The High Cost of a Cheap Mortgage.

Since we’re about to begin the remodeling of the garage, I thought I’d show you some ‘before’ pictures.

Our garage was converted to an apartment 50+ years ago, and rented out to college students. This neighborhood is only blocks from the Junior College, so lots of my neighbors still rent out their garage apartments.

Though hopefully theirs are in better shape than ours. 😉

We plan to turn ours back into actual parking spaces. With a door. That you open and close with the touch of a button.

A luxury we’ve never had in our 11 years of marriage.

What will it be like to pull my car under the shelter of a garage when it rains? Or to load and unload kids on a rainy day? Do you people with garages realize how spoiled fortunate you are???

Well, here you are. You’ve already seen the curtains. Sadly, they’re gone….I apologize if you were hoping to score these vintage goodies for yourself.

In addition to the curtains, the garage came loaded with tons of the former homeowners’ junk treasures. Much of it ~ three dumsters’ worth plus many, many truck-beds-full, in fact ~ has been hauled off already. And yet, there’s still more. Like this old roll of peach-colored silk.

And some rather shabby-chic lighting fixtures.
Though shabby-chic sounds a little too fancy for what we have here…

Lots of grubby hand prints and a desperate need of a paint job. See those nail holes? When we moved in there was *something* hanging on a nail in each one of those holes. Old bits of chain, old keys, old metal pieces and parts….

And the bathroom facilities. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but to me, this doesn’t look like a potty you would want to use. But somehow our painters missed that memo. Oh yes. They used the facilities.

Maybe they were fooled by this sign?

Keep in mind…..the bathrooms in the house were in similar condition when we bought it….. I’ll give you one guess who cleaned those potties.

When I see this potty, I have a flashback to that precise moment that I was on my hands and knees, face-down in someone else’s dirty potty, scrubbing 80 years worth of waste matter from the bowl. I’m pretty sure that was the moment when I first regretted buying this house.

Also left behind in the closet portion of the apartment….some vintage, very 1970s-ish belts. Anyone? Anyone? Blog giveaway….

A little mold never hurt anyone…… did it?

The kitchen-ette. You can’t tell in this picture, but that tile (though covered in an inch of grime) was once a very groovy 1950s shade of turquoise. I like old groovy tile. I’ve been known to want to buy a junky old house, just because it had cool vintage tile inside. Not that I would do something so dumb as to buy a junky old house…

I like the sink too, and I think it could clean up and be very cute in a retro sort of way. Not that it matters, since this is the garage and all. But a sink in the garage will be a handy thing to have; maybe hubs could CLEAN FISH AND RINSE OUT PAINT BRUSHES HERE, INSTEAD OF IN THE GORGEOUS FARMHOUSE SINK IN MY KITCHEN? Just a thought…

Actual hard-wood floors under the ancient linoleum.

Another shot of the wood floors….pine, in case you wondered. Not that it matters. We’ll be parking our cars on it.

Very cool knobs on the kitchen-ette cabinets.

And a cool light fixture. Probably milk glass. Hello, ebay?

The shower. Kept clean and sanitary for you.

My guest quarters might not be Pioneer Woman’s lodge, but I’d like to extend an invitation to my fellow bloggers to come and join me for a blogging weekend at the Blue House. You’ll have your own private bedroom-slash-living room, kitchenette, and bath with a shower. Well, ‘private’ unless the neighborhood homeless guy decides to wander in.

Anyone?

Anyone?

*crickets*

Fine then. But don’t come crying to me when you don’t get an invitation from Ree Drummond.