Hi everyone,
My wife and I bought a little two-bedroom cottage on Cape Cod last year as a combination investment and home for my elderly parents. Well, my parents backed out (they decided they didn’t want to leave the warmth of Florida) so we went ahead and fixed it up for the vacation rental season. Our first renters checked in yesterday. We are now putting it back on the market to see if we can make a little profit for our efforts.
The work was mostly straight-forward but thought I’d share a few pictures. We’ll start with some “before” pictures. The interior pictures look better than it did in real life….
“When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.” ~ Henny Youngman
Replies
Here are the "after" pictures. I built the kitchen cabinets right to the walls the way my daddy used to in the '70s. It's a simple style but seems to work with the "cottage" theme.
Cheers!
"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." ~ Henny Youngman
What a change! Nice work Roger.
I like the little kitchen, does it work well?
Joe H
Thanks Joe!
The kitchen does work well. For a relatively small footprint it has a lot of storage. It's a one person at a time kitchen but very functional for a cottage."When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." ~ Henny Youngman
I ain't getting broadband till I move in a few months.
If any of you computer savy guys (excludes me!) are sitting around swilling a brew with a few minutes to kill and feel like downsizing the photos for us dial-ups, I'm probably not the only one who would appreciate it.
Enjoy the long weekend, all!
Todd
Todd,
I'm real sorry but I can't figure out how to reduce the byte size with the software that came with the new camera. I dropped the picture down to 640x480 but they are still large files. Maybe someone else will bail me out..."When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." ~ Henny Youngman
Hi Roger--
If you are running Windows as your operating system, you can downsize these files a bit using the "Paint" program. It is usually found under "Accessories".
Open up the picture in Paint, and then choose the following from the menu along the top:
Image
Stretch/Skew
In "Stretch", downsize the photo to 90% by 90% until she is a more manageable size. (You can check the bytes while you are working by selecting:
Image
Attributes
...and looking at the number of bytes. I was able to get this 275K file down to 60K or so. It was good that you saved them as .jpg That gives nice picture quality at within a small amount of bytes.
Give that a try. Here is one of your photos that I "shrunk" a bit :)
Take care.
jmo,
Thanks for the tip! Here are some downsized "before" pictures..."When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." ~ Henny Youngman
And now some small "after" shots...
Hopefully I didn't go too small..."When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." ~ Henny Youngman
Roger....Nice work...nice pictures...I love Cape Cods.....:)
Stan
That's awesome. I'm sure you'll have no trouble selling it.
How about a couple of close ups of the shingle work on the end?
Very nice.
EricEvery once in a while, something goes right!
That's a nice looking floor too, was it hiding under that vinyl?
Shingles look great, are they all new, or did you manage to clean them up?
Joe H
Nice job man! Mind if I ask what you would be asking for it if you sell? We have thought about purch a place on the cape. You can email me if you dont want to broadcast it.
Toolsguy,
The realtor is going to give us a market appraisal. Based on what other stuff is going for in the area it'll be in the $350K range (maybe a little better). 1/2 acre lots like this one are going for close to $300K w/o a house. The house is in Eastham. We won't make much on it either. The realtor we deal with is at http://www.mlsplug-in.com/idx/default.asp?Office=769
That's an ugly url but it might work. She's the best around. You can subscribe to her site. It's a good way to get to know the local market."When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." ~ Henny Youngman
Jim,
The floor is actually a laminate. It came in 3 ft long pieces and snapped together. It has the advantages of long life, good looks (for fake stuff), and cheap! It went right over the ugly peel and stick tiles with a thin foam pad in between. Not exactly "fine home building" but rather "pretty good vacation rental building"... ;-)"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." ~ Henny Youngman
Roger
Nice work!
You throwing that ceder shingle art work in on the deal? Looks good. I like the kitchen, seems to go well with the place.
Doug
Nice Roger. God, I hope my parents don't see what you did for yours LOL. Love your shingle work, as always.
Don't worry, we can fix that later!
Nice. Compact, simple, effective, bright and probably relatively efficient to live in. I congratulate you on resisting the urge to 'Supersize' it. It was a cottage and you recognized and celebrated the beauty of a real cottage as a machine for living as opposed to a house as a status symbol valued on the basis of square footage and gee whiz baubles.
Too often I work on McMansions with all the inherent warmth and individual styling, and often the quality of construction, of a Wal-mart. Great if you have a lot of Big, over two person, parties or need room to store your blimp collection but usually pretty miserable as a place to live.
Thanks, folks,
It was fun to work on and our budget wouldn't have allowed us to super-size it even if we wanted to! We figure the shingle art will add curb appeal and the kitchen will help seal the deal once they get inside. Here are a couple of close-ups of the shingles.
As an aside, I'm about 2/3's done on an 11' x 5' screaming eagle in shingles on my brother-in-law's garage. I'll post pictures of that when it's done (by end of July)."When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." ~ Henny Youngman
Honestly, that is wicked cool. I love the art.