Tale of a Foreclosed Property Renovation in Lakewood: Kitchens

Revitalization.

It is this word that, in many ways, sums up my overall goal when purchasing my first house.

As I am sure many of your homeowners know, buying a house is not a simple process or at least it is not simple finding the “right” house.

When I first started this discussion with myself and my family, my brother referred me to one of his closest friends, Ted Theophylactos, who at the time worked for Progressive Urban.

The first thing he did was set up a web site where new houses were regularly added for me to review based on a few set specifications.

I really only specified a few things; Location (Lakewood and West Cleveland), Price (100k +/- 20k), Style (2 or 3 family only), and a preference for foreclosed properties.

What I really wanted was something I could tear into, redesign and refurbish the way I envisioned. It was also important for me to stay as true as possible to historic preservation standards – at least as much as I knew of them back then.

I was excited as can be for my journey to come and so Ted and I started touring some houses. I could not tell you with any certainty how many homes I looked through though I feel it is safe to say it was well over 20. 

Though it was a long and tedious process, one that I truly enjoyed, I did a very smart thing and photographed each and every house, every room and every aspect of the exterior. This allowed me to ponder each one after the fact, after the memories faded ever so slightly.

Incidentally, the house you see in these photos was not my first choice.  That honor went to a three-family house in Cleveland just before West Blvd. The house needed more work that I initially realized and looking back it seems I was sold by its third-floor suite. It was quite amazing with all of its original charm and character still intact; the original cabinets, cabinet hardware and sink in the kitchen (all unpainted) the claw foot tub in the bathroom and a built in china hutch in the dining room.

These features, as well as some other great aspects of the house, blinded me from recognizing the poor foundation and extensive wood rot on the exterior. Lucky for me my parents took a look and said "ABSOLUTELY NOT."

Then, in one of those serendipitous moments, my mom saw a house online and told me to take a look. When I first went to view it, though I didn't realize it immediately, the Cedarwood property would be the last house I would walk through.

The funny thing about my purchase of this house is that, even though it was an ok time to buy as the bubble had truly already begun to burst, I was too early to be the recipient of the federal grants given out just a few months later. Also, I was perhaps one of the last people in the country to utilize a program called Ameridreams, a down payment assistance program.

Coupled with the mortgage was a 203k loan with which to initiate the transformation of this house. Though I started with showing you the rehab of the exterior, the initial phase of renovating this house was on the interior and this is where I get to show you some of my favorite parts of the house. So with that, the Kitchens.

As you can see from the first photos, I started with what many might call typical. Now I was obviously not a fan of how these units looked but on the flip side, I could tell that whoever owned this house took good care of it, at least up to the few years prior to the foreclosure. I based this judgment on 2 things, the solid condition that most everything was in as well as the fact that both kitchens and bathrooms had been remodeled at similar times with similar materials.

So obviously, as with any remodel project, a little bit of demolition was required and so the week of closing on the house was also the week I started ripping out walls. There were some obvious learning curves with the renovations as just about everything that I had to do in this house I was doing it for first time. However, as I progressed, me and my brother Scott and my Mom all hit our strides and things started to move at a fairly swift pace.

As I am going to show photos of the kitchens throughout the renovation, I feel it would be beneficial to list all the work that was done in a rough order in which they were done.

• Demolition 
• Electric - 5 circuits
• Insulation – pink fiberglass batts
• Drain Stack replacement
• Hardwood floors refinished
• Window opening change - Necessary so that the countertop could be extended
• New windows
• New plumbing
• Assembled and installed new cabinets
• Granite countertops 2nd floor. Formica countertops 1st floor (built by us)
• New sink faucets
• Installed pot filler faucets
• All new appliances -  total 8 pieces
• Under cabinet lighting
• Glass mosaic back splash 2nd floor. Stainless steel backsplash 1st floor

The photos should be in a more concise order this time around so you should be able to watch the transformation in the appropriate sequence. 

Finally, if anybody has any questions regarding anything that you see in these photos, please feel free to ask.

Thanks for reading.

Enjoy,

Brandon