The Blown Up House ‘Remodel’-Past, Present & Blown Up

Meth Lab?

This was the first house my hubby purchased-before I knew him. He lived here with his band mates and a couple of other ruffians. I moved in after we were married and we lived here for three years. It was a duplex with great rental income. Then, a good friend of my husband’s stopped by.

And….blew it up. ‘How’, you might ask?

When a friend named Beau, a mattress and a gas line intertwine, what you get is a recipe for disaster. And then when the heater kicks on…KABOOM!

(Although, it looks like silk hanging from the broken window panes…they were at one time-mini blinds.) To top it off, this happened during Christmas. Both sides of our families were visiting. Nothing says ‘Merry Christmas’ like a blown-up house. Kayle’s dad laughed when he saw it. His mother cried. I cried. Then I started laughing. But had to pretend to be crying so the cops didn’t get suspicious.

The good news was that we got a great Christmas card pic out of this disaster. The house made it onto the local news and even into the paper.

We had a lot of memories from this wonderful moment in time; with family and concerned neighbors standing by our sides drinking coffee as firemen retrieved our singed possessions and portions of rock continued to fall off the side of the house, etc…. We thought of printing t-shirts with the picture above and a caption that read, “I survived Christmas with the Greiman’s in 2004.” I think it would sell. We ended up selling the remnants of the house and our lot to a developer. He’s done a pretty fine job fixing it up. One would never know that the house had blown up, unless they read this.

The Front House Remodel-Past, Present & Blown Up

It is a pre-requisite for our houses to have two front doors. We have owned only one property that had one front door.It was weird.

This ‘old lady gem’ was full of brass fixtures and wallpaper and stinky pet carpet and weird layouts and paneling.

One of our first tasks was to pull the paneling off in the living room. When we did: TA-DAH! Four secret windows were uncovered. Why would anyone cover over windows with paneling? Why do people still have rattails and mullets? Life is a mystery…

After a bunch of paint and sheetrock and re-wiring, we had this lovely room to look at. When we ripped up the carpet, we found pretty red concrete underneath. It looks like it’s wet, because it is. I just got done mopping it.

The second bath was made for hobbits. Tiny, tiny, tiny! So we remodeled it to look like this.
Before we remodeled it, you could have one foot cleansing itself in the shower, use the toilet and wash your face in the sink all at the same time. Although most people would love this feature, we decided to expand it a little and update it.

After the plumbing was stubbed in, and my hubby was on the road, I tried to hook the pex line up myself. I followed some bad advice from a hardware store worker and subsequently, the downstairs flooded. In a panic, I called my little brother, who saved the day. What a sweetie!

The kitchen was ugly. U-G-L-Y. Paneling above the top cabinets and the ceiling, fluorescents lighting, sticky wood cabinets and linoleum flooring. Ick. Something must be done!

Now, so lovely. It actually felt good to be in this kitchen once we were done with it. And we discovered a sneaky dumbwaiter pretending to be a bottom cabinet. It’s completely independent of the cabinets. You can roll it all over the house if you want to with a cake on it, or some wine, or just to show off that you have a dumbwaiter. Whatever floats your boat.

This room was screwy. Originally, you had to enter it here by going through the laundry room, which was off the kitchen. And it had a tiny closet with the hot water heater in it. The attic access was in this room as well. And to top it off, it had buzzy fluorescent lighting.
Yuck. Who would want to live there? Well Beau, who blew up one of our other houses, did for awhile. But, you will discover that he is quite crazy…

 
We tore out the carpet and installed these purty wood floors. Actually, I installed these hardwood floors. While hubby was on tour. Hm, how convenient. After installation, I sanded & stained all the hard woods in the house. I got the brown lung from it.

It’s been a love/hate relationship with this one, but….mostly I do love it.
Mostly.

The Guest House Remodel-Past, Present & Blown Up

We lived here for a couple of years and loved it. It met all of our needs and then some. But alas, our wandering eyes found a great deal on another ‘turd’ and we decided to rent this place out.

I still miss it. I could clean the entire thing in 45 minutes. Sigh.

This was the kitchen/living/dining/everything room. The lighting was perfect, the archway super cute. Before we remodeled it, this was one giant room covered in paneling and lit with fluorescent bulbs.

Yick.

