[sfj]

We moved to this house in Nov. Coming from southwest florida to southest georgia.

As soon as we saw this house we knew it was the one.

But OMG what kind of obessesion
did the former owners have with nails and screws????

They are everywhere!

And the kitchen! Im in the middle of painting. But before I could I had to remove 4 layers of wallpaper! I am also painting the cabinets -cheaper than getting new. And every screw on every door hinge is stripped!

When we bought the house they were showing us somethings. they were very proud of what they did in the kitchen. as he owned a handy man home renovation business!!!

I'll be glad when its all done. And i am counting all this as exercise

[BfL_Cat]

I can sympathize - I hate when you inherit someone else's mess. All of the light sockets and wall switches in my entire 1950's house are painted over. I couldn't get them off the walls if I tried - couldn't get to the screws! So, I just had to go with the flow and paint over them myself, as much as I hated to!

Oh, and then there was the time I removed wallpaper only to find it was put right on the bare drywall! No primer, no paint, no sizing - nothing. Needless to say, I ended up ruining the drywall in doing this, and instead of painting, had to put up beadboard paneling over it instead.

Have fun with those cabinets - that's a job I'm not sure if I would tackle!
Cindy

[sweet_talker]

That sounds very weird and must add a lot more work

The person who used to live in my house before my dad and I was blind and renovated it himself no joke. Not to say that blind people are incapable...it's just....a few things in the house were a little off that my dad had to fix. Let's just say it was a fixer upper.

[nelie]

Although I don't plan to buy a fixer upper structurally, I would like to buy a cosmetic fixer upper. I kind of like the idea of buying a place where everything isn't pristine and that I can make it my own. I think in the end, you will be proud of your accomplishments. I know it is a lot of work though.

My parents bought a cosmetic fixer upper and it was pretty horrid. One of the bedrooms had blood red carpet. It was scary. The wallpaper was also very 1960s. There were a lot of little things that my parents did (with my help) and you probably wouldn't recognize the house today.

[KylieH]

My DH and I just came back from the house my folks recently bought. My mom wanted to replace the cabinets in the kitchen and needed help. This sounds pretty easy until we discovered the prior owner put finish board and trim over all of the nail and screws to seal them. You literally cannot get to the screws without tearing the cabinets apart piece by piece. EGAD!!

[sfj]

Well I have almost all the kitchen done now. Just waiting for the tile to be put in on Wed.

I'll post a before and after then.

But if I find one more nail hole I will go nuts!

[CinnamonGirl]

Oh, I feel for you! The first little house I owned had over 50 cup hooks screwed into the underside of the cupboards! Huge hooks with really long screws! Have you ever tried to remove 50 screws by hand? The previous owner also used thumb tacks to pull back her drapes at night so every window (gorgeous natural hard wood!) had hundreds of holes where she pushed a thumb tack in every day when she pulled her curtains back IN EACH ROOM! She totally wrecked the wood work.

Beth

[tikanique]

The people that owned my home were crooks. they put up contact paper inside the cabinets to hide the fact that they were frame cabinets and there were holes in the walls that looked outside. They installed a drop ceiling to hide the water damage and holes in the kitchen ceiling as well. It's been a hot mess trying to repair anything because once you take one thing down, you find a whole mess of other problems.

Tiki.

P.S. SFJ, I like your Nikki Giovanni quote. My dad used to date her in high school.