High Cotton: Surrey Lane Before & Afters

Well, it's been a little over a month since we listed our house, and Bo and I are getting a first-hand account of how difficult it is to sell a house in this market. All this house-selling business has had me reflecting on our life on Surrey Lane and it makes me wonder if any of you know the story behind our house....

In 2005, Bo was transferred to Rock Hill with his job and we began looking for houses. We were young and naive, and had our hearts set on a 1950s-era house with vintage charm. However, we quickly realized that the houses in our price range that fit that description would need way-more fixing-up than we could afford. We must have toured 20 houses before Bo came across Surrey Lane online. The house had been foreclosed on by previous owners and from what neighbors told us, vacant for about 2 years. The first time we saw it in person, there was a huge hole in the downstairs ceiling where a pipe had burst in the master bath above causing unrepairable damage to the wood floors. The wallpaper and light fixtures (see pictures below) were a horrible reminder of what was popular in the 1980s (and why those styles faded quickly). Despite that it was a far cry from the mid century charm we were hoping for, Bo and I immediately fell in love with Surrey Lane. It had good bones and we knew that we could make this house our home. More importantly, we both knew that we'd be happy here.

Fortunately, my mother-in-law had the foresight to take these before pictures - and it's so fun to look back and see how far we've come. Many thanks to our parents and a great contractor who've helped us renovate Surrey Lane.

House exterior before we bought Surrey Lane

House exterior after

Backyard before

Backyard after adding deck in 2009

To the right you can see the nasty remnants of an above ground pool. After moving in, we immediately had 4 truckloads of dirt brought in to fill the sunken area

Screen porch after

This is the scene Bo and I walked into the first time we toured Surrey Lane. We took one look at it and said, "we'll take it!"

Same area after repairing ceiling, new floors, and adding an antique pine mantle that my Dad and Bo installed

When we bought the house, we never used this area - it was intended to be a breakfast room...

...we knocked out a wall and converted it to a dining room

This is the original kitchen

The old kitchen area became a desk/bar area with window converted to exterior door leading to deck

We moved the kitchen from the above location to what used to be the dining room - gaining much needed space!

Master bath before

Master bath after - we got this marble top vanity from Costco and had to rent a truck from Home Depot to bring it home and it took 5 guys to get it up the stairs. It was quite an adventure!