Ugly ducking

As renovation budgets go, mine is not what would be considered substantial, but I am so pleased so far with what has been done that I am itching to show some reveal pics here.  But, good things come to those who wait.  (Boy, do I know about waiting for the good to arrive! lol)  So, in recognition of the anticipation that comes with waiting for such good things.  I thought I would show you some of the worst pics of the property.

Here is the back porch.  What you cannot see is the support beam that goes the whole length of the porch under the floor boards that the contractor recently discovered was so rotten it just crumbled when you touched it.  And also not visible in the picture, which you will be able to see in the pictures of the house from the back yard, is the roof of the porch being held onto the porch by hand clamps.  Nice!  Needless to say the roof had to be redone.  The water and snowmelt that had made its way into the porch through the leaking roof had trickled down the corner that you see in the right of this pic and collected beneath the floorboards rotting that support beam.  Who knows how long that had been going on!  Good thing he found out about it!

Here's the back of the house with a view of the outside of the back porch.  On the right of the porch roof you can see one of the two clams that was holding the porch roof corner to the porch.  Also the general condition of the back was pretty poor.  Several pieces of siding needed replacing due to rotting.  The beam I mentioned above is behind the white piece of wood that goes horizontally along the bottom of the porch just above the stairs.  The basement entrance is the shorter structure to the left and the stairs are all rickety going down to the basement.  That door and the stairs to the basement are being replaced.  At the bottom right corner of the picture you can see a very small amount of the heaps of junk the former tenant left behind for the former owner to get rid off.  You'll see more of that lovely mess.  Most of that pile came out of the basement alone and that isn't even all of it.  Incredible!

A different angle

That balcony-over-porch structure on the side of the main structure is being altered (as I write, in fact).  It is not structurally sound.  The top part is coming off (too bad, would be a great place for a morning coffee and some reading) and the bottom is being renovated, but will be made to match the existing exterior features.  Nothing tackier than a porch that looks like it is just slapped onto a beautiful old home.

More to come on my little ugly duckling in another post.