A little side-note: I took this picture with a point and shoot camera in this house. The only lighting used was the ambient overhead lighting from the archway. Pretty…

We didn’t do much to the bathroom other than painting it and adding a new shower head. We leave things as original as we can, while still being functional. Trust me, this tile color choice would not have been my first.

I did fight for the chandelier in the bathroom. I have always wanted a chandelier in the bathroom. It seems so romantic. So Oooh La la.

We added several walls to break up the open floor plan and to make two bedrooms with closets. This was our bedroom, while the other was used as a office/guest bedroom.

I love the red in this room. It’s a bit racy and I like to be racy.

I miss you sweet little house. I hope you miss me too.

Current Remodel-Past, Present & Blown Up

Yes, two front doors again. We like to confuse people-especially delivery guys.

Our realtor called this house another ‘turd’.
I love our realtor. She is so truthful.

This poor house had been made into a mockery of a home. Something had to be done.

We basically had to tear it down to build it back up. Just like the army. Go Army! Go Greimans!

ONE MOMENT FOR:
A few weird facts about this house….
1.One entire bedroom and bathroom (including the ceiling) had been painted mauve and pepto pink.
2.The electrical panel had two inches of water sitting in it. YIKES!
3.After closing, we found a second secret electrical panel that even the inspector missed. Double YIKES!
4.We pulled up a brick pattern linoleum in the kitchen to find….the exact same brick pattern linoleum underneath it. What the heck?

But what takes the proverbial cake was that this house had FIVE exterior doors. Now, you know my stance on buying houses with at least two front doors. But do we really need five? We removed a couple, just for fun.

This one…

…and this one. Pay no attention to that man. I have no idea who that man is.

Now, a little twist. See this pretty barn? (Stick with me, I promise this has something to do with our current remodel.) My hubby grew up on this farm. His Grandma Greiman grew up here, and so did her father. The farm & the barn were built in the 1800’s. It has seen horse and buggies, flapper dresses, the Great Depression, World War I & II, telephones, airplanes, men on the moon, the Vietnam War, hippies, the internet…

I think you get the idea. It’s been around awhile.

The barn resides on the Greiman farm, which is referred to as a ‘Century Farm’. It’s been in the same family for over 100 years.

This is the haymow of said barn where generations of farmers stored their hay. And did other things in the haymow that maybe you shouldn’t be doin’. Wink, wink.

The barn was built with wooden pegs to hold it together instead of nails. The supporting beams had roman numerals carved into them, allowing the barn raisers to know which beam went where. The barn raisers handiwork survived tornadoes and fires and storms.

But, one summer we had to tear it down. That wasn’t easy for any of us.

Especially for these two: Kayle’s Grandpa and Grandma Greiman. They came by often, since they only lived four miles away, bearing cookies and ice cream and watching our progress.

Although much loved, the barn had become unsafe. This is one of the four corners of the barn. Notice it’s leaning on a little iron peg-and that’s all it’s leaning on.

We were able to recycle and save as much of the barn as possible. The foundational rocks are now in my garden. The haymow floor….

….is the flooring in most of our house. It was a pretty nasty sanding process, releasing 100 year old barn-ness into the air-but totally worth it.

The floors are my favorite part of our home. It’ll be hard to ever leave.

We made a ridiculously huge dining room table out of the barn’s stable wood. We can comfortably seat 10, and squeeze in 12 if need be. I wanted it wide enough for our plates and a huge amount of food in the center. Both sides of the family are big eaters…

This is one of the four legs to our dining room table. Notice the roman numeral carved into it?

But enough about that.
Let’s talk about injuries.

During ‘Insulation Day’, this guy Beau (who blew up another of our houses) decided to get creative. Anytime Beau gets creative, someone is going to get hurt.

He set about making a prop out of scrap wood to hold up the insulation that I was stapling to the ceiling. And sometime during the process….he shot a 16 penny nail through his finger. If you don’t know what a 16 penny nail is, it’s about 2 inches long.

Things I won’t repeat began to creep from Beau’s lips. I thought he was pulling my leg and had taped the nail to the backside of his finger. I told him to quit goofing off and get back to work.

Hubby took Beau to the hospital instead, nail and all. Big oops on my part.

But then, what do you expect from someone that looks like this and who sniffs paint fumes, old dust and fiberglass all day?
You shouldn’t expect much, let me tell you. Just pour her a glass of wine and call it a day.