The Scary Before Pics

Although Tom could see the potential in this fixer upper 2-flat in Logan Square, I on the other hand, was a bit more apprehensive. On the day that we closed on the house in the Fall of 2007, I spent several hours in bed sobbing. But, I came around to the notion that with a lot of elbow grease, some DIY spirit, and a little love, this is a place we could be proud to call our own.

Welcome to our Work in Progress!

This is how 2 of the bathrooms looked when we bought the place. Since it was in foreclosure, the house was vacant for several months. During this vacancy, junkies/vagrants destroyed the wall and tore out all of the metal pipes, plumbing and any other metal scrap they could get their hands on.

A lot of damage for a little bit of scrap metal. Thanks jerks!

The kitchen sink area of old plaster and lathe and cast-iron pipes

The 1st floor kitchen cabinets...full of dead cockroaches. Super yum!

Boarded up windows and a view of the back of the house

A view of the back yard from the 2nd floor
The former tenants and/or junkies left a lot of stuff behind in the house and in the garage. Tom and I, as new homeowners, had an exciting weekend doing some demo. We filled a huge dumpster with junk in 3 days.

The over-grown and extra thorny rosebushes in the back yard. We spent Labor Day 2007 cutting these down with long sleeves and very thick leather gloves.

The ancient (circa 1950ish) non-functioning gas furnace in the basement that needed to be replaced. Scary, no? Freezing temps in Jan08 sent us into a new furnace frenzy.

So, we worked on the house for several weeks in December 2007 without heat. That was fun. This is Tommy bundled up and breaking stuff with his hammer. Did I mention we worked without heat? Your hands don't really work as well in the cold.

This picture was taken on Christmas Eve 2007. We had a Christmas miracle that day...after fiddling with the electrical, Tommy got the electric garage door to work! It was truly spectacular.