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Nicole: Coming up on Rehab Addict.
I get to work on the shabby exterior
of this 1911 colonial.
I feel like they're setting me up for disaster.
Working on a small budget means getting creative.
This is what dreams are made of.
And I'm doing just that,
as I figure out a way to turn this tiny backyard
into a relaxing and private space.
It's not supposed to make sense.
On my projects nothing goes on unused.
And by the time I'm done with it,
you won't believe your eyes.
I buy and sell houses
but I'm not your average flipper.
Oh, my god.
Why in the hell would you cover that up?
I just want brick.
We don't just renovate,
I restore old homes to their former glory.
It's screaming like, "Make me pretty again."
It's day and night.
There's always one last door.
Which is not easy when you're single mom,
but I'm making it work.
My name is Nicole and I'm addicted to rehab.
The renovation of this fantastic 1911 colonial
is almost complete.
From a new kitchen and bathrooms,
to painstakingly restored hardwood floors throughout.
The inside is gone through quite the transformation.
Next step is the entryway.
I'm getting creative
with one of the tinniest backyards I've ever seen.
We have just been going through dumpster's
left and right.
He just keeps bringing it in,
'cause we keep filling them up.
I think this is our third or fourth.
We're going to get one more empty one,
and then the house should be finished.
It still all goes to get recycled after the fact.
And my plumber was like,
"What are you doing with all the brick?"
And he's like, "I'll take it."
I'm gonna chip the old concrete off.
I'm gonna build a fireplace out of them.
It's free labor for them to get it out of here,
I'm all about it.
Any radiator that can actually get some use again,
I've given to a salvage yard.
The best part is, they take it away for free.
Nicole: The entryway.
I've been dying to get this floor up.
And I hope that it's just wood like you find
in every other entryway.
But you never know, this could be the mystery floor.
If it's ugly, I got to tile.
That looks really easy to come up.
Gosh, dang.
Of course, it's not gonna be.
There we go.
This hardwood's like in pristine shape.
And they have plywood and stick-down tile.
Again...
my hardwood floors right there waiting
under stick-down linoleum.
It's like some sick joke.
I was looking back at the photos of the house
when I first got it...
and all I ever saw was this luscious green yard.
You're driving Bobcats over this every single day
and you're excavating and the yard goes away.
So right now, the goal today...
It's time to put the land back to the house.
It's just a lot of grading
which, I kind of like.
It had a old railroad tie retaining wall
that I'm not going to replace.
I want to try to level out the land as much as I can.
We'll have this real nice rolling lawn down.
That's what I want to see.
What do you think?
I think that will hold
once we get some grass in there, don't you?
man: Yeah, I would think so.
Nicole: Yeah.
When you look at this house,
you would never know that there's a back porch to it.
It's kind of why I forgot about it.
If you have a rickety old house
and you have the original porch on it,
there's no way it has the support
that we're gonna build on this.
So that's what we're doing today.
We're digging the footings down and these things are deep.
And the idea is the deck has to take the weight.
Okay.
Because before we had, you know, it was a one person deck.
Yeah, it's just more deck. Are you drilling them?
Nicole: Yeah.
I feel like they're setting me up for disaster.
Oh.
Does it matter if it's crooked?
man: For Minnesota code, you have to get it down
to minimum 42 inches below the top of your grade.
Whoa!
Oops.
Did I do good?
I knew we needed that off so...
We got the holes dug,
now we just do the footings for the porch
and then building the back porch is done.
Check it off my list.
There's a back deck.
I didn't want to make the deck too big
because there's not a lot of yard.
We wanted just enough room so they could step out,
get down the stairs and go in the back yard.
Couldn't build it any bigger
because we have to have 5 feet or 8 feet
to the neighbor's fence,
which we're just clearing right now.
We're getting there.
I love progress.
I would never miss a day of any kind of install
because the knowledge that I learn is priceless.
When I pay somebody to come and do a job for me...
I just kinda follow them around all day.
This house had no gutters.
And it's evident everywhere you look.
There's water damage all over
the stucco, the wood, everything.
I'm having brand new rain gutters installed.
Taking the step to put in gutters
is just gonna save the next owners
a lot of years of maintenance and grief.
They're custom made on site, there's no guesswork,
and they're gonna be fitted to the house.
That's a big one going along the front.
Bruce: Yeah, like 25 feet.
25 feet?
Right.
Okay.
Nicole: You guys just put the rolls of aluminum
Bruce: Yeah. side and it bends--
Bruce: Yeah.
Nicole: And whatever else on this side.
Bruce: Yeah.
There.
On this particular piece,
we're gonna put the down-spouts on the corner post.
