Something Like Before and During, Part 2 of [INFINITY]

We've been in our house for just over four months now, and we've come a really long way.  In fact, we frequently talk about how the place doesn't look like the same filthy rental we bought in August.  A few fun facts:

1.  When we first moved in, we had to change our socks 3-5 times a day because the floors were so gritty.  My mom and I each mopped the entire house three times and we STILL couldn't go barefoot.  It took about a month of several-times-daily cleaning before we could go to bed at night without first washing the grime off our feet.

2.  The floors and bathroom weren't the only things that were utterly filthy.  On the day we closed, I took a few photos to commemorate the grossness.  Enjoy:

Living room walls, ick.

 Baseboards in dining room, ugh.

Door between kitchen and dining room, blergh.

 Ceiling vent in master bedroom, gross.

3.  In addition to the few things you've seen on the blog, we've done a lot of invisible and outdoor work.  For example, when we moved in there was a 9-foot-tall hedge along the property line that completely obscured the house from the street; we later found out the neighborhood kids called our place "the haunted house" because they imagined that all sorts of creepy stuff was happening behind that hedge.  We actually had no idea what the house looked like, and when Ray chainsawed the hedge down to waist-height two weeks after we closed, I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was kind of cute.  And it looked even better after we painted the front door, removed a screen door that didn't fit and was actually TIED to the front of the house, pulled out an old dead bush which was also TIED to the house with bright-blue nylon rope, and put up house numbers.  Some photos:

Dying bush AND screen door tied to the house.  Seriously, who did that?

Believe it or not, you're not looking at a photo of a car.  See the roof there on the left?  Yup, that was the view of our house from the street when we bought it.  AHHAHAHAHAHAH!

 And now you can see the place, which we think is an improvement.

4.  There were no house numbers when we moved in.

5.  We had to call a plumber on day two of home ownership when we noticed the hookup for the washer was leaking all the hell over the place.  At which point I promptly burst into tears because we were obviously in way over our heads-- the place was filthy (see Exhibits A-D above), the yard was like a jungle, the plumbing was bad.  Luckily Ray talked me down from the ledge.  I went back to cleaning, Ray went back to clearing the yard of its rogue blackberry bushes and bamboo clumps, we gave the plumber $250 to stop the leak, and now we're all happy-- especially the plumber.