Contest: Worst renovation project EVER!!
Really...we shouldn't feel better when someone shares our pain.
Being human, this strange coincindence DOES make me feel better. It is yucky and twisted. So, Derek of Human Improvement Hell in Massachusetts sent us a picture to, um, make us feel better.
He found the Mother of All Mouse Nests. In his house.
(If you click on any photo, it should enlarge it. For those of you who have never seen it, this is original KNOB and TUBE wiring.)
I think that this needs to BE A CONTEST!!! Send us a digital photo of your worst renovation nightmare. Get it as detailed as possible. Include the story. We'll have folks VOTE on them and we'll be giving out FABULOUS prizes that we find somewhere in the house.
Photos need to be in by October 1st at 12:00 midnight and sent to owners@ houseinprogress. net in order to qualify.
Anyone, here is Derek's story. It goes with the picture:
I clicked on your site after making my daily check on AM Bungalow and had quite a chuckle to find somebody as eager to restore their home as we are and just as miserable. First of all the windows are awesome. I have done the same thing with mine. I kept 'em against the advice of seemingly every person on the planet who say their drafty, noisy yadda yadda yadda. But they are unique and original so they got restored and look awesome.
Anyway, Our Bungalow is a 1920 Mission style stucco nightmare... I mean diamond in the rough. Put it to you this way, in great shape we could get 350K for it easily. We bought it for 180. It had been a rental, and then vacant for 3 years. The sill was rotten, chimneys crumbling (both) and... well, there isn't enough room to list other maladies. BUT, it was intact, not having ever been re-muddled. The bones were there for resto---though they were riddled with osteoperosis. I am a school teacher with summers off. This year I planned to do three rooms. Started with the pantry. The original butler's pantry had been ripped out years ago( the only missing element of the house). Once I ripped out the plaster and lathe I found what was literally a ten ft by 2 ft HOLE in my house. There were four rotted studs, subfloor rotted out (no idea why italics sorry). A miserable black hole of house a project. Its coming along but tomorrow I will cut off about 70square feet of stucco so I can replace the side of the house.
I am sending along a picture of the "worlds largest mouse hotel" that I found. But you know what, I love the look on people's faces when I show them my work. They all seem to contemplate their own home maintenance inadequacies and just begin to nod drunkingly when you point out s**t you've done. My buddies don't bring their wives over any more because they leave with long to do lists and their wives just glare at them contemptuosly (can't spell that word) because they "haven't un-stuck that double hung window", or "fixed the whole in the screen door."
OK, by rambling on like this I've avoided sweeping broken plaster but since I've lost the sense of taste due to a plaster coated tongue, and I can't breath through my nose, nor blink, I better go clean up.
Keep up the good work.
Derek
______________________________________________
You GO Derek!! I am behind you!!! I salute your mouse nest...and your gumption.
Anyone else with some photos? Anyone?
(8)
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Comments
(Note from JM: Sean's Story)...Our worst renovation nightmare (So far anyway) was when we decided to replace the subfloor in our office, which had begun its life as a flimsy back porch, and was by the time we got to it a rotting, flimsy enclosed and extended porch. I was working on some framing in the kitchen and so the spouse gets the prybar and starts removing the flooring, which turned out to be the former porch ceiling.. (explained why the floor dipped!!) Discovered that all of the framing is built from scraps of the old porch. About halfway through the floor, I hear a scream... and somehow, I KNOW what it is, seeing as we had uncovered at least three rat nests in the kitchen (this would have NOTHING to do with the fact that some of the kitchen drawers were painted shut with food still in them...)
However, it was even worse that I thought. Not a mummified mouse, or possum, or even a squirrel, but a mummified kitty!!!! We then decided we need to take a nice, looong walk to absorb and come up with a plan. Ultimately, we decide that one of us will get the shovel and dump it into a sack, and the other will put the sack in the garbage.
