Home Rehabilitation

Back in the mid 1980’s my husband and I scraped up the down payment on a 100 year old fixer upper home, a generic three bedroom colonial. What we started with and what we did, can only be referred to as to as rape rehabilitation. Then house had been pretty much destroyed by some one’s rather sick idea of style. They had pulled out chestnut woodwork and replaced it with Styrofoam woodwork. They removed French doors as well as the swinging door between the kitchen and the dining room only our deity knows what they did with them. To their credit they had left the stained glass window in place at the bottom of the stairs, perhaps, thankfully, window replacement was beyond their budget.

They had wall coverings in place that would make your skin crawl. There were a total of four different wall coverings in the dining room, that old and should have been forgotten ‘z-brick’ in blue on one wall and one wall of ‘z-brick’ in green, some nasty fake wood paneling in pale green and a truly antique wall paper that was probably really as old as the house (about 100 years old), it was faded red with a repeating white floral centered print. The living room was comparably appointed, as was a sweet little heated front porch whose French doors were long gone.

The kitchen was where they truly outdid themselves with their bad taste. The floors were turquoise tiles and there were, lord help me, lovely matching turquoise tile counter tops of the self same tile. The stove and refrigerator were originally avocado green but painted over with harvest gold. Of course the harvest gold was chipping badly and the avocado peeking through which added to the, shall we call it, rustic charm. The woodwork had been painted dark brown and the light fixture was a wrought iron piece, a rather poor imitation of a medieval relic. I have left the best for last. The wallpaper in the kitchen was, where to start, it was large flowers in turquoise with avocado green leaves on rather funky looking dirt brown background. It looked like a psychedelic nightmare, it went far beyond any 1960s low budget LSD inspired movie.

The bathroom could have easily won the award for being the most like an economy class airplane toilet. The toilet itself was stuck in a corner with a triangle shaped toilet tank. The plumber had never seen one like it and he was an older experienced gentleman. The sink was about the size of a small serving bowl and the ‘bath’ was in reality a shower that leaked into the downstairs dining room when you ran the water.

We discovered that unfortunate feature the evening that we moved in. My husband was upstairs taking a shower and I was working towards putting the kitchen in working order. There was a dripping sound coming from the dining room, I went to investigate. The ceiling was dripping, the drip was getting faster and faster as I watched. I hollered for my husband who, with out turning off the shower, came to the top of the stairs to yell down his, “What’s wrong?” At that point I was back in the kitchen rummaging for a large pot to contain the problem. Grabbing the trashcan, I ran back and yelled, “Turn the shower off. It’s running out in the dining room.” Being the brilliant man that he is, without turning off the shower he came down stairs to investigate. I just looked at him with disbelief, “TURN THE SHOWER OFF,” I screamed and after a quick glance at the situation he ran his dripping undressed self back upstairs to turn off the shower.

We had construction workers in the house with in two weeks. We joined the local health club to be able to shower. We ate a lot of grit with our dinners for a few months but when they were finished we had a normal sized bathroom and a lovely six foot tub that did not leak in to the downstairs at all. We had construction workers in the house twice more before we had our home the way we wanted it. Each time I got better at containing the dirt and grit.

Those plastic sheets that the workers hang in doorways to hold back the dust can be reinforced by old sheets that you dampen with a spray bottle each morning to further contain the dust. You can use packing tape or duct tape to hold them in place. The sheets provide an effective dust catch. If you put one on each side of the plastic they make an enormous difference. Just do not wet them down too much or you will have a water problem. After the construction is finished you can expect to toss them out, as they will be irreparable.

An extra large mat at the entrance and exit doors of the home is a very good idea, there is something about construction workers boots, and they just track in more dirt than any other kind of shoe. The grit form the construction will play havoc with your wood floors or your carpets so either lift the carpets or lay heavy-duty ‘path saver’ mats to protect the floors form the nasty abrasive construction grit.

It was our first house and we were determined to make it work for us. With creativity and perseverance we did.