Another Apartment Ready for Rent

 

The latest Richards Properties house is half finished. One of the two apartments is ready for move-in. The house is on the corner of Broad Blvd. and 20th Street. How convenient would having a USPS postal box in your front yard be? This is one of my favorite apartments in our fleet. 

This is the same house with the entrance on the other street. Don will begin renovations on this apartment sometime soon. It needs a lot of work.

I forgot to take "before" pictures of this apartment so all we have are the "after" photos. The kitchen was gutted and redone.

The other side of the kitchen.

A photo looking into the kitchen from the dining room. Don made the pantry cabinet to the right of the window.

This is the half bath between the kitchen and dining room. The toilet is on the right but I couldn't fit it into the picture!

Dining room.

The left side of the living room.

The right side of the living room. 

The home's unique feature is the leaded glass windows throughout. However, I wasn't as crazy about the family crests embedded in the front window.

There are three large bedrooms upstairs.

We did not have time to paint the baseboards in this room, which were partly stained and partly painted a taupe color. 

The upstairs bathroom.

Don turned a closet into a space for the vanity. Originally the bathroom was very crowded with a pedestal sink across from the bathtub.

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Elizabeth's House

 

The house as it looked when purchased

Tucked behind all those trees that are too close to the house is Don's latest renovation project. This is the 10th house he has transformed in the past 13 years. And it is the second house that he worked on to help two of our nieces own a house. Elizabeth and her sister, Rachel, also put in a lot of sweat equity painting, maintaining the yard, and cleaning. Just before Christmas, the house was finished! Here are the before and after photos:

Kitchen - Before

Kitchen - After (notice the opening Don made to connect the kitchen to the living room. That was Elizabeth's idea.)

Kitchen from another angle (Don added the closets - one for a pantry and one to hide the furnace and water heater).

Main Bathroom - Before

Main bathroom - After

Living Room - Before (after Don moved his tools in)

Living Room - After

Living Room - Another angle showing new entry into the kitchen

Two downstairs bedrooms - Before

Two downstairs bedrooms - After

First Half of the upstairs - Before

First Half of the upstairs - After

Second Half of the upstairs - Before

Second Half of the upstairs - After

This is a photo of the back of the house - After (a dormer was added so that an upstairs bathroom could be installed)

Upstairs bathroom - after (no bathroom before)

And a photo of the house after the big trees were removed. I am sure Elizabeth will be adding some shrubs and flower beds this summer.

We're so excited for Elizabeth and Rachel to move in!

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Ashland Property Re-Do

 

Ashland carpet squares (before)

Our Ashland property was the second house Don updated. I'm losing track, but I think it was finished in 2014. Back then we did not think to take "before" photos. The only ones Don took were before and after he installed his first wood floor. Also back then, Don didn't gut kitchens and bathrooms the way he does now.

Ashland wood floor (After)

Renters have inhabited the apartment from the time Don finished it until this year. When the current renter moved out, Don was chomping at the bit to redo the place. There was a lot to be done, but he worked diligently week after week. I helped paint and I cleaned, as always. He handed over the keys to the new renters this afternoon. Here is what it looks like now:

The kitchen (Don built the pantry straight ahead from scratch)

The first-floor bathroom.

The living room.

The dining room.

The upstairs bathroom.

The upstairs bedrooms and hallway.

Don's next project begins shortly - a house that our niece Elizabeth will own - hopefully by the end of the year. Stay tuned for the before and after photos of that!

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Oakland Avenue House

 

In November of 2021, Don decided to makeover another house. This is the only single-family house in our fleet. And it is the only house outside of Cuyahoga Falls. It's in North Hill, just over the bridge.

He was in no rush to complete the house. He said he was going to take his time with this one, and he did. That is until a young family was in need of a rental home. Then we worked in overdrive to get it done just minutes before the U-Haul pulled up the driveway last Monday.

The outside of the house (before)

Outside of the house (after)

Family Room (before)

Family Room (after)

Family Room by Stairs (before)

Family Room by Stairs (after)

Sun Porch (before)

Sun Porch (after)

Dining Room (before)

Dining Room (after)

Kitchen (before)

Kitchen (after) - permanent countertops are still back ordered

Bathroom (before)

Bathroom (after)

Sample of bedrooms (before)

Sample of bedrooms (after) - blinds not up yet

There's more work to do on the outside of the house, but compared to the condition the house was in eight months ago, I think the improvements are amazing!

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