Drum Roll Please...

The day has finally come! The day that I get to show you our "Money Pit" in all its new found glory!

Go ahead and get comfortable, because there are lots of pictures to show. I'm not leaving anything out for this one, because it's been a loooong time coming, and I'm giving this the attention it deserves.

So, here we go. The Money Pit. The Green House. The Gem. The gem being an emerald, of course, because it is still green as green can be. Outside work comes later. What? You didn't think this was the last you were going to hear about it, did you?


When you walk in the front door you are in the foyer.

The foyer, living room and dining room all had lovely stippled plaster walls. You know, like how you used to stipple ceilings? They stippled their walls. You had to watch how you leaned in there, or you would get jabbed in the back. NOT ideal. We debated whether to take it down completely or just sand it down. We took it down completely.

The living room is next. I think it was in here that we first started to work on the ceilings. The walls were stippled, but the ceilings they decided to wallpaper. I think they were confused.

We took all the wallpaper (and who knows what else that was up there) down and uncovered the tongue and groove ceilings. What a find! They were gorgeous. But, oh how painstaking that job was. We had to uncover them all, sand them down, and caulk in between almost every single board. There was about a 1/16th inch to 1/8th inch gap between every board. It was literally a pain in the neck. We did this in the foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen, middle hallway, master bedroom and front bedroom. Ouch. But, how it paid off! The ceilings are the thing that I am most proud of in that house. They are absolutely beautiful, and they are original to the house! And the crown moulding that we put up just sets them off.

Okay, on into the dining room.

This is the part of the house that we had to jack up because it was sinking. They added on at some point in the past, but didn't set the foundation correctly, so over time the house sank on one side. When we jacked it up, the already cracked plaster gave in. That's when we decided that sheet rock was the way to go.

The kitchen was pretty small and a little claustrophobic feeling. There were no real cabinets in there. The previous owners were just using stand alone cabinets and the walls to store things. Yes, the walls. There wasn't a free spot on any of the walls in that house. I have no idea how many nails, screws and hooks we took out of that place. Pounds of them. It was nuts.

We decided to open up the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. This makes the kitchen seem larger, is more suitable for entertaining, and allowed us to add a breakfast bar.

The pantry, we actually made smaller so that we could add a water heater closet in the back hallway. Even though it's smaller, it's still better, and I'm still envious of it.

Okay, this shot is from the kitchen into the back hallway. The reason I'm including it is because in the before you will see the door to the back bathroom. It used to open into the hallway. We decided to frame up a wall there and have the bathroom open into the back bedroom. We already have a "common" bathroom, so we thought it would be more appropriate and modern to have this bathroom connected to the bedroom.

This is the back bedroom. There was a lot (a lot, a lot, a lot) of termite damage and water damage in the back area. We basically took this room off and rebuilt it completely. Floor, roof, walls. Well, almost the entire back of the house was the same way, but Josh's dad actually pushed this back wall out into the backyard one day. I bet that felt good.

We added the closet in this bedroom, because in order to claim it as a bedroom in a listing (should we ever try to sell it), it has to have a closet.

This is the new back bathroom, now accessible from the back bedroom. See how the window that you used to face is now on the left? The back shower wall and the toilet are now on the wall where the door was.

We took the claw foot tub out of this bathroom and moved it into the common bathroom, which you'll see in a minute. We just thought it should be on display, rather than stuck in the back of the house.

Going back through the bedroom, you enter the back hallway. This is where the washer and dryer were stored, and behind them was a window that looked into what was the common bathroom. Also in this area was a tiny little bathroom that we didn't even know about until the previous owner moved out and the house was cleared. It was clearly abandoned (like several other rooms were). We removed it completely and added the space to the back hallway and laundry room. The two doors on the right are the water heater closet and the utility closet.

Here you can see part of that bathroom and what is now the laundry room. Beyond that bathroom used to be the master bedroom. We took that room and divided it into three new rooms, one being this laundry room. I'll explain more later.

