“We Did!”

Do you remember this question? “do you have the guts to take on a fixer upper?” Well, we did and if you don’t know what I’m talking about that is the question Chip and Joanna Gaines asked in their intro on their hit tv show, ‘Fixer Upper’ which aired on HGTV for years.

If you watched the show then you were probably fans of it, but we started to fix up the above old house back in 1975’ after we bought it from my uncle. My grandmother was the real owner and she had rented it out for many years, so it was a total disaster, but we didn’t care. My uncle would’ve inherited it when she died and he didn’t want it. So as her power of attorney he sold it to us.

As newly weds we had wanted it and we thought we were prepared to make it into a lovely home. Actually we were naive, but we had a ton of drive and ambition.

Little did we know it would take us three long years and tons of sweat equity that began before could even we move in. My in laws and my mom just laughed at us as they shook their heads, but we didn’t care. We knew we would have the last laugh when we done and we planned to make them drool.

Sorry for the blurriness. Old photos don’t measure up to today’s technology, but you can see the difference. It became beautiful and everyone we knew plus our neighbors told us it was and we were very proud of it, and ourselves.

The reason I’m writing this is to encourage anyone out there who’s ever thought about doing this and my advice is to go for it! Here are some keys to being successful at it, in case you have forgotten what the Gaines tried to teach everyone on their show.

1. Location, location, location. Look in decent areas first and pick out the worst property and start envisioning how you and your budget will be able to make it look when it’s done. The neighborhood of this house was fairly decent. We became friends with most everyone who lived on the block and they gave us support as we renovated it. Hey, our improvements helped their property values, too.
2. Buy it right. This is key to beginning a whole house makeover. Keep your budget in mind and stick to it. Don’t be afraid to make a lesser offer on a house. All they can do is turn you down, but you may just end up reaching a mutual price if you can keep negotiations going.

This place cost us nine grand...Yeah, really. Of course it helped that my uncle wanted us to have it because he didn’t want to inherit it so we got it for below appraised value. Haha. Our mortgage payment was a whooping ninety bucks a month…1975' remember. We were both making four dollars an hour, and a new car back then was around five grand.

3. Plan on doing most of the work yourselves. If you can’t, then think twice before you leap. Hiring professionals, even less expensive ones, is a budget destroyer. Line up friends, coworkers, parents and siblings and anyone else you can think of that might be willing and able to help you. Girlfriends helped me wallpaper and we had fun doing it and all it cost me was pizza. My husbands friends came over and helped him tear out the old bathroom and kitchen cabinets and fixtures and it only cost him a few beers. Those were the days!

I hope you enjoy seeing these pictures because I love sharing them. It was a wonderful chapter in our lives and we learned a lot about each other as well as home renovation, but not all of it was fun. They say if you can wallpaper a room together your marriage can survive anything. We did and we have made it for 46 years and starting with this house was ‘the real acid test.’

We were adults who were in our mid 20’s with a mortgage and we had to keep working our butts off while we usually existed on six hours sleep before going to our day jobs. We worked on the house almost every week night till midnight or later.

We scrapped multiple layers of wallpaper off dirty, somewhat wavy lath and plaster walls using a big awkward old steamer we had to rent. We scrapped and peeled old linoleum off the floors in the kitchen and baths. We scrapped paint off the woodwork and window glass and then refinished the wood trim throughout the house.

We even had to steam off wallpaper on the ceilings. I hated that most of all…Hot droplets of water dripping down onto my face and arms as I held up the steamer until globs of nasty smelly wallpaper fell down into my long hair… dear lord, what were we thinking?!

But, when we finished a room the fun would begin because I got to go furniture shopping and I loved it. The joy of picking out just the right pieces for every room was nirvana for me and I looked at it as a reward for all the hard work we had done.

When the day finally arrived when we invited my mom and his parents over to see the finished house all our work was really shined. Sure they had seen it during the reno, but when it was fully furnished and accessorized, well that was Bliss. They ooohed and ahhh’d their way through every room and they felt just like I felt years later watching Fixer Upper do a final reveal.

So, if you have the guts to take on a fixer upper, go for it. We spent six thousand fixing it up not counting furniture, etc. We sold it for thirty-six thousand which we used as a down payment when we then had our first ‘new home’ built. The purchase and the renovation had been a wise thing for us to do and we’ve never regretted it. I bet you won’t either.

Thanks for for spending your time reading and thoughtful writing everyone!