Okay. I just snip it out?
Yeah.
Bruce: Just like that.
Just put it in.
Yeah.
Nicole: Silicone caulk.
Bruce: That's how the gutter
prepares itself for the down-spout.
Bruce: It's called an outlet.
Perfect.
Nice.
Mount up?
Bruce: Mount up. Yeah.
Okay.
Bruce: The ladder's stable. You're good.
Bruce: You're good to go.
I'm not mentally stable, but the ladder's stable.
Okay, there you go.
Nicole: You know, I don't think this house
ever had gutters.
Bruce: These Mansard roof lines,
they collect and accelerate a tremendous amount of water.
It is.
It almost was a classic pile of rubbish.
There's a seriousness to all this.
The water flow on your house,
if you don't have your gutters
installed properly, they're useless.
Bruce: No doubt about it.
Nicole: When we cut the house apart to lift it,
we ended up losing around an inch of stucco.
So I have a couple choices here.
I can have somebody come out
and do the stucco for that couple inches
or all the way down,
and that comes to a tune of $6,000.
So that's not a solution here...
So for a couple hundred bucks in cedar,
we're gonna wrap the entire house in it and that's it.
That's the magic here to save me six grand.
Today's code standards say that
with any new basement,
you have to have an egress window.
There has to be enough room for a fireman or woman
to actually take their entire body
and throw through the window.
So the old windows in a basement,
nobody can get through those.
And now with this big, huge window
into an unfinished basement...
I told you I'd reuse these ties.
You did.
Nicole: The railroad ties that we're using
for the egress window were actually the retaining wall.
So we're reusing the timbers,
we're gonna build the egress well.
It saves me a couple hundred bucks right there.
Plus, I think it looks better aesthetically
than the big, huge metal steel well.
I just didn't like that.
I love this.
I love that we've used up all the timbers.
It didn't cost me a dime.
I think it looks great.
Yeah, me, too.
Nicole: Now you have an extra patio box.
This counts as landscaping.
I'm gonna sell it as that.
The bad thing about having a dumpster on site is that
people just keep coming by
and throwing their own stuff in here.
Said example, tire right there.
I see a piece of slate back here today
and then there's stuff like this.
I may actually use this one,
because it's already rewired.
I don't like the brass but I could paint it,
put in some Edison bulbs
and call that an entryway light.
That's stupid.
I'll use that.
There's four boxes of slate in here.
Nicole Curtis will garbage pick her own dumpster.
That's the truth of the matter.
Nicole: My dad's driving in from Detroit.
It's prime shipping and it's cheap.
Yup.
Oh, yeah.
The mirrors and the window, but the object of it is,
Okay, okay.
There they are.
Nicole: I got these dressing mirrors at an estate in Detroit.
Oh, my God. Ethan are you gonna grab the other side of this.
It's really heavy. You're 14 now. Go.
I shouldn't be moving anything.
Every time I'm back home, I go to the flea markets
and I find the coolest stuff.
Okay.
Nicole: I never know where I'm gonna use any of this stuff,
All right.
Do you have it? Or no?
Do you have it?
Okay.
Nicole: 'Cause I know soon or later I'm gonna want it
and I'll find a space for it.
I got it, I got it. Okay.
You guys both just stepped on my toe.
Yeah, that's good.
You got another one going in.
I look taller than you in this mirror, by the way.
It's 'cause it's angled.
There. Go back to back.
Quit moving.
All right.
I don't know. I still think I'm taller.
Uh-uh.
Dang it.
Well, if you're taller than me now,
you're the man of the house,
which means you can start paying half the bills.
Ethan will you help Grandpa unpack the rest of the stuff?
All right.
I'm back to work.
Okay, we'll catch you later.
This is the old front door on the house.
And because I can't let anything go to waste,
I'm actually gonna use it for my patio top in back.
It's ugly, but that doesn't mean it's dead,
at this point.
Holy bajolies.
Nicole: Watch your feet.
I have all these old broken radiators
throughout the house.
Any of the radiators that were in working order,
we've salvaged.
We've sold them off, we've put them in other homes.
There's two remaining, they're cracked.
And I had the great idea of using them
as bar stands in the back yard,
because I'm making this little patio bar in the back.
It's imperative that I create
a back yard at this house.
I'm gonna create a little patio area,
a little bar area,
but I wanted to do just some sort of fence to kind of say,
"Yeah, there's a back yard."
'Cause if there isn't anything here,
it doesn't look like there's a back yard.
But I refuse to buy any more new materials.
I'm seriously working out of whatever scrap we have left.
It's going on this house.
No.
You know what I'm saying?
Short, short, tall, tall, short, short, tall.
