{"id":3291,"date":"2013-05-17T22:28:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-18T02:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/?page_id=3291"},"modified":"2013-07-25T23:29:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T03:29:18","slug":"3611-fairmount","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/?page_id=3291","title":{"rendered":"The Enchanter’s Tower"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The house, after renovations. It still needs a good power-washing…<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

I recently purchased a house near University City, in Philadelphia. The house was apparently built around 1888 or so; I’m working on putting together a proper history, but here is a quick “before-and-after” gallery of the renovations that were done over the past four months or so.<\/p>\n

Click on any picture to see a larger version.<\/p>\n

The “Before” pictures…<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I first came across the listing for the house on Zillow. It was listed in “as-is” condition, but had a lot of the features I was looking for: detached, relatively large, detached, close to work, detached, and with available cable Internet. One evening after work, I walked past the house on my way home, and took a few pictures.<\/p>\n

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My first look at the house. I'd always wanted a haunted Wizard's Tower!<\/p><\/div>\n

Oookay, so it needs some work. This is obvious. Hard to tell what it looks like on the inside, but I don’t mind a fixer-upper, as long as it’s livable and in solid mechanical condition. I scheduled a showing of the house a few days later — and also stopped by on my lunch break, to see the house in daylight.<\/p>\n

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The "before" picture of the house, in daylight.<\/p><\/div>\n

Curious about what the inside looked like, I pointed my cell phone camera through the gap under the front door and took a picture.<\/p>\n

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A quick look through a large gap under the front door shows a cold-shell interior.<\/p><\/div>\n

A few days later, I met with a Realtor and was able to see inside the house. As advertised, it was definitely a “work in progress.” My friend Mike and I took a very brief tour of the house…<\/p>\n

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A representative "before" picture of the interior.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The "before" picture of the electrical panel. Yikes.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The stairs down to the basement, including a VERY low clearance near the bottom!<\/p><\/div>\n

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The front part of the basement. This is pretty much the "before" and the "after" picture.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The old gas furnace in the basement. Maybe it can be restored...<\/p><\/div>\n

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The "before" picture of the second floor.<\/p><\/div>\n

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"Before" picture of the second floor side bedroom. It's the smallest one, but cozy rather than cramped.<\/p><\/div>\n

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"Before" picture of the third floor.<\/p><\/div>\n

The sellers offered to complete the house to FHA standards — a requirement for an FHA mortgage — for about $15,000 more than the “as-is” asking price. I know a bargain when I see it, and although I would rather have been able to choose specifics of carpeting, fixtures, paint, etc., this was too good a deal to pass up.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

The “After” pictures…<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Eventually, about three months later, the work was complete. Once all the paperwork was in place, Tom and I did another walkthrough, and the difference was dramatic. It was hard to believe this was really the same house I had gone through before!<\/p>\n

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A representative "after" picture of the interior.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The first floor, looking north towards the kitchen.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The kitchen. It still needs a dishwasher, but they left room for one.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The house, after renovations. It still needs a good power-washing… I recently purchased a house near University City, in Philadelphia. The house was apparently built around 1888 or so; I’m working on putting together a proper history, but here is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3291","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3291"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3405,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3291\/revisions\/3405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}