Our Story

My husband and I have always fallen in love with "unlovable" houses. The ones that are quirky, run-down, and a little sad. All we see is potential, and if we had the time and money to buy an unlovable house every week and bring it back to life, we would. I'm a local real estate broker and my husband owns a construction company, so we like to think if we put our skills and resources together, we might just be able to accomplish a little piece of our dream. Maybe not one house a week, but one every few years or so. Note: this was originally written a few years ago. so I reserve the right to regret that statement.

For seven years we worked together to give new life to an attached single family in Arlington, Massachusetts. Seen here: 73 Fremont

We finished it just in time for my son's high school graduation. This meant we could sell our home and move on to our next unlovable project in any town of our choice. We chose Medford, just 2.5 miles away.

The reason we chose Medford is because it was familiar, nearby, and one of the next "up-and-coming" towns in Greater Boston. With a big subway extension project underway as well as increasing buyer interest and property values, it seemed to be a smart choice and a town where I was already selling homes.

As luck would have it, a deal in Medford popped up just at the right time, but the square footage on the listing said it was only 640. Could that be right? Was an unattached single family really that tiny?? There were only 3 pictures on the listing (all exterior), but we had to check it out because the price was so good! 

When we showed up, this house was unusual to say the least. It appeared to be a small cape sitting right on a main street with almost no set back from the public sidewalk and a wrought iron screen door with "Beware of Dog" stickers on it. Hardly welcoming. 

The ceilings were low (just like our last house). There were two bedrooms on the first floor, on the busy street side of the house. Craziest of all, you had to walk downstairs to get to the kitchen and living room, which seemed strange until we realized it was a full walk-out lower level that was surrounded by state land on two sides with a view of the river behind. At that point, we were thrilled to realize that this house had been seriously under-marketed!

The only square footage that was mentioned in the listing was the on main level. While this was officially correct, there was no mention of the finished lower level, or the upper floor where there were two additional rooms prepped to be finished as bedrooms that never made it to completion. Suddenly, we had the potential of a 4 bedroom home with nearly 2000 sq. ft or more of usable space on our hands!

I decided to nickname it the "Mullet House" because it almost looked like a business in the front with its brick facade and no set-back, yet it was a total party in the back with the potential of its big yard. Not to mention that it was literally short in the front (a small cape) and long in the back (appearing like a colonial)!

Of course, it wasn't without a ton of work to be done. The backyard looked like a salvage yard filled with trash, tires, metal and old cars. Everything in the house was last renovated in the 1950's, so there was plenty of turquoise tiles and knotty pine paneling we would need to say goodbye to.

We soon learned that the house had been in the same family for the past 100 years, being handed down from one son to another.

We became fascinated by the history of the house and did a ton of research at the library and Middlesex Country Registry of Deeds in Cambridge. We found a watercolor sketch of the street from the mid-1800's that showed our house looking almost exactly the same as it was when we bought it, but with ships being built behind it. Due to some missing records at the registry, we still don't know the actual built date of the house, but we know that, at one time, was owned by Medford's famous shipbuilder, Thatcher Magoon, and was originally the humble home of the pumpmaker for Magoon's ships. 

That's our house on the lower left circa 1830-1850

Anyway, enough about all that, let's get to the fun part...the rest of the "before" pictures! (see next post)