Meet Ms C.

A few weeks back I introduced our latest project to you with a few demolition pics and promised you I had some exciting news to share.  Well, this is the post that I reveal that news.  But before I do I had a request to show some before demolition pictures of this rehome.  I aim to please, so here are a few shots I took before we started swinging our sledgehammers:

Well, I spoke wrote to soon.  My "before" pictures are terrible.  They don't capture the feel of the before house at all.  I tell ya what, I'll try to navigate you around the house as best as I can with the limited shots I got. Here goes... 

The Living Room-

I can't believe I did not think to get a picture of the "weird double doors".  Those double doors are currently an entry into one of the bedrooms. Who would want to walk directly into their bedroom from the living room??  Not me, so that will be going away.

Next we have 2 pictures of pretty much the same side of the dining room, sigh.  

And then after you walk thru the dining room you enter the kitchen:

It pretty much just had that one unit of cabinets. The oven sat all alone on one side of the kitchen and then the fridge held up the opposite wall.  No dishwasher and very little work surface.  We plan to change that.

Here is a shot of the current laundry room:

And the 1 bathroom:

And last the lousy shots of the 2 bedrooms:

Oh and a shot of the exterior before Travis tore out the cracked sidewalk:

Yep, she's a beaut.  She is in a lot better shape than most of the homes we buy so we thought this was going to be an easy peasy project.  Problem is we purchased this house over a year ago after a 5 min walk thru of the property.  While our realtor was showing us the home the current tenants stuck around and asked us not to go in one of the two bedrooms because their baby was sleeping. Fast forward 1 year later the tenants lease is up and we finally get inside to see what we purchased. What we didn't catch in our previous 5 minutes in the house was that the foundation was caving in at the center, there was rotten wood under the carpet, and the electrical was all old knob and tube that would need to be ripped out and replaced.  No biggie, nothing we haven't dealt with in the past, just wasn't expecting those unfun expenses.  

But here comes the exciting news- we think we might have this rehome presold.  Yep, we have a potential buyer.  "Potential" because she knows at the end of the project if it is not the home of her dreams she is welcome to walk away.  Honestly, this news is more terrifying than exciting to me. You see I have control issues- my issue with control being that I like to have IT- all of it. That is why I would make a terrible designer, I don't know how, or probably more honestly, I don't want to implement someone else's vision for a space- I just want to do what I want to do.  Ouch, that was hard to admit about myself- bottom line I'm selfish.  (First step in recovery is admitting you have a problem, right?!?!)  

So this was my big hesitation when Rory suggested we go under contract with a buyer (I'll call her Ms C).  But then it hit me, this could be my opportunity to live out my HGTV Fixer Upper Fantasy.  I could let her walk the before property, give her a few options to choose from, and then do a big dramatic REVEAL at the end (anyone know where I can get a life-size photo of my house?). Needless to say the fantasy won out over the fear.  

I knew it was all going to be ok when the first thing Ms C said when I met her was "This is just like Fixer Upper."  At that moment I felt like we were kindred spirits and I lost all professionalism and got entirely too hyper and it was like the filter from my brain to my mouth was turned off as I walked her thru the house and discussed my ideas.  I heard myself say things like "when I walk into a home I let the house tell me what kind of style it wants to be." Seriously?!?! "It speaks to me" who do I think I am?- the house whisperer???  Geesh, I would have run at that point.  But Ms C stuck around to hear me further admit that I like to give each of our homes a theme song that describes the overall mood of the house.  This rehome's song is "My Girl".  I may, or may not, have sung a line or two... honestly, I can't remember, I've tried to block it from my memory.

I also stressed over and over that I was NOT a designer, therefore, I could not get too much input from her because I was afraid I would worry so much about pleasing her that I would be afraid to take risks in the design- and I was afraid without the risks the house would feel more cookie cutter than rehomed. That being said, I did give her 1 pretty big decision to make in regard to the floor plan.  I presented her with 2 options for the extra space currently being used as the laundry room.  Unfortunately I was not able to show her a JoJo style animated computerized sketch of the 2 options but I did use my finger to point at where things would go so I'm pretty sure it had the same effect.   (see picture to remind you what space I'm talking about)

Option #1: Convert that space into a Master Bathroom, thus taking the home from a 2 bed, 1 bath to a 2 bed, 2 bath home 

Option #2) Use the space as a large walk-in master closet. 

She chose (cue the drum roll)..... option number 2!!! She also told me a few other things she would love to see in her dream home including a claw foot tub and a farmhouse sink.  Which just so happens to be exactly what the home told me it wants, so it's all good.

Ms C has been the ideal client (can I call her a client??). She has been so patient and has allowed me to hold tightly to my control and seems to like all my ideas- or maybe she is just scared I'll sing to her again if she disagrees with me. But despite how perfect she has been I have been a mess!  I have second guessed every decision I have made and am constantly worrying over what she will think of my choices and if I'm making it special enough, and if she will cry at the reveal (my HGTV training has taught me that the success of a flip can be gauged by the amount of tears cried and how many times the homeowner says "I can't believe this is the same house.") Normally I just do what I want then stick a sign in the yard and if someone likes it they buy it and if they don't they move on.  But now, even though Ms C is under NO obligation to purchase the home, I just hate the idea of putting her in that awkward position of having to tell me she just doesn't like it- although that would make for an interesting plot twist on Fixer Upper.

So I'll keep you updated on how this adventure turns out.  And if you think you might like to star in your own episode of my fantasy Fixer Upper, we are about to start working on another old town Conway house.  You know the house on the corner of Donaghey and Caldwell that had the tree fall down on it- yep that ones ours.  Fun fact: the tree fell 12 hours after we purchased it, nice.  

   

I hate to leave you on yet another cliff hanger but I have one more exciting news to share, but I'm so pumped about it I want it to have its very own post- so stay tuned!