"A" is for Aftershock

Welcome to life on Lettered Streets! Hope you enjoy following this remodel. That stats in brief of the hood:

Before....

Getting to work :)

• Danny Goger bought the house last November 2010. He is a geotechnical engineer. This blog starts after completing the house hunting process, that is when the aftershocks of being a homeowner hit.  Life quickly changed from weekends of climbing, hiking, and exploring Washington to trips to Home Depot, the dump, etc. Katie Fawell worked in social services the past three years. She went back to graduate school at Western Washington University in Fall 2010. Her thesis addresses immigration issues and female reproductive health. She has more time on her hands than Danny so although this blog should be more "technical", it is written by a remodel amateur so we apologize.
• Bellingham (compliments to Wikipedia) is in northwestern Washington. There are about 80,000 residents. It is situated on Bellingham Bay, which is protected by Lummi Island, Portage Island, and the Lummi Peninsula, and opens onto the Strait of Georgia. It lies west of Mount Baker and Lake Whatcom. It is about 90 miles north of Seattle and 30 miles south of the Canadian border.
• The house was built in 1886. The original house was just the front room of the existing house you see in the picture. We've hypothesized that the family slept in these 4 walls and had an outhouse in the back since it was before plumbing went in to this area. An awkward addition was added (probably in the 50's). The neighborhood was originally a blue collar neighborhood back in the day...or till recently.
• Yes, the Lettered Streets has been called "the lettered ghetto" because it was home to some pretty crummy and shady homes. About 10-15 years ago people started moving in with money since they were the only affordable homes in downtown Bellingham and started fixing them up.

This is Danny in front of the house and Katie in the front yard with view of Catholic church in the background. The place was a total pit when Danny bought last fall. It had been rented for quite awhile and not taken care of, to say the least. The pictures do not do justice for the condition the house was in, nor do they give you the smell that we endured. We're retracing our steps over the past 9 months to post these blogs so they might be a bit out of order.

First project...the bathroom!