It's Official!

Welcome to my blog chronicling the process of my mom becoming my neighbor.


The closing actually happened today, and mom owns the house next door to us! For those of you who haven't followed the story all along, this house is RIGHT next to our house, and it is a foreclosed property in a village that we didn't think would be affordable. As you'll soon see by the pictures, there's a reason this house was affordable...

Feel free to follow the saga of home improvements along with us.


The first thing we did was take lots of "before" pictures.

Here's the front of Mom's house, as seen across our front yard (that's our play structure on the left):Looking at the front, head-on (lovely awnings, no?):

All the hideous evergreens in front:


A glimpse of the porch:
More evergreens (and awnings):
the East side of the house (where there are foundation issues):
The back of the house:

Facing west--Mom's house on the left and our house on the other side of the hedge:
The back fence and part of the lovely garage (and a bit of our house on the left, too):
Head-on shot of the garage. Yes, it's really that warped!
Front of the garage:
Inside of the garage:
Basement--due to water in the basement, all the drywall had to be torn out, but the studs are left behind.
Basement corner with a mess of electrical "stuff" and one of the two sump pumps:
The bomb shelter (seriously!):
The master bedroom, with two closets:
More master bedroom--two of the three windows currently blocked by evergreens:
The littlest bedroom:
The medium bedroom:
More medium bedroom with lovely artwork on the walls:
The bathroom, which no one even wants to go INTO:
Yes, that would be carpet on the floor:
The beautiful kitchen (ha ha):
Lovely cabinets and yellow countertops:
Looking through the dining room to the livingroom:
Entryway--same livingroom window:
After taking all the pictures, we immediately got working.

G. started taking down fence sections and arbor vitae.

We got a dehumidifier and two fans to dry out the basement.

G. changed the lock on the back door

It was a busy first day--especially since the closing wasn't done until 3:00!