I can't believe the previous owners never...

[april37]

I was talking to a friend the other day and she was talking about putting cabinet hardware on her kitchen and bathroom cabinets.  She is the 4th owner and couldn't believe no one before her did that.  That reminded me of when we put a storm door on our back door. We're the 3rd owners and I can't believe no one before us had one installed. The door is completely exposed to the elements (rain, snow, etc) and every time it rained, water would come in. The hardwood floors by the door even have water damage because of it (damage was already there when we bought the house).

What can't you believe the previous owners never did?

[Deleted]

LOL. FWIW, we built our house and I lived here 4 years without hardware on the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. I was so excited to get it. It looks great, but honestly about a week later, I didn't even notice it anymore. It wasn't as big of a necessary deal as I thought.
All of my cabinet though, do have the cut outs on the bottom for your hands to grab if that makes it better.

I do need a screen door though. our front door would look so much better with one and I could send Rubes out and leave the screen open so I can hear her. Someday.

[Susie]

Hmm.

I can't believe that between 1985-2008, the previous owners never upgraded a single light fixture from builder basic.

Foyer:


Dining room:  cheapie brass & wood, oh yeah!


Upstairs bathroom:


They were pretty bad.

[mrsemilys]

Since our house is pretty new and we are only the second owners mine isn't as good. However, the previous owners who built the house spent $$$ on upgrades throughout and then put builder basic crappy brass lighting and hardware throughout. Grrrr...

[smiley]

The hot water tank in the house is from the 80s. The kitchen is still original. House was built in 62.

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[wawa]

I can't believe the previous owners never dealt with the drainage out front.

The first really super heavy rainstorm we had after moving in we had water POURING into our basement since the driveway and most of the front yard slopes to the house.

1 trench drain, several downspout catch basins and a shitton of digging later and our basement is dry as can be. I have no idea how that wasn't taken care of before.

[315]

I don't know but I still have what I believe to be original pink and black bathroom tile from this place, built in the 20's. And there's a built-in metal hamper in there.

[emoflamingo]

The previous owners of our house (who were the only owners at that point) had the basement wall reinforced. The inspector said it would have been fine without it but at least it's done for us! But I can't believe they never actually finished the basement.

[IIOY]

We are the original homeowners, but friends of ours just moved into a 25yo house and none of the cabinets lining the entire family room have shelving in them, or even the hardware in place for shelving. It's just never been there. It's really weird and inefficient, or so it seems to me, and I'm dying to know what they stored in those cabinets.

[TBM]

...made use of the yard. They liked it 'natural', so over half of the lot is wooded, overgrown with trees, ferns and snakes. Even the small courtyard could have been a little bit bigger and more useful.

There isn't a driveway or a carport/ garage/whatever either.

ETA: I can't believe that I forgot this one....they didn't have ac in the kitchen. A full wall of west facing windows, in FL no less. They put in an addition as and added air to that and the hall between the addition and the kitchen, but just didn't take it all the way. No window film or anything either. So weird.

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[simpsongal]

I can't believe the previous owners didn't install a handrail up the stairs.

Our house was built in 1971 - we bought after the original owners. The stairs have a small section of exposed spindles & handrail and then further up it's wall on both sides (KWIM?). NO HANDRAIL ON EITHER WALL? And the stairs are somewhat steep. We had handprints going up the wall from steadying ourselves near the top.

[simpsongal]

Jul 1, 2013 9:03:05 GMT -5 IIOY said:

We are the original homeowners, but friends of ours just moved into a 25yo house and none of the cabinets lining the entire family room have shelving in them, or even the hardware in place for shelving. It's just never been there. It's really weird and inefficient, or so it seems to me, and I'm dying to know what they stored in those cabinets.

Guns?

[mrs.jacinthe]

...paid attention to what plants should go where. We have 6 trees that absolutely HAVE to come out, despite being gorgeous and mature, because they were planted WAY too close to the house for their mature size. Also, one variety we have to remove is considered invasive.

...Installed flooring in the laundry room. It was just bare plywood when we moved in.

...installed doorbells. Or an upstairs fire alarm.

[lightbulbsun]

I can't believe the previous owners didn't have a shed. Where did they put the lawnmower? Our house doesn't have a garage.

[IIOY]

Jul 1, 2013 9:29:13 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

Jul 1, 2013 9:03:05 GMT -5 IIOY said:

We are the original homeowners, but friends of ours just moved into a 25yo house and none of the cabinets lining the entire family room have shelving in them, or even the hardware in place for shelving. It's just never been there. It's really weird and inefficient, or so it seems to me, and I'm dying to know what they stored in those cabinets.

Guns?

Possibly, although these are closed shelves that run along the floor, below the built-in open bookcases, so it seems an odd place to store guns.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Jul 1, 2013 10:04:14 GMT -5 lightbulbsun said:

I can't believe the previous owners didn't have a shed. Where did they put the lawnmower? Our house doesn't have a garage.

Lawn service?

[bunnymendelbaum]

I'm not going to get into what the previous owner of our old house didn't do, ugh. Too long of a list.

But the owners of our rental let the basement get all moldy and stinky and damp because "a dehumidifier is too expensive to run".
UM, WHAT??

[lightbulbsun]

Jul 1, 2013 10:21:08 GMT -5 mrs.jacinthe said:

Jul 1, 2013 10:04:14 GMT -5 lightbulbsun said:

I can't believe the previous owners didn't have a shed. Where did they put the lawnmower? Our house doesn't have a garage.

