Then & Now…

Boy what a difference a couple months can make. In doing the previous post I looked back at all our pictures and realized the first set we took was on April 29th. That day feels like years ago. Completing the basement and finding tenants made me reflect on the various phases the house has gone through in just this short time. It’s crazy to me how a little time does put things into perspective, which brings me to a story that is absolutely hilarious to me now, but wasn’t at the time…


We always knew we wanted to turn the part of the house that went down to the basement into some type of coat or storage closet.

Basically what you read is exactly the discussion/thought process we had:

Me: “I don’t want some wierdo’s having access to the house”

Jedd: “Yeah it might be weird but we could lock it”

Me: “Yeah but it would be strange like they could walk up the stairs and stand by the door and listen to us. And what if I wanted to talk shit about them, I wouldn’t know they’d be right there, you know LISTENING”.

Jedd: “Yeah you do like to talk crap, maybe we should just make it into a closet”

Me: “Exactly there’s not a lot of storage, where are people going to put their coats”

So this all was discussed prior to even knowing we got the house. As soon as we got the house we’d already hired someone to pull down the stairs which were termite invested anyway. Unlike the rest of the house the basement had been recently carpeted, as in the carpet down there was brand spanking knew. From what I can tell the previous owner had never actually gotten around to renting the basement out.

So imagine my surprise when we get right around this point of the basement remodel…

Do you see it? The first thing to notice is something I found alarming “honey the carpet didn’t go under the stairs, um that means what do we need to get a small piece of carpet, that will look odd”. Even worse was the where the stairs had been the concrete had buckled and was noticeably uneven. In addition my on the fly decision to pull this cabinet which was oddly floating in the kitchen all on it’s own resulted in a gap between the tiles, because some brainaic had decided to cement it in.

Me: “I can’t believe we’re going to have to get someone to jack hammer out all the extra concrete and smooth it back out”

Jedd: “Yeah but I think it would look so much nicer without carpet”

Me: “What do you mean”

Jedd: “You know I think maybe we get laminate down here”

Me: “Laminate? Laminate is expensive!”

Jedd: “No more expensive than carpet, plus I can install it myself”

Me: “You can’t install it yourself are you crazy?”

I remember thinking to myself “what have we gotten ourselves into? We don’t know anything about anything”. Now remember I might have been a little melodramatic and cranky because I was spending all my time doing this…

Jedd had a clearer head “It’s all going to work out, you’ll see it’ll be fine.” And you know what once again the man was right. Maybe that’s why I let him keep this…

Irene & the Open House…

I’m not sure if you’ve been watching the news but there’s a big hurricane barreling down on the East Coast. We did what all sane people do during a hurricane; we hosted the open house for the basement apartment. We’d actually posted the listing Thursday night knowing full damn well that it was probably the absolute worst day to have an open house and fully expecting no one to show up and to have to reschedule it for later next week. Imagine our surprise when Jedd’s inbox was flooded with inquiries and people making sure the open house was still a go. Of course we were committed to having the open house, what else were we going to do? I mean I couldn’t very well go shopping like I wanted to. Two hours in the basement was a great way to pass the time. Speaking of which let’s look back at what the basement looked like when we first moved in….

Compared with what it looks like now….

The feedback we got was amazing, everyone who saw the place expressed a lot of positive praise and everyone who saw it was interested in putting in an application. We were surprised, we thought the rent for the space might be on the high side but after researching it we realize it’s just right. We walked to a bar down the street after wards to discuss who our ideal tenant(s) were and immediately agreed that one couple stood out above all the others. We’re excited to send them the news and to embark on a new phase in our life “being a landlord” ha-ha.

Progress…

I know what you’re thinking (Jackie) “What is going on with the house”! Very little only one little thing so far:

Yup that’s the demolition of the termite damage of the basement steps. Lucky for us the selling bank decided to pay for this, which means I can cross off one thing on the to do list.

Oh and for those of you who are wondering why Jackie is in brackets it’s because I figure the only person probably asking that question is my godmother Jackie. Just as an FYI you’ll see lots of posts specifically pointed at her because I’m positive she’s one of the only people reading this each and every day.