There are many Cape Cod style houses in our area. Most of them are all identical . They have a small kitchen, 1 bathroom on the first floor, small 2 bedrooms upstairs and usually no dining room.
Well, recently we bought a Cape that didn’t exactly fit this description. It actually had a good size kitchen with a dining room connected to it. Nice enclosed porch in the back. It also had a 1 car garage and a nice yard.
There wasn’t anything terribly wrong with the house other than it needed a lot of updates. We gave it the “usual treatment”: new kitchen, bath, plumbing system, heating system, electrical system, floors, trim, doors, paint, roof, landscaping and a new water main (not so usual).
Yes, the water main broke one week after we bought it. It cracked exactly at the foundation. Deep into the foundation wall where it wasn’t easily fixable. Luckily it was a very small crack and we caught it right away. There was no flooding just a small puddle.
To fix it, we had to open up the front yard. It was all sand and excavator was done with it in one day. Yet still an unexpected expense. (Side note: Always, always, always budget for unpredictable issues. Absolutely need to have a reserve).
Here are some before pictures:
Exterior – before
Kitchen – before
Kitchen
Bath – before
Living room – before
Upstairs
Porch
As you can see, the house was dark and “tired”.
In the next post I’ll share some pictures from the progress as well as after pictures. (You can see them here)
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