One week after purchasing the house, we have it just about cleared out and ready to be gutted. It was pretty nasty. John went up with his BFF Eric and cleared out 15 mattresses. There was also a large number of cleaning products under the sink, most with bleach.
Here’s some of the “gems” we found:
- $122 plus change in the drop ceiling of one of the bedrooms
- 3 nerf guns (our son is psyched)
- Tennis and badminton rackets, tennis balls and shuttlecocks
- 4 boats – a pontoon, a bow rider, a sailboat (we think), and a row boat
- 5 coffee makers
- 1 dead mouse
- Straws, lots and lots of straws
- 4 TVs including one that looks about 50 years old
The dumpster is half-full. We pulled down the dropped ceiling in one of the bedrooms, which is where we found most of the money. A lot of the other furniture was in poor condition. We are donating the bedroom set to Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore here in town.
Next steps are fully gutting the bathroom to begin renovating. The bathroom vanity arrived and it is beautiful. I love the color. I was worried it wouldn’t be as nice in person as it looked online.
Unfortunately, I had hoped we’d be able to go room by room and gut but I think we’ll go with John’s plan of gutting the whole house – including the kitchen. I was going to make due with the cabinets that are there but they are so nasty (like carpet under the sink cabinet -yuck), that I’d rather just use a table and crates for the time being.
Our youngest kept asking why were we keeping anything and the short answer is money. No sense throwing out anything that is perfectly useful. And there were a couple of fun finds in the kitchen such as a glass juicer and old milk bottle.
We’ll see what other surprises await as we beginning gutting next week … and as the snow continues to melt.