Warning: The following post contains images that will horrify you. Readers are likely to experience nausea, vomiting, uncontrollable weeping and outrage at what they are about to see. Salvaged Beauty takes no responsibility for your weak stomach or anger-management issues, and advises that you proceed with discretion…

Sick is the only way to describe how I feel now whenever I head into Toronto via Kingston Rd. in Scarborough. I know this stretch of road pretty well, having traveled along it countless times when I was much younger, on my way to and from dancing classes.

The red bungalow you see in this photo spoke to me even then—long before I knew or cared about architectural styles and craftsman design. It was just my favourite house, and someday when I was bigger I was going to live in a house just like it.
That was back in the ‘70s, when this home was on the outer perimeter of the suburb of Scarborough. At that time, its neighbouring properties were other homes, all with similarly large lots of almost an acre. But this one was special—its style was quite different from all the others. I thought it looked like a giant gingerbread house, a chalet in Switzerland, or somewhere Goldilocks might have lived if fairy tales were real. The gardens were lush, and in those days there was a forest of mature pines behind this stretch of suburbia.

In 2001, my husband and I decided to search for a new home, and were already fans of the arts and crafts movement. John, who commutes to the city daily, kept telling me about this gorgeous bungalow that was for sale, and borrowed my camera one day to take photos—even though we had no intention of moving closer to Toronto. I laughed when I saw the pictures, since I knew this home well. Priced at over a million dollars, there was no way we could even entertain thoughts of owning it—but we wondered who would buy it, since that stretch of road was now a wasteland of deteriorating strip malls, gas stations and used car lots, and every other single-family dwelling that once stood nearby was razed long ago.

The charming red house was eventually purchased by a developer and rented out to a tenant, and thus began its quick descent into the annals of bungalow perversion.

Ironically, its first and last incarnation post-sale was as a religious temple…a religion whose followers were definitely guilty of having God-awful taste in decorating. What they did to the exterior of this house is deeply…sinful.
Believe it or not, now that the house is abandoned once again, it actually looks much better than it did a year ago – the tacky plastic devotional statues, religious posters and garishly-coloured signage which cluttered the property are gone—as is a great deal of garbage.

I took these photos on Tuesday as we drove by on our way to Niagara Falls (via Toronto). Honestly, I felt like I shouldn’t even be photographing this building in its present state. It seemed pitiful and almost shameful, and I wonder if that’s what taking a photo of a victim of abuse or tragedy must be like for the photographer. You can document the injustice, but in doing so, how can you not help but feel like you’ve just violated them further?

I suppose the end is truly near for my beloved red bungalow. She was unique – a house that was once one of the most admired and well-tended in the neighbourhood. The home of my dreams.
Yet, even in her ravaged state she stands defiant—those strong, graceful lines softening her vulgar makeup…she’s still beautiful in her last hours.

technorati tags: houseblog, remuddling, craftsman+bungalow, home+renovation+nightmares

When we last checked in, our plucky heroine had been suctioning water off the roof of her house with a turkey baster...but her efforts were in vain, and she was bettered by the drain.

Let me tell you that in the days following that first episode I spent a lot of time on my roof, actually trying to make it leak again—since the ceiling was already toasted. After combing every inch of the roof and ascertaining that there was absolutely nothing to suggest the water was entering through the membrane, we focused on the drain—quickly pouring buckets of water down it to try to simulate a deluge…and…nothing. We tried pouring buckets of water on the seams around the drain, thinking there must be a weakness somewhere. Not a drop.
We decided to wait for the next significant rainfall…and went through several with the ceiling remaining dry as a bone. So, despite numerous attempts to get the ceiling to show more evidence of water it seemed we’d hit a brick wall…

But of course, you all know we didn’t:

THIS is what we found after I hastily scrawled my last post over a month ago:

Had we continued with a few more buckets down the drain a couple of weeks earlier, we might have found the weakness sooner. The drain was pretty much detached from the pipe. What’s missing in this picture is the plastic bag (?) that was wrapped around the point where the drain attached to the pipe. We also discovered that there was no strapping to attach the pipe to the plywood above—it was just floating in space, waiting to fail.

Since we were in demo mode, we decided to take down all of the ceiling drywall out towards the outside wall, where we knew there was once another roof drain. A roofing company that had worked on this part of the roof a few years back—right after we’d bought the house—had ‘de-commissioned’ the drain, explaining it wasn’t necessary to have two of them.
There are no sufficient expletives to convey what my feelings were towards this particular roofing firm when I stuck my head up into the ceiling with my camera to take a shot of this fine piece of workmanship:

Not only did these *#@%!s steal the drain that was located here, they didn’t even bother to patch the resulting hole with plywood before putting the membrane on top! That we didn’t put our foot through this area while we were up there examining the roof was Fate’s one small consideration in our favour. I did manage to shove my hand into the open end of the pipe to confirm that…yes, they left that open.

The good news is that the problem’s now solved—and we’ve had some very heavy weather over the past month and a half to put us at ease. The downside was that in trying to track down that leak problem prior to the ‘final assault’, we ripped apart some other areas of the house, which created additional projects we’ve been tackling this summer with every spare minute of time and money.

Tomorrow is my annual 25th birthday, and I asked my husband not to buy me a gift this year (like he could afford one, anyway!). Instead, we are pooling our resources and taking our daughter to Niagara Falls for a night at the Great Wolf Lodge. I think we owe it to her, since we’ve frittered away most of the summer on home improvements. We’ve never taken a vacation before, and to tell you the truth, I’m looking forward to getting away from this house—even if it’s for only a day!

technorati tags: houseblog, DIY, renovation