Lawn service?

I guess. It just seemed weird to have no outdoor storage for 52 years.

[pitterwoo]

I can't believe they took our 5 windows and boarded them up and just left it that way. It was so cold and drafty that first winter!

Also can't believe the owner didn't stop smoking after nearly burning the house down. There was a severe fire and they replaced all the carpet and doors upstairs. The new carpet has cigarette burns in it too.

[EllieArroway]

Install central heat & air. I live in the south. The house was 70 years old when we bought it, so I understand why the original owners didn't do it obviously, but I can't believe no one else did over the years. There was plenty of space in the attic so running the duct work was cheap and easy.

[downtoearth]

Our owners seemed pretty content with the condition of the house and they did take very good care of it, but I can't see why they wouldn't have picked any one of the following items:

1. Remove the carpet in the living room and refinished the hardwood floors at the same time that they removed the carpet from the dining/hall and refinished the floors?!
2. Ever used the fireplace in the almost 30 years they lived there.
3. Let a juniper bush outside the dining room window turn into a 20-ft juniper tree and obstruct their whole view of the valley.
4. [To the original owners] - install a furnace and hot water heater in the middle of the downstairs hallway when you replaced it, instead of moving it 3-4 feet to a closed utility room (that all the pipes and ducts go to anyway).

[kermit]

Jul 1, 2013 9:28:21 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

I can't believe the previous owners didn't install a handrail up the stairs.

Our house was built in 1971 - we bought after the original owners. The stairs have a small section of exposed spindles & handrail and then further up it's wall on both sides (KWIM?). NO HANDRAIL ON EITHER WALL? And the stairs are somewhat steep. We had handprints going up the wall from steadying ourselves near the top.

My stairs are like that too and I thought about putting in a rail but don't think I will. I don't think the stairs are that steep though.

[spazzz333]

Oh the list I have for this stuff. But since it was my husbands uncles house and his grandmothers before that it's just beating up family. Still I will do a little

1. I wish no one had ever put the red carpet in the kitchen, let alone leave it for ten years after grandma died. There are no words for how disgusting it was.

2. Leaving the orange and gold and green wallpaper on the walls in the kitchen (lets not talk about how well it went with the carpet) that was literally falling off the walls and only needed scraped off behind the stove.

[treedimensional]

Jul 1, 2013 10:21:08 GMT -5 mrs.jacinthe said:

Jul 1, 2013 10:04:14 GMT -5 lightbulbsun said:

I can't believe the previous owners didn't have a shed. Where did they put the lawnmower? Our house doesn't have a garage.

Lawn service?

I keep my mower in the basement.

[treedimensional]

I can't believe that the electrical system had never been updated since the house was built in 1923. It was all knob and tube, and still had a fuse box instead of a circuit breaker.
When I was house hunting I looked at a couple dozen houses, all built in the 1920s, and most had few/no MODCONS. Window A/C units were the norm.
One of the oldest things was our oil burning furnace, from the 1940s-1950s (everyone who serviced it said they'd never seen an older one).

[rondonalddo]

I can't believe the previous owners never put in any kind of drainage system around the north side of the house. The house is 110 years old, so I'm kind of perplexed that it's still standing.

I can't believe they apparently never used treated posts for the fence.

I can't believe the last owners never took off the showerhead to de-lime it...so by the time we bought the house, it was so limed up it was stuck to the pipe and the pipe had to be replaced so that we could get a new showerhead on.

I can't think of other thing I can't believe they didn't do...but I can think of tons of things I can't believe they *did* do.

[Susie]

@spb - that is ... amazing?

mrs.jacinthe - I forgot about that, our sellers did that too with the plants.  Every summer we make a little more progress ripping stuff out, but it is a slow process.  I also am trying to balance redoing the landscaping with plants that are appropriate species, size, and placement.  Ripping out ALL THE THINGS and starting over means all baby plants everywhere, and it looks kind of silly.  Oh well.

[ktzmoh]

I can't believe the previous owners never put an insulation in. There's almost no insulation in this entire house. I'm fairly sure most of the walls are not insulated, which I know was the thing to do out here in the 1960s - but the attic still hasn't been insulated.

[simpsongal]

Jul 1, 2013 11:38:05 GMT -5 treedimensional said:

I can't believe that the electrical system had never been updated since the house was built in 1923. It was all knob and tube, and still had a fuse box instead of a circuit breaker.
When I was house hunting I looked at a couple dozen houses, all built in the 1920s, and most had few/no MODCONS. Window A/C units were the norm.
One of the oldest things was our oil burning furnace, from the 1940s-1950s (everyone who serviced it said they'd never seen an older one).

We looked at a house that was built in 1901 -- it had the original oil furnace! (giant thing made of cast iron)

[candreco]

I can't believe the previous owners never figured out a way to put the washer and dryer next to each other. They're on perpendicular walls, about 15 ft apart, with the furnace and the spot where the old water heater was in the corner between them. 50 years of every load (and four kids worth) of laundry having to be carried across the utility room floor. And the utility room has an exterior door to the backyard, and an interior door to the garage, so the floor doesn't exactly stay clean in there for very long.

We replaced the water heater with a tankless one and put it on a different wall, and when it comes time to replace the furnace, we'll be rearranging and probably rewiring to be able to put them next to each other.