Rental House Updates - Before and After Photos

Sometimes I wonder "What do I do with my time?  Where has the year gone?"
Thankfully, I have a blog and a camera and can glance back over my year to remind myself that I do not sit around all day doing nothing! 

A large portion of my time the past few months went into manual labor.  We finally evicted our latest non-paying tennants from our rental home at Labor Day.

So, I spent my autumn driving the 90 miles back and forth to the rental house and put in many, many hours of sweat equity at our rental home- trying to update the 1996 home to put it on the market.  Lots of painting, scraping, cleaning.   It is finally listed "for sale," but is still vacant!  ugh..  Fingers crossed - maybe it will sell, soon.

I am not whining - I know we are blessed to have the property to sell - I am just recounting my physical and financial efforts that brought the house from where it WAS in September to where it IS, now. 

Here are some before and after photos of our projects at the home. 

First, the exterior
I did not take good 'before' photos - I was too overwhelmed by the condition of the home and the work that needed to be done.

'before' we arrived with our hedgeclippers (immediately after the non-paying tenants were evicted)


rental house 'after' we spent time in the yard


After we took a houseful of trash to the dump, we were able to start repairs on the inside of the home.
My son and I added board and batten to the entry hall, detailed here....

rental house hall 'before'

rental house hall 'after'

We added beadboard and fresh paint to a powder room....

 
 rental house bath 'before'

rental house bath 'after'

And replaced the old appliances in the kitchen.....

rental house kitchen 'before'


rental house kitchen 'after' (looking other direction)


My husband removed the wall-sized mirror in the master bath ......

"Before" photos of master bath mirror




"After" photos of master bath mirror wall
I bought two new mirrors at TJMaxx/HomeGoods and my husband installed new faucets and lighting.  Welcome to the new century! 

The rest of the updates involved painting every inch of the interior of the home, hiring someone to repair over $1,000 worth of electrical sabotage* and buying new carpet and linoleum.  Not a fun way to spend money.  *The electrician discovered that the tenants had rigged the electric panel to widen the connections on the air conditioning circuit breakers to lower their electicity bill.  This is a dangerous way to save money - they almost burned down the house and actually destroyed one of the air conditioning units in the process.  The tampering was not evident until the electrical panel was removed.  Then it was obvious that a screwdriver had been used to separate the metal connections and reduce the amount of electricity flowing through the breakers. I am sharing this information because the various air conditioning repairmen did not know to remove the electric panel and look at the backs of the breakers.  The electrician was the one who had seen this sort of sabotage, before.

The updates at the rental house took time and cash away from our main home - the one we live in!  Hopefully the rental home will sell very soon!  Do you know anyone who needs to buy a home in the Kennesaw, Georgia area?  Offered at a 1999 price!  Here is the listing.

Have a wonderful New Year!!!





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Comments

Rebecca said…
What beautiful changes you've made to the house. (What a shame that it was so sadly treated.)

Someone should be SO happy to purchase it and move in!
Jenny said…
Great job! Long time reader, but I've never commented before, but I just had to. I was looking at the exterior thinking "wow, that house looks really familiar" so I clicked on the for sale link. Hahaha! I live in Kennesaw! How funny :) It is such a small, small world. I'll pass the word around. Praying it sells fast for you all!
Unknown said…
Hopefully your hard work will pay off soon. I was shocked when I saw the asking price, around our local area that home would be $850,000 to 1 million plus. Different markets but wow, I would love that mortgage ;D
I love the beadboard in the bathroom, so fresh looking. All the best to you and your loved ones in 2012.
My parent's used to have rental properties, so I feel your pain! It always amazes me since any home my husband and I have ever rented we have treated even better than our own homes! We just sold my parent's home and settled a little over a week ago, so I hope you will have a quick sale! Your improvements will certainly make it appealing to lots of people, you did an amazing job.

Kat :)
Isabel said…
What a beautiful house!!!!Awful that they treated it that way. Hope it sells soon. You did a great job on it:O)
Tammy said…
What a gorgeous house! Wish I lived in Georgia and was looking for a house--Would love to have that up here in Pennsylvania!
Unknown said…
You guys did a fab ulous job on the house. Love the moldings. Should sell quick i would think.
Unknown said…
WOW! So much work went into that! Ugh, glad your creepy renters are gone. I would buy it for the curb appeal alone! Nothing in Arizona looks like that!
Trish, this is awesome! Your mother's rental as well as this one! I work for a law firm and it just amazes me, that it takes so LONG to get someone evicted...that it is legal and there is nothing the homeowner can do but WAIT on the legal process....NUTSO!!

I hope your house has sold by now....it is beautiful!

Lou Cinda :)