all of the days before...

The point of this blog is to chronicle the renovations of a "new" home buyer. I say "new" because the house my mom and I purchased was built in 1928, making it older than both us put together. But I should probably rewind a bit just in case someone who doesn't know me stumbles across this thing.

Last summer my dad passed away, and at 27 years old, having been out from under my moms roof for about nine years, I moved back. I had accumulated a lot of things, including a 60-pound dog who jumps around, steps on your feet, and knocks things over with her tail. So the addition of me, all of my things, and my dog was a bit much for a two bedroom mobile home that already housed my mom and her dog, weighing in at around 50 pounds.

When my mom floated the idea of renting a house to me, I told her that houses in Detroit were going for a few thousand dollars. We went to look at a few and she was sold on the sheer convenience: if we got a house on the east side of Detroit, her commute would go from an hour (longer in the wintertime) to just a few minutes. We would also have a backyard for the dogs and more space for us.

Cut to several months later: we got a realtor (Eugene Love, of Love Realty), looked at probably over 50 houses, made several unsuccessful offers, when we found it. Built in 1928, it was a two unit brick house with beautiful plaster walls, rows of big bright windows, and a large front porch. After a few weeks of being on the edges of our seats, it was ours.

I should probably mention at this point that there are a lot of foreclosures in Detroit. Some are better maintained than others, some are more well secured than others. While our house hadn't been messed with much before we saw it, a week before we closed, someone broke in and stole the kitchen sink and the bathroom tub, toilet and sink. Fun. By this point we had already sold the mobile home, and I was convinced that we could replace these things without too much trouble.

That brings us not-so-swiftly to day one.