Right?
That's got to go a little higher.
There she is, the scruffy wood fence.
Some cedar, some 2 by 4s, split
and you might recognize...
These are the old deck boards.
Never doubt the power of my scrap wood pile.
The fence doesn't look like much now,
but with a little design work, it'll look perfect.
Nicole: I needed a light for the entryway
and lo and behold, take a glance in the dumpster,
and someone had dumped a perfectly good
ceiling-mount fixture in there.
Now there's no love lost on this fixture
'cause it's plated brass.
It's probably a $5 fixture.
So I'm just taking my sanding block
and I'm roughing it up.
See how fast that goes?
Now how do I know something isn't solid brass?
It's like, two ounces. It's very light.
If it was solid brass, it would be very, very heavy.
And I'm using my Edison bulbs,
which are reproduction Edison bulbs.
Edison bulbs were the first light bulbs ever invented
and it looks like they have strings of amber inside.
Whenever I use Edison bulbs, I want to make sure
the inside of my sockets
are completely painted or coated,
because you look up into them.
Now what can I use these for?
Oh, candle holders it is.
Those will look great on my back patio.
Okay...
My little dumpster dive light's ready to go.
I love it.
It really gives a dramatic look now to this entryway.
This is the old front porch.
I was like, let's not throw this out.
This is a perfect piece
to do a floating deck in the back.
25 square feet of patio back here.
Put a radiator here and a radiator here,
we put that old door here,
so at the end of this patio, you have this tabletop.
This radiator got saved from going to the scrap yard
because I said it would make a good bar top.
I've created all of my back yard patios
out of scraps and garbage finds.
So why should this stellar house back yard
be any different than what I have at my own home?
I figure, a cute little bistro set here,
a couple bar stools...
You know, I figure the deck is big enough for a grill.
With the privacy of the fence line,
it went from a nothing,
to a really cozy urban back yard.
I can't wait to get it staged with some furniture,
some string lights.
This may be my most exciting
15 foot wide back yard I've ever done.
There's a few places around the house
where the stucco got damaged when we lifted the house.
Any time you snap a 44 ton house off of its foundation,
you're gonna have a little bit of repair.
Today, the stucco's being patched.
Stucco's done in many layers,
so you do your mesh...
you put a layer on and come back the next day.
Because you have dry time with the stucco.
As soon as the stucco cures
and we put a fresh coat of paint on,
you'll never know that we had to make these repairs.
Nicole: We're getting down to the finishing touches
in the back yard.
We're gonna stain the deck...
I'm installing minimal landscaping back here.
Last but not least, sculpt the salvaged fence.
Do you have a pencil on you?
I kind of see it going like...
It's not supposed to make sense.
I just want to get the most height that we can.
That's basically it.
Why don't we try this curving atop
the tall ones first.
And if that looks dorky, we can always cut back.
It's kind of like a haircut.
If you go too short,
you can't get it back, you know?
Good?
I need to take off your finger.
You know I get a little hyper with the jigsaw.
You know I'm scared.
It's like a wave.
You know, I think we went off the wrong line.
We should be going off that one.
Uh-huh.
That's for me to cut and you to fix.
If I go around the corner and come back,
it will be perfectly symmetrical.
I just have a feeling about that.
I told you, it's like a bad haircut.
The little scrap wood fence is all done
and I actually like how it looks unpainted.
It's unique and when you drive by,
whether it's an eye-sore or something really cool,
it's a matter of opinion.
Nicole: The back yard, all we had was about
ten feet of space and zero money in the budget.
I had a whole pile of salvaged materials.
So I took it all, reused it
and now we have the coolest patio spot back there.
The deck itself,
I took two sections of the old porch,
sistered them together,
and made it a floating deck in the back.
I used two of my old radiators as the bar base.
The bar top is the old front door,
the door that somebody had put on here in the 80s or 90s.
Nothing special about it, but a perfect flat surface
and big enough for my bar top.
My fence is the best part of the back yard,
because I said I'm not putting money into a privacy fence.
Took every piece of flat scrap lumber that I had,
lined it all up, put it in order
from tallest to shortest, somehow came up with a pattern,
took my jigsaw,
cut out the arch and there you have it.
I left all the scrap lumber colors
because I loved the idea that you looked at it
and you could tell that it was salvaged wood,
but it came together so nice and neat.
The back yard, I pulled it off for about $15.
Now we have this great back yard patio.
Next time on "Rehab Addict."
I'm so sick of looking at this.
Well, we can fix that, right?
This is the part where I wish I had it in the budget
to redo the entire thing...
If this doesn't work, I'm leaving it
at our house for good. It's leaking out the bottom.