3. The Rear

I know you are all itching for more pictures.  But please remember, I haven't been out to the house in about four months.  I do have about 30 shots that I took when I was there, so I could spend time thinking and planning once I got home.  I'll share some of them with you, but for the most part I want to post the "before" pictures when the actual work is going on, so I can accompany them with the "during" and eventually, the "after" shots.  Every inch of the house reveals some sort of project, running the gamut from a simple paint job to jacking up a wall so the second floor doesn't cave in.

Don't let that scare you - as I mentioned before, I know that the bones of the house are good.  That includes the four biggies - roof, electrical, HVAC and plumbing that are about 5 years old.  What's left besides a little carpentry and paint?  My friend Jake, a certified home inspector (among other things) graciously crawled under the house and pronounced the foundation solid and the beams good.  So please keep this in mind when you look at the pictures.   With each one I will try to paint my vision for that particular aspect of the house - what I see that others may have missed.

This is the rear of the house.  The porch that you see there has a door that goes into the kitchen, which I see as the perfect place for a BBQ grill!  It is slightly canted, but I think there was only one or maybe two joists that need replacement to make it nice and level.  A staircase currently comes up on the right side there - you have to look carefully to see it in the photo.  My plan is to move the staircase so it comes up from where you might park your car and unload groceries (as shown by the yellow lines).

Both garage doors are crap, yet secure enough that we had to climb in through a window on the side to inspect underneath the house.  The one on the right will be replaced with a walk-in door, and the one on the left will remain a garage door.  Perfect for keeping a couple of bikes or scooters (for an evening jaunt to the beach or market) and room enough for a workshop and storage of tools and gardening equipment, don't you think?  The porch will eventually be screened in, with a screen door leading from the top of the staircase. I can smell the hamburgers already.

That giant bush is a bougainvillea, and if you have any experience with them you know they can cause near-lethal puncture wounds.  As beautiful as it is in bloom, it's just going to have to go.  Fortunately I have another wonderful friend Duke who is an expert in Florida landscapes and is going to be my best adviser as to what can stay and what should go, and what can be put in it's place.

The last thing to point out in this photo is the super-cool original windows in the second story.  They were mirrored on the front of the house at one time, but the ones on the front were replaced with ugly aluminum sash windows with the requisite drippy ugly air conditioner in each side (reference the photo in my first post).  I have decided to take these lovely windows from the back and put them on the front.  I don't know what will go in this space (one side is the upstairs bath and the other is an upstairs laundry room) but I'm sure I'll find something before I need it.  It's the thrill of the hunt - I always think I can find something someone is throwing in the trash that will be exactly what I need.  And I usually do.  You'll see that with my next post:  I'm going to talk about The List.