IN THE BEGINNING . . .

About six months ago Rod and I bought a duplex in the Historic Cottontown Neighborhood in Columbia, a fixer-upper to say the least.  The quaint brick duplex lost its grandfathered “multi-family” status (I will explain more about this in another post) and was required by the City of Columbia to be converted to a single family home.  This meant in addition to the house being vacant for five years, the two front doors and two kitchens that the home had needed  to be converted to one and all the plumbing and wiring redone.  As daunting as this task seemed, we made plans and prepared for the challenge.    

Rod and I have been down this road before.  This is actually our fourth, Rod’s fifth, project house.  Rod LOVES a project, like most men love golf or fantasy football or video games.  The worst part of this statement is that he considers all his projects a family affair, and since we don’t have children yet and bulldogs are pretty lazy, a family affair means a Jewitte and Rod do-it-all.  I often think on Sundays like today when I am complaining that I am tired of painting of sweeping up sheet rock dust what it would be like to be a woman whose husband chose to spend his spare time watching football on the couch- nope don’t know how that feels.    

All jokes aside, I have to give a shout out to Rod.  He is the most dedicated, motivated, creative, and industrious man I have ever met in my entire life, and he is the inspiration for this blog.  Working with Rod on this project, I have had an overwhelming desire to share/show his work to other people. 

I have to admit from the beginning that I have gotten a late start to this blog.  We are currently about half way through the project, so I am going to start at the beginning and update nightly (if I can keep up) until we get to up to date.     

The current plan is to sell the house when we finish it (hopefully in about 6 months), but as every day goes by we are growing more fond of the house and the neighborhood.        

Without further ado , The Cottontown Conversion in the beginning.

Picture from Google Earth

Location, Location, Location

Pictures we took in the beginning.

One of two (disgusting) bathrooms

The kitchens- plural.

One bedroom and hall.

Thanks for taking the time to look at our project.  Please check back often as I will be updating daily.  I can't wait to post more pictures of the improvements.  Until next time . . . 

Jewitte Dooley