The Bend: Before the Renovation

Today I'm posting a few pictures of the interior of the house taken shortly after we bought it, but after we had done a little bit of demo work just to see exactly what we would be dealing with.  The house is in good structural condition as far as we can tell.  So the initial plan was to just paint it, clean up the floors, replace some appliances in the kitchen, and fix up the bathroom.  

This is the living room looking out the east-facing windows.  

The one (indoor) bathroom.
This was taken after we had taken down the bathtub surround thing.
This bathroom was meant to just have tub, so we have to figure out what to do
about the window being partway into the shower.

Living room looking out the window on the front of the house.
One surprise we were happy about was the heart pine floors in pretty good condition.

Back bedroom.
The house being small and old had been heated by propane space heaters and cooled by window units and ceiling fans which we had been removed by the time this picture was taken.

Bedroom Number Two.

Hallway leading to the three bedrooms.

Utility room off the kitchen. Kenneth and his dad, the world's best electrician, had begun to rewire the house and bring it up to code. More on that later.

Kitchen.

For whatever reason, the kitchen gave the creeps more than any other room.  I think it was the smell. It brought back suppressed memories from my (otherwise quite pleasant) childhood of cleaning out my dear dad's rental properties in low-income neighborhoods.  Those memories had been suppressed for a reason, but I've apparently not forgotten the odor. Ewww.

I was so despondent about this kitchen and the fact that I might one day be cooking and eating in it that I almost had a nervous breakdown when Kenneth and his sweet mom were attempting to clean it up a little bit.  Kenneth assured me it was just so he wouldn't get the cooties while they were working on the house. My position was that we were going to haul everything out to the dump anyway, so I was terrorized at any attempts to clean it in case he may decide to keep something.  As it turns out, dear Kenneth and his strapping friend Brian were in the process of hauling this refrigerator to the dump when it flew out of the back of the truck and ended up in pieces in the middle of the highway.
Good riddance.

The back door leading out to the outhouse.  One of my favorite things about this place is that enormous oak tree you can see on the other side of the house there.  It would make a tree hugger out of me.  If someone suggests it needs to come down, you will find me camped out in its branches, hanging on for dear life. I'd move the house before I'd cut the tree.