I stopped by Oakridge, our only curent rehab in progress, yesterday, to check on the progress (and change a couple of light bulbs). For one thing, I noticed that there was a new roll-off dumpster out front, which meant the contractors had already filled the first one. The tiles I had pulled up were all gone, as was the carpet, paneling, and parts of the drywall and non-load bearing framing. Our contracting team has taken over and is getting stuff done!

Here’s a sketch of how the kitchen will look. It shows the cabinets, too, like the walls are lying flat.
It was surprising how much smaller the master bedroom looked without the carpet and the kitschy room dividers. It will also look a lot more like it’s part of this century, not the last. (See the gallery below, it’s the room that is very clean and plain.)
What We Are Doing
The plan is to open up the wall between the kitchen and the living room, and add a nice island to divide the space.
Carol also wants to raise the ceiling in the kitchen, something we’ve done in other properties. It really adds to the perceived size of the room.
We’ll see how much more progress we can make before Christmas. This is going to be fun.
Gallery of Demolition and Rehabbing, December 2017
Here are some images of the demolition and the beginnings of the rehab. It looks a lot less crowded with all the stuff gone.
- Living area during demolition.
- We left a supervisor’s chair in the house (also a very large television).
- More demolition.
- Who needs these walls?
- The old kitchen during demolition.
- Another view of the living area, with “decorative” items taken down.
- Master bedroom, stripped of ugliness.
- The front entry during renovation phase.
- New drywall is up.
- New walls ready to go up.