Unfortunately, the corpse was stuck to the ground and fell apart so it took a few scoops to get all of it, and part of the limb was sticking out of the bag. The sack had handles, so we took the shovel handle, looped it through the handles and carried the thing out into the garbage. Writing this makes my stomach turn again. Once that was gone, we discovered that the room had absolutely no foundation and was resting rotting wood blocks sitting on the original sidewalk. We tore off the walls and determined that the entire thing was built of scraps, all of which were now rotting and termite ridden. Based on research we did down at the public library, the porch had been enclosed in 1945, at the end of the war, which would explain why building materials were all reused. Since that time, I have poured a foundation,rebuilt the floor, the walls, and the roof completely, reconfigured the windows and door, and added a skylight. It has become a wonderful sturdy, light-filled space that we are really happy with.
Posted by: sean | September 24, 2004 10:37 AM
jm - I'm trying to figure just which picture to send. It feels like we have so many worthy entries, yet at the same time no picture has really captured what was there.
sean -- I'm dealing with rotten and termite-destroyed walls and sill plates, and we've found more than a few gross things and skeletons. My stomach clenched in recognition when I read your words...
Posted by: john m | September 25, 2004 6:35 AM
I posted this somewhere else...I should have posted it here!
Anyone can send us their crazy house pics at owners@ houseinprogress. net (take out the spaces when you type this email into your note.)
We can take anything and the best format is jpeg or gif. If you need to make your picture smaller for sending and you have a Windows Operating System, you can adjust the picture in your "Paint" program. (This is one of the standard accessories that comes with Windows.)
We'll post the ones that we get of your old house craziness. We have to do something to give back to the old house community...might as well spread around that sympathy!!!
take care--
jm
Posted by: jm | September 27, 2004 9:48 AM
(Note from JM: Jonathan's Story)...Love the site, just stumbled across it while looking for information on leveling a floor. Good to see that missery does enjoy company and I am not the only one with house woes. We purchased (my soul mate 'becky') a very old home last August, the price was soooo cheap we couldnt pass it up. We knew the home required work but how much we were not sure. Our first task was to remove an old clunker of an oil furnace and move a hot water tank. The oil furnace sat on the first living floor of the house with the water tank in the middle of a door way. Seemed like an odd place so we moved it to regain some living space. We removed the furnace without isssue, the "cuts all" saw is a wonderful tool. After removing the oil furnace we noticed the ceiling above it had begun to sag. My first tear into the Gyproc started the avalanche of bat guano (sh*t). Tear apon tear brought bag upon bag of bat sh*t. On and on until near the end of the project and on my final tear, an old fashion, iron fell from the ceiling and conked me in the head. I required eight stiches and one shot to get the gash cleaned and sealed. In the end we removed 3 green garbage bags of bat sh*t, and one large iron. The room had to sit and air out for two weeks , plus numerous bottle of bleach. The ceiling has since been replaced, the bats are gone, the smell is gone, but the scar remains. Not what i wanted to remember our first reno by but makes for a good story. I apologize for not including a picture but can probably find one for you later. Our house is 200 years old and is in Nova Scotia Canada.
Posted by: jonathan | September 29, 2004 1:41 PM
Jonathan--
Aaaahhhh! That bat stuff makes me cringe. Our raccoon attic/litter box is nothing to your bats. I think you have definitely grossed me out for the rest of the day!
p.s. My grandmother's folks (mom's side) hail from Halifax, Nova Scotia. NS looks to be a truly beautiful place that I have seen in photos and which I am dying to visit someday.
Posted by: jm | September 29, 2004 2:14 PM
A picture may be worth a thousand words but the photos of Nova Scotia do not do "Gods country" justice. I recommend a visit, especially to the rural coastal communities of the South Shore. The fall with the leaves ablaze and the giant swell kicked up by off shore hurricanes make this the time of year to visit.
Posted by: jonathan | September 30, 2004 10:07 AM
Jonathan - do you have a website?
I'm from NS, would LOVE to see pictures of the old house you're talking about. Old NS houses are a secret love of mine. =)
Posted by: LisaB | October 5, 2004 10:14 AM
no web site yet, if time permits you can all join in my fun
Posted by: jonathan | October 8, 2004 6:51 AM