I Found a Path

After a couple of days in the backyard it's looking good, we even found a concrete/stone path. It makes several beds. The backyard gets a lot of shade.

This is the view from the driveway

The white plastic fence is our neighbors', that is our back property line. I think we should put a privacy fence along the back.

This is behind the garage, this is the right side if you've pulled in to the driveway.

Dead orange tree.

Close up of the back property line.

Continuing to the left, this is our neighbor's shed.

Continuing left, that is our neighbor's house and the corner or our porch.

This is a close up of the left side of the porch which faces the neighbors. I think it would be nice to affix a lattice type panel to the porch and grow jasmine. You can see a small bed that runs along the length of the porch.

The right side of the porch where the paths meet and head toward the garage and driveway. This part of the house is the vanity/closet part of the master bedroom.

Entrance to the porch from the driveway.

The porch looks so much better cleaned out. The floor was covered in debris. There were several PVC chairs and tables in here too that we took to the dump.  The brick is in really good shape. The screen is in good shape too, just needs to be reattached.

The Guts

We will start with the garage.  There is a bunch of stuff in there...and it smells...like musty urine..lovely.

Randy cut us in to the garage, I like the doors.

So.much.stuff.  A lot of cabinets, hand tools, doors etc.

Here are some pics from the inside...it was so smelly and full of fleas.  Can't wait to get it cleaned out/up!

View inside the front door...what..you don't have a sink
in your foyer?  It's actually a cool sink.  I hope we can
reuse it in the laundry room

View from the front door in to the house, to the right, gas fireplace,
the dining room is beyond the arch

Facing the front door from the opposite side of the room.

Wall opposite the fireplace, all of the walls are plaster (which I like)

View of the dining room from the living space, the kitchen is beyond the door 

Only bathroom, they already laid the cement board for us,
how sweet.

Yummy

Outside of this bathroom is a short hallway with access to the attic.
We went in today and it wasn't bad at all...except for the fleas

Front bedroom, this window faces the street,
it's right by the front stoop

Front bedroom the second window faces the driveway,
anyone need a book or a VHS?

View of the kitchen from the dining room

Miniature u shaped kitchen

Laundry off of the kitchen, this is also where the backdoor
enters the house through the screened porch

Back bedroom with a random addition, I think they used it as
a closet/vanity area off of the 'master' bedroom.  It connects to the laundry/mudroom
that leads out to the screened porch.  I'm not sure we can do it, but this would be a great
area to add a second en suite bathroom.

The closet/vanity area off of the back bedroom

View of the laundry/mudroom from the closet/vanity area
that connects to the back bedroom

Hardwoods!!! I found them in just about every  common space.
You can see that there is plywood where the addition was put on the front of the house.

View from the dining room to the front of the house.

Flea bites, g-ross.

We have several more trips to the dump in store for tomorrow, then we are going to bomb the hell out of the house.  Hopefully next weekend we will be on to cleaning out the inside of the house.

Got a Garvin

We have a new project to work on, it's a house...not the house we live in, but a house we'd like to eventually sell to someone else to live in.  Right now, it needs.alot.of.work.  We got the house through the Orange County foreclosure auction online.  We were kind of behind the ball to meet all of the crazy deadlines they have related to the auction so we didn't do all of our diligence in advance.  However, we haven't been totally hosed by unknowns.  The city has a lien, not too bad, and the previous owner was dead over a year so we owe 2013 property taxes.  From what I understand this could have been a lot worse, but it would have been way more wise to know all of this before we bought it...lesson learned for next time.

Garvin is the name of the street that the house is one, it's a 2/1 and about 1,000 square feet. The same person lived in it since 1985 until he passed away in 2012.  It seems like his estate just let it go.  Enjoy our 'before' pics below!

View from the street

Close up view of the front

From the front, going to the left around the house

Continuing to the left, we have a power panel, a chimney for the gas fireplace,
coming up on the lovely AC unit

AC

This 'closet' has the hot water heater in it, you can also see the screened porch

View from the side street, the garage is on the far left, screened in porch and house.
The rail you see on the right is on our neighbor's house

View of the front from the drive way, the front door is under the stoop on this corner 

Front stoop from driveway

View of the garage from the driveway on the right side of the house

Overall the outside isn't in terrible shape, we need to clean out the gutters, replace some rotten wood and do a decent amount of yard work.  Next up, the insides.