Sunday, November 13, 2005

Possession

Finally the day came when we got our keys - and the excitment started to wane very quickly. We walked in to discover that the now-empty house was way shabby and not-so-much-chic.

It was only minutes into this particular home-ownership that we discovered rat pee and droppings all over the kitchen counters and floor. Orkin was our first call that day. The Orkin guys were quick to discover this old rat's nest - they said it had been there for at least 10 years.




We soon discovered that the "leaky shower" had been leaking into the walls and floors for years. Frank began tearing that out right away in the hopes that this particular remodel project would be done before we sold our old house and moved into this one. In tearing it out we realized that the tiles were not in fact white as one would suppose, but in fact they were blue, just painted with several coats of white. And the water damage just kept going and going. Down the walls and into the floor and basement.

Here is the master bath demo. Frank was very proud of himself - he did a good job not destroying the whole bath and bedroom - though little did he realize, he wasn't quite done with demo work here.






(this post written way after the fact, way after the shock of owning this old house has worn off, just fyi)

A History Lesson

Before we took possession of the house, the seller called to fill me in on some of the house's history. This is kind of fun. It seems that the property was once a lot larger, of course, and that rumour has it the first owner was a mobster (or something?) and then a family bought it and used it as their summer home and built that loft over the dining room for the kids to sleep in (because the house was smaller then than it is now) and that one of those kids was Bridget Hanley who later starred in "Here Come the Brides". She said that there was once a log cabin on the property and that it was saved and moved to downtown Edmonds next to the museum. From what she told me, I was able to dig up this link about the history of the cabin - and it does mention the "summer house" which is our house!

A little more research has dug up this Edmonds Historical site and I found this picture which I *think* is our house from the backyard (which must have been where the tennis court was) - I think that big chimney is our fireplace and the little one is the furnace exhaust (which currently has a brick lodged in it - I don't know how we will ever get that out!).




The caption for this picture says: "A view looking North across the tennis court to the main house. The Cabin was to the West from this location." - I think they meant the "summer house" not the "main house", though I could just be very confused.