This is another view of the back hallway, coming out of the (then) master bedroom and (now) laundry room.

Back through the kitchen and dining room, you enter the middle hallway. We discovered when we took down the plaster that the wall separating this area from the foyer was not original. It had been added sometime later. We assume that there were french doors there, because one of those doors was still up when we bought the house, as you can see in the before picture. We decided not to put the door back up, just to keep an open feel to the common areas of the house.

Looking from that doorway, you face the common bathroom.

This bathroom was a good bit larger before, but it was unnecessary space. We brought the back wall up to make room for the utility room in the back hallway, and did away with the weird window. We did widen the room a bit, so the bathroom is still quite spacious, and it is now the home of the newly refinished claw foot tub.

Take note of the wainscoting in here, even though I know the picture is so small it's hard to see (I couldn't get them to load any larger). Anyway, I'll tell you about the wainscot in a minute.

Okay, now for the part that is tricky to explain. This is what we decided to make the master bedroom. Before, it was just kind of a parlor outside of the master. A large, strange, middle room that really didn't serve much of a purpose. My brother owns the house next door to this one, and he has the same thing there. I'm not sure if this was common back then or what.

In this before shot below, you can see that there was one door that went into the master bedroom. We closed up that doorway and made that master bedroom into three separate rooms. One half of it we made into the master bathroom (the door on the right). The other half we split into the laundry room (back hallway) and the master closet (the door on the left).

This is a stretched photo that Josh put together so you could see the complete room before we framed up the new walls (we replaced the floors in here and in the new master bedroom, too). We realized that there was just enough space in between those two windows in the back to frame up a wall between them. So the window on the left is now in the laundry room, and the one on the right is in the master bathroom.

Do you notice the bead board on the left wall of the old master bedroom? You can see it below in the master closet. It actually went all the way around that bedroom. We kept it in the master closet and in the laundry room, but didn't want it in the master bathroom. We did salvage it, though, and it is what the wainscoting is made out of in the common bathroom (below).

So, the master bathroom. Double vanity, dual shower heads, privacy wall for the toilet. All things you wouldn't ordinarily see in an old house.

And, again, the master closet. That small closet that you saw in the first master bedroom shot was all that was here, so we had to create something. Now you have a walk-in closet with lots of hanging and storage space.

Back into the hallway now, this is the view of the front door.

And the last room is the front bedroom, which has the third and final fireplace (the only one that is not cemented up).

In this bedroom we removed the carpet and refinished the beautiful hardwood floors, like we did in the other front rooms.

The last thing I want to include is the before and after floor plan. It will clear up any confusion I may have caused trying to explain how we split up these rooms.

We are so proud of this house. It just feels so good to take something that was so sad and depressing and give it new life. And while you wouldn't know it from the outside (we'll work on it), this house screams charm, warmth and life inside now. I love it!

Special Thanks to:

Josh, for spending the past two years of your life getting home from work, changing clothes, and going up the street to work some more, and for putting up with my constant tugging on the financial reigns.

Daddy, for taking time from your surprisingly busy retirement schedule to help us in so many ways.

Mama, for watching the little man numerous, numerous times while I was up the street working with the boys.

Steve, for putting probably thousands of miles on your car and as many on your body and mind coming to Douglasville to help us work.

Lynn, for letting Steve spend that time with us, away from you on the weekends and some week nights.

Jeff, for the wonderful tub refinishing job even though you were out of the business.

Greg, for the painting and other help.

Grandpa (Don Bennett) and Mary Watkins, for the inspiration to make something old new again, and for the magical shed that has all the supplies you could possibly need.

All our neighbors, for the encouragement and praise.

God, for allowing me to keep my sanity (and hair) throughout this whole process.

And to the academy... okay, just kidding.

Okay, see y'all in a while. We're going to take a month-long nap.

*This kind of makes me want to post a before and after of our house. We did the same thing several years ago with our house. What do you think?