The first project that we tackled in the new house was the kitchen. As the pictures show, the room was some kind of ugly. Each wall was painted a different--and equally bright--color. Bright blue, red, green, and yellow. And while the house is a colonial revival inside, the kitchen (and upstairs bathroom) had been given a "lovely" 60's re-do with the expected result.

So, within the first month, I ripped out the drop ceiling. Unfortunately, we don't have a good picture of it. But if you think of the lit dance floor in Saturday Night Fever you'll get a pretty good idea. It was an entire ceiling of white plastic panels. Above that were thirteen flourescent lights, of which four were working, and all the mouse poo you could ever want to see. This kitchen was gross, and I couldn't wait to destroy it.

So, after getting rid of the drop ceiling and exposing the old plaster, out came the hammers and down came the entire thing.

Part of the 60's redo had been the addition of a pass-thru between the kitchen and the dining room. Now these aren't our favorite things, but the kitchen is dark and it added much needed light. So we decided to keep it. It had plenty of surprises in store for us.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I ripped out the pass-thru wall and found, much to my joy, that at some point the sewage pipe in the wall had exploded. It had been "fixed" but the damage was done and the scene of the crime still had plenty of evidence. So a plumber was added to the list of people to call.

On top of that, every other type of service went through the "pass-thru wall." Electric for the second floor, radiator pipes, water pipes, etc. All had been hacked and rerouted around our lovely pass-thru and all of it was done wrong.

Last, but not least, all the main supports for the floor had been hacked away when the plumbing was installed. So yeah, there's nothing holding up the bathtub upstairs. Great.

The Second Chance for our Stucco Home

In October of 2007, my wife and I stopped paying rent, and started paying a mortgage...

The search for our "dream home" began in June '07. We had just relocated to Upstate New York after spending several years in the DC area. While it was a giant change, we were excited that we could finally get a house that didn't cost an arm and leg. But it wasn't easy.

Maybe its the area, but houses for sale in this neck of the woods aren't like the ones on HGTV or DIY. No one calls in a TV crew to figure out the best way to sell a place. You're lucky if they even clean it before they leave.

Still, after several months of searching, we found our dream house. A 2000+ sq. ft., four square with colonial revival details and 1.3 acres. We fell in love when we walked through the door and made an offer the next day.

We pledged that day to restore this diamond in the rough back to its original glory, and we've begun to do just that.

This is our story...