We had been keeping our eye on a couple of different lakes for property to buy for a while. It seems that everything we looked at sells the second it hits the market, which makes it hard to even put in an offer. So we saw this house and it didn't sell immediately. We figured there must be something wrong with it and then found out it was bank owned. It was going up for auction so we thought, why not?
We finished the auction as the highest bidder, but the banks minimum wasn't met and it went up for auction again. The second time we weren't the highest bidder but after several days we got an email saying the highest bidder dropped out and asking if we wanted to pay more to get to the banks minimum. After talking about it, we decided we didn't want to do that and we told them no. Another week later we got an email from a realtor telling us the bank decided to take our lower bid and they were preparing documents to sign.
At this point, we hadn't even seen the inside of this cabin. And we were now buying it. We talked to the realtor about getting us in it to take a look and finally met her there one day to check out. (insert puke face emoji here, haha)
We knew going into it that this place was a major "Fixer Upper". Both on the outside and on the inside it needs major work. But the smell walking into this little cabin was overwhelming. The people who lived here before, we were told, had several dogs. The dogs appeared to have been kept in the bathroom and laundry room and had attempted to dig themselves out of those rooms. The floors were torn apart, as were the doors and the trim.
The bathroom was, and frankly still is at the moment, disgusting. The musty/mildew smell is rank. We knew we would have to completely gut it out and it was one of the first places we started on. We've ripped out the shower, toilet and cabinet/mirror. We also had to replace the floor. We have put down new floorboards, put in a new toilet and sink and we're waiting to put in the new shower.
The kitchen is also disgusting. The oven was caked in I don't even know what! There was melted plastic all over the inside. The oven and fridge work and for the time being, they are still there but we will plan to replace them down the road. Right now while we are still working on the house, they'll work. They needed some massive cleaning tho! As I mentioned earlier, the previous tenants had dogs. You can imagine the dog hair found. Everywhere. In the fridge, under the fridge, in the oven. Dog hair in places you should never find dog hair.
The walls were so dirty that we thought they were dark red. But once we started washing walls, they were actually orange. I will share those pictures in another post! There was a homemade backsplash where the people glued rocks to a painted board and screwed the boards to the wall... Thanks to DecoArt I already have the paint for the cabinets. I really got ahead of myself when I got paint from them! I thought I'd have it painted before we closed the house down for the winter but we weren't even close! So I look forward to painting this spring!
The laundry room only has cabinets and a water heater in it. We've already replaced the water heater and we will need to replace the floor and cabinets and of course, add a washer and dryer. We've talked about adding a sink to clean fish in at some point.
There isn't much to the bedroom. It is one single bedroom that we will have to be creative when it comes to bed placement. It doesn't look like it, but it is a pretty decent size room.
The living room is basic as can be also. The windows in the entire house will need to be replaced at some point. We had to fix the chimney pipe because when we would light a fire in the fireplace all the smoke came straight back into the house. It was gross and the walls were black with smoke. When I started washing walls we soon learned that the paint colors were actually different than they looked. That is okay, they will all be different colors soon anyway!
In the backyard, we will just be cleaning out the weeds and making a deck. Not much to it! We just really want the large deck space as we will be able to watch the sunrise and sunset from the deck. Along with the lake view. I see a lot of time spent on the deck in our future.
The Lake access is the entire reason we wanted this house. To have a place we can go with our family and friends any time we want is what really matters. And I am looking forward to spending a lot of time here.
I will have more posts to come as things updated and I will try to be better about sharing as we go. sharing what's been done in the bathroom soon. But there is just sooo much more to do in this house! It is going to be a while before it is where we want it to be.
