Our First Endeavor

Steve and I have purchased our first investment property!  We closed on it last Thursday and have been hard at work ever since.  The house is a 3 bedroom, 1 and a half bath that was owned by a chain smoking hoarder and needs a good amount of TLC. 

We rented a dumpster that was delivered on Friday and we were afraid it would be too big and we would have wasted money...boy were we wrong!  Saturday, Steve, our good friend Dale, 2 day laborers we met in the parking lot of Home Depot (fine tax paying citizens I'm sure), and I spent about 7 hours removing all of the "treasures" from the house.  We quickly filled the dumpster and were not even half way done.  There were a lot of the large garbage bags the city sells in the garage already so we filled about 100 of them and put them in the carport (there is a picture at the bottom if you don't believe me).  Our 2 new friends were great workers!  They pulled all of the paneling from the walls, removed the dropped ceilings, peeled the lament tiles that were glued to the bathroom walls...I think the intention was better than the execution on that decorative idea...pulled up the rust colored shag carpeting, and anything else we asked them to do. 

Dale and Steve spent most of the time in the bathroom after we realized the drain had rusted through and the tile was cracking because the wall had water damage behind it...what a great surprise!  Thank God Dale was there!  He owns his own construction company and is far too expensive for us to hire but gives great free advice.  He helped Steve cut the walls out of the shower, with a big fancy saw that I'm sure gets men very excited, and basically demo the entire bathroom.

While they were playing in the bathroom, I was cleaning out the garage and the lady's shell collection off the back patio.  I wish I had pictures of the 'before' so you could really see what a hard worker I was, but you will have to take my word for it.  I told Steve that day officially went down as the "grossest day of my life."  I am much too big of a germ-a-phobe to dig through people's garbage.  I wore gloves, but still wanted to scrub my skin off when I was done.  This woman saved EVERYTHING!  I threw away about 50 empty coffee cans, about 15 empty milk jugs, about 60 plastic butter containers with lids, about 75 plastic paper towel holders still in their plastic wrapper, and many other things no person should save.  It was depressing after awhile. 

We accomplished a lot more than we ever thought we would in one day and were exhausted!  Our 2 new buddies made out like bandits because we let them take anything they found in the house they wanted.  They tried to take my tool box but we had to explain that was not up for grabs....little thieves!

Here are some before and after pictures:

 I'd like my friends who are smokers to notice the nicotine on the walls.  Now picture your lungs.  OK, climbing down from my soapbox. 

 This is the garage I cleaned out.  My pride and joy!

 On-deck for the dumpster.