Where Do We Start?

Now we begin the overhaul. Remember I said we are well acquainted with this house that we've just bought....warts and all? Well, it's time to start working on those warts.

This picture is the same one as the one with the white van in my last post.
[editor: I now see I never posted the above mentioned photo. Take my word for it, there used to be a white van in front of the left garage door.]
I PhotoShopped the van out of the picture. I was in a hurry so I didn't do a very good job, but you get the idea. This is basically how the house looked in 2003 when we first moved in.

There are no special photographic effects in play here. The house really is bent at the waist. The first floor leans to the left on the front of the house. The second floor is straight up and down. The rear of the house is perfectly straight. Interesting, eh?

So, as soon as the house was ours we felt the first job was to try to straighten the first floor. We decided against the $40,000 option and went for the $2500 option of pulling it straight. Yes, we were going to pull the house upright. We had a contractor working on this. It's not just our wild idea. Before we started, the contractor did ask us what we'd do if it didn't come straight. We said, "No problem, we'll just let it stay as is. It's plenty strong and solid right now."

Before they (the contractor and his two assistants) could attach a huge "come-along", they had to remove some of the plywood siding. (This is not a fancy house)








At least we know there is some insulation.






Now it was time to attach the Come-Along. It ran from the upper left of the ground floor to the lower right corner. It was one BIG Come-Along






Crank on that rascal. PULL the house up straight!!!






Better let the boss contractor make those last couple of cranks. They broke one come-along, so everyone else stood back a respectful distance while the boss cranked one more time.






The house sat that way for several days. Curiously, there were no creaks or groans. Also there was darned little straightening going on.

The house had been about 1 1/2" out of plumb from the top of the garage doors to the concrete pad. Now is was only 1/2" out.

They pulled away the drywall from inside the garage so it could be replaced with new 1/2 inch plywood inside and out. We figured the plywood would hold the house in whatever straightened form we achieved.






After the 3-4 days, we all agreed that the house was not going to straighten any more than it already had. They began to replace the plywood siding inside and out. When they measured the old plywood to cut new, they discovered that the old pieces were not square. The house had been BUILT bent. Somehow, we were all relieved...






Once the siding was replaced, I got to paint it. We tried to match the old paint...came close enough. Eventually, we're going to change the color scheme anyway.






So that's the "straight" story. Next job is straightening the deck.

We love our quirky house. We are aging hippies, so fixing up a quirky house is just right for us.