Our Humble Abode

Our camera and it's battery have finally come closer to each other than 200 miles... so close in fact that they have joined together in beautiful harmony to create some great pictures. We will have a lot of catching up to do in the near future, but for now I will show a couple before and after pictures of the house just to satisfy those who have threatened.
So the short story on our house, it is a little trashed thang on a great piece of property: One acre in a great neighborhood in Wellsville. It was foreclosed so we got a killer deal on it, we actually paid less for the land and the house than we would have paid for a 1 acre lot alone in this area. So here are some pictures of the living room and kitchen only, because we are still unpacking the other rooms. Keep in mind that we have not decorated at all yet. You may notice that I have strategically placed our one and only unpacked decoration in nearly every frame! See if you can spot it...


Before: Looking in from the front door. Yes, that is a stain of unknown origin on the wall. These peculiar stains are everywhere in the house. It is also very stinky in here, a mix of food and animal urine. There are probably 1,000 holes of varying sizes on the walls, some up to 8 inches in length. The walls are covered in black dirt, we think it was soot? We are not sure.


After: front door looking in. Lots 'o' patching on the walls, lots of painting, trim, new carpet, and our old furniture of course. Notice we finally painted our armoire! It only took us 6 years.

Before: This is looking at the living room from the kitchen, toward the front door.


After: New windows as well, Zach and Dee had to frame them in and it looks really cute.


Before and After: Giant man-eating spiders. No, really. This is a male hobo spider, it is about the size of a quarter. The females are about twice as big and scary looking. They are EVERYWHERE and they are nasty. Not to mention poisenous. We just found out they were hobo's tonight so we will be buying traps tomorrow.

Before: Laundry room looking into kitchen. I should probably mention that any slanting you see is probably NOT the angle of my camera, but the actual angles of the house. Isn't that special? If you think of any good nick names for her, let us know (like "the leaning tower of Putnams" only funny).



After: Zach and Dee's handywork, new cabinets and countertop (note: countertop is not finished! Don't judge us on the raw edges:)


Before: Looking in the kitchen from the living room (the doorway you see is to the laundry room and outside). Notice the live wire hanging from the ceiling, which we have reason to believe that the family who lived here before us lived with that live wire hanging down there for 6 years. Also, note the nasty nasty stove.

After: Finished the wall and ceiling, fixed the hanging live wire (now a hanging pull light), lots of painting, trim, cleaning, now cabinets


New, clean stove

My new birthday table. There is a hidden leaf underneath and it can sit 8. Counter height.


Close up of the pull light and ceiling.



Before: Outside



After: Outside. It actually looks better than this pic because our grass is green and there is some shrubbery that has grown in (from Robert, the Shrubber).

Stay tuned! More to come