Flip this House

We’re not sure what the folks who remodeled sections of our house were thinking but I’m almost ready to think they were simply trying to flip it and make some money. Either that or they simply weren’t looking at the long view when they made decisions.

At first glance, many of the updates seem nice even though they aren’t necessarily historic. However, as the months go by we’re realizing that so many of the upgrades were done poorly. Stickers were left on newly installed (and cheap) doorknobs as well as on the bathroom sink. Air vents in the kitchen were not closed before the original plaster was knocked out and were not cleaned out again afterwards. And, both the bathroom and the kitchen were painted with flat paint, as if the owners had no intention of fighting the battle to keep it clean.

Last weekend we tackled the kitchen and now have scrubbable walls around our range and our sink. Now that’s out of the way, I’m steeling myself for the possibility that the bathroom will have to be addressed sooner rather than later. Higher quality paint that holds up to moisture is a priority, but the main problem is with the fixtures in the tub.

As you can see, the fixtures and piping are completely tiled in and no, there is no access panel on the other side of the wall. To make matters worse, they installed what are probably the cheapest fixtures they could find, virtually guaranteeing that they wouldn’t last very long. Sure enough, the pull knob for the shower is already wearing out.

Of course, we could always add an access panel to the master bedroom but we’re very reluctant to pull out the original plaster wall to do so. In a weird twist of logic, pulling out the new tile and making the bathroom a little more sympathetic to the time period seems a smarter option. We’ll hold out as long as we can but it looks like another project on our list which involves going back and redoing someone else’s bad decisions.