Bless the Previous Owner

The previous owners had some great ideas. I like a lot of what they did: renovating the kitchen and master bath, adding a new stair railing, terracing the back yard, and so on.


Here's what they didn't do: they didn't finish any of the projects. They are almost done...which is my post for the day: what we have to finish. The previous owners spent the cash, we get to do the detail work.


Not a bad deal, although frustrating at times. Here's a peek at some of the more annoying things:


The Kitchen

Missing cabinet - it is actually installed on the other side of the kitchen , so either another one is needed, or we need to reconfigure the other area. Also love the tape line on the ceiling from the drywall work

Trim doesn't quite match up...hm.

The screw doesn't go all the way in. Maybe they couldn't find a smaller screw at installation time?

Just to add to the fun, some of the doors open the wrong way - and one of the cabinets is almost completely inaccessible, due to being too far away from either side of the counter.


Stair Railing

The trim pieces on the railing were never added - although the box of trim is waiting patiently downstairs

Tiling Woes

In the front two rooms, there are no less than three kinds of tile:

Tile 1: Original to the house, but still missing grout in places (Front room)

Tile 2 and 3: Tile on the left was added most recently in the kitchen reno; tile on right was damaged during that process  (Dining room)

Another damaged tile, along with some interesting non-finished trim

The tile surround for the door was never finished or grouted; the tiles on the door are mine 
(very sad tiles at the moment due to them constantly falling down...to be solved with more permanent glue once the door is painted)

Tile in the master bath - the joining of 2 subfloors made for an unstable surface. So this tile eventually worked its way free

Doorless
When we moved in, there was only two interior doors upstairs - on the master bath and main bath. All three bedrooms were without doors, as were all the closets.

Hall closet

Closets downstairs are also just open

We added doors for the bedrooms in short order - although we went cheap, since we eventually would like hardwood doors instead of hollow core doors.


Patches
There are lots of places in this house where the walls had holes in them. Why is sometimes a mystery.


What is more of a mystery: why the previous owner started patching, and yet didn't finish the patch. A little compound, a little sanding, and viola! It's not that hard or time-consuming (I say, as I realize that I have lived here for no less than 6 months without finishing more than 2 of the holes).


Light Bulbs
I love how Steve Carrel says "Light Bulb!" in "Despicable Me". Truly hilarious. What's not hilarious is having almost every room with a burnt-out light bulb. Some of them are specialty lights, so I totally understand that. The ones that are not specialty, though, I don't understand - especially when there was a stash of light bulbs in the garage just waiting (begging) to be put to use.


More Master Bath Details...
In addition to the tiling issues shown above, there is also centering issues, trim issues, and a very strangely placed shower head

Love the light fixture - except that it is off-center

Missing trim

On the Good Side
There are some very positive things we've gotten from the previous owner, though:


A Playset
They didn't want to put this together - or lost the instructions or something. So Doug, my amazing handyman, put it together for us!


A Cat
Although I am not a cat person, I do have a strong appreciation for a mouser. This cat, named Tae-Bo, is a fighter and an excellent mouser. He can stay. Outside.


A Pool/Air Hockey Table
Seriously? They left the pool table? It even flips over for air hockey. Granted, they didn't leave cues or any air hockey items, but still! It will be fun once we have all the accessories. Sounds like a Christmas item to me!