dark built-in bookshelves and redoing the fireplace somehow. I want to leave some sort of memorial to the way the house was originally and I am trying to convince Trish to let me leave the window area the way it is now. Just trim up the corners and leave the velour upholestry on the walls (I needed to figure out a way to vacuum the walls though).

This room is SO dark. The one window in the room faces south but with the auto body shop next door it gets very little light. There was only one light installed in the ceiling here and it is a paltry 35 watt florescent. So we added some floor lamps that really brighten things up (not that we want to).

The fourth picture shows the doorway that is the only connection point from the old part of the house to the new part. This really makes the two parts of the house feel VERY separate and we have a plan to change that. When you look at the picture you can see two other doors. The door on the right leads to our temporary bedroom while the door on the left leads to bathroom the size of a telephone booth (pics soon). Basically the plan is remove the entire wall from the door way to the left including the phone booth bathroom. You can barely see the stairs that transition from the old and the new parts in the pic as well. We want to make this like a landing with a railing and stairs. We will try and work something in the home design software we have and post something on it. Trish had to walk me through the design before I finally realized what she had in mind.

This Ugly House From the Outside

This is the front of This Ugly House. The direction you are looking is West. The previous owner redid the front porch but it still needs a little work. There are some nice architectural touches on the outside of the house.

This is still the front of the house from a different angle. You are currently looking Northwest. I am currently standing in the parking lot of the body shop next door to take this picture. This is good shot that shows how large This Ugly House really is. But this picture makes it look REALLY big.

This is from the other side of the front of the house. You are looking Southwest. Here you can see the new addition to the house. The room that you see in the front on the corner there is currently our bedroom.

And here is the back of the house. The bay window is the one that can be from inside the dining room. Eventually we will put a patio door where the smaller window is to the left and build a nice deck out the back. You are currently look East by the way.

France conquers the Castle Part Deux

And here is the completed castle wall removed from the island. As you can see this REALLY opens it up in the kitchen. It was SO dark and confined. You can also see where we removed most of the orange tile that was stuck to the walls. The tile was actually glued to the drywall which pretty much ruined the drywall underneath. So we need to replace the drywall underneath now. Not too big of a deal.
This is another shot of the removed island top. You can really see the hole in the wall where I started to remove some of the drywall. I think that we need to get a shop vac to start cleaning up these messes. Our little vacuum is starting to get a workout cleaning up all this crap.
Trish thought she would be funny and include me in this shot since I took one of her. Of course I'm just standing around.
Even Amelia is happy with the castle walls being torn down.

France conquers the Castle

Here is another shot of the half removed. The dogs weren't cooperating well with me for this picture.

Here is a pic of half of the tower removed. Note our temporary supports for the other half of the tower. Trisha had a heck of a time with the first half. It must have weighed at least 300 lbs. and she helped lift that all the way down into the basement. I want to use them for cabinets in the basement workshop.


Our first damage incident. One of the spikes on top of the tower caught one of the grills for the light fixture in the kitchen. It fell to the floor and broke into several pieces. Whoops...

Here is the top of the castle tower removed. Let's hope it's a little lighter now.

Trish doing all the work while I took some pictures for the site. Here she is taking screws out of the top off the tower so we can take that off before the tower comes down.