From $25 House to...

That's not a typo, you read it right. We really did pay $25 for Cottage West in July 2014. 

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Back then, before we owned it, we called it the Old Lady House. Rather unoriginal, I'll admit, but there you go. 

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According to the neighbors who sold us our 1899 Victorian just 150 feet away, an older woman had lived in it for decades until it became too much, and she was taken away to a nursing home. For ten years, the house had been left unoccupied and unloved. Broken into repeatedly, it had long since been boarded up by the city. The only occupants now were a troupe of raccoons who entered and exited through a hole near the roof line each morning and night.

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Raccoons are terrible renters. So messy and they never pay their rent on time!

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When a sign went up in August 2013 in the front yard stating that the house would be sold on the courthouse steps for unpaid back taxes, I was so excited. But we had just moved into our house six months earlier, and we certainly didn't have the $3,000+ they were asking for lying around. We waited to hear who the new owners would be. But at that time, there was no land rush like there is now. The house didn't sell. Instead, it went into a land-holding entity, Land Bank, which was managed by the city. 

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To say that the city was overwhelmed with properties in dire need of care is an understatement. At the time, over 4,000 properties were listed with Land Bank. Most were empty lots, but many, like the Old Lady House, were buildings in various states of disrepair.

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By early 2014, we were heavily involved in our local community and attending the monthly meetings. My husband, Dave, was asked to serve as the vice-president, and later president, of the Lykins Neighborhood Association. We learned a lot about revitalization in those meetings, as well as the ins and outs of working with Land Bank. And as a direct result of that, we toured the property in spring 2014 and submitted a Scope of Work to Land Bank and applied to purchase it. Land Bank's stated price was $14,000, but the Scope of Work was accepted in lieu of payment with the additional $25 added to the top of it.

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All in all, with application fees and money orders et cetera, we paid a total of $131.50 for the property and were handed the deed in mid-July 2014.

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Land Bank really wanted us to complete all of the work within two years of receiving the property. But with as many properties as they had on hand, there wasn't a ton of oversight. In the end, it took us just over five years (and $95k in repairs) to fix everything. It would have likely cost us a significant amount less if we had known what we were doing, but it was our first (but not last) home renovation.

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We named her The Cottage until mid-2017 when we purchased the house on the other side of us (to the east) for $2,000. Then she became Cottage West, whereas the new one is Cottage East. That's our next project!

 

So, let me tell you what we did to make Cottage West the warm, welcoming, and comfortable property she now is:

 

• Replaced the roof and nearly all of the windows

• Painted the exterior

• Rebuilt the front porch

• Removed the overgrowth and old fencing and installed new fencing and new plants

• Took the interior down to the studs

• Insulated with foam insulation

• All new electrical wiring and plumbing

• New HVAC and on-demand water heater

• Moved the old kitchen into the dining room and made it a dine-in kitchen and painted the metal cabinets and sink combo. 

• Installed a washer & dryer in the utility room

• Re-did the bathroom floor and laid tile

• Found a fantastic old claw foot tub from 1907, painted it and had it re-finished and installed the shower adapter.

• Finished out the rest of the bathroom with a new skirted toilet

• Had all new drywall installed

• Painted all interior walls

• Refinished the original hardwood floors

• Re-did the inside of the enclosed back porch and turned it into a sunroom with yoga mats.

• Installed a new back stoop in 2023

 

Now Cottage West is a welcoming two bedroom, one bath retreat.

 

In the near future we will be finishing out the attic into a third bedroom with a half bath. This should be done by early 2024. After that, We hope to finish out the basement into a separate studio for our teen son. We also have plans to lay sod in the back of Cottage West and lay walkways, as well as have a place for guests to BBQ and enjoy the newly added firepit.