Olive Street

We bought a house! We officially closed on it on October 29, 2012. Life has been a bit crazy, hence the 4 month delay! To answer your questions, 

1- Yes we are crazy & we know it. We had been looking to buy a house in this specific neighborhood since early summer. We had decided it would be a small move in ready home for now and we would upgrade and possibly flip in the distant future. Two different houses that were "perfect" fell through, one of them after months of "under contract" and lots of drama. God made it clear that this was our home (much to my dismay with an ugly garage) through a series of doors opening in a very short amount of time.We are just along for the ride, trying to enjoy the actual ride and figure out where exactly it is going!

2- No we are not living in it. You will see why. 

3- Yes, we (and by we I mean Tate, with generous help of friends, family and strangers) are doing as much of it ourselves as possible. We are hiring out big things like plumbing and electrical but do it yourself is much cheaper than hiring someone else and it ensures it is done right or at least you know who to talk to if you don't like it. 

Those are the main 3 questions we get when we discuss our lovely future home. If you have others, feel free to ask!

Our Olive Street house was built around 1880 with some modifications in the early 1900's. This picture was taken in the 1930's by our best guess. 

Olive Street home on closing day.

The knight came with the house as did the majority of the stuff you see in the following pictures. The knight stayed, most of the stuff did not.

Original woodwork throughout

Standing in living room looking into dining room and what will be our kitchen. To the left is the front door and you can see the edge of the stairs and hallway.

Hidden treasures. We unburried two fire places and hopefully one will be able to stay open.

"Vintage" bathrooms & kitchen

The house was formerly owned by a hoarder. Is is a small amount of the junk in the attic alone. Pictures can not describe the stuff that was crammed into this house, they don't even have enough words! It took two 40 yard dumpsters to clean out the house so that we could demolish it. 

After pictures from just clearing junk. This will be the master suite that walks onto the top porch.

Just an idea of the beautiful home we purchased :)

Unfinished attic space with TONS of potential... once the knob and tube electrical wiring is replaced.

The back was not so pretty due to a horrible addition and attempts to fix it, but the back yard is big for being in the city!

And the best part of the house, the views. From what will be our master bedroom you can see the downtown skyline. On the left is no zoom, on the right is the zoom.

This is our before picture (+ a 1.5 year old that we can't post pictures of).... who knows what after will look like!