BEFORE/AFTER PHOTOS

For the HGTV junkies I thought I would put a before and after section on the site, so they can see what we went through to renovate this gem..

The castle was only two stories and overgrown with trees, bushes and grass on the beach..There were few windows and doors, and all the cabinets/counters were gone. There was no pool and no way to get to a pool...No dock, no plumbing, etc.

Thumbnail to right shows brush removed and castle power-washed.

This was the view looking at the road/gate from the 1st floor terrace. The beach was all overgrown and not visible. All of this would have been washed away by IVAN anyway, but you can see the small canon mount on top of the original septic tank in the middle of the photo. The only things recognizable now are the tree on the right and the wispy (Casuarina) tree on the left-- on either side of the gate.

The Family Room had potential;  but no cabinets, counters, furniture, etc. The sliding doors were broken or crazed, and the roof leaked miserably. The floor had a thin terrazzo base on it which needed to be broken up and removed. The exterior balcony railing was only 30" high, was badly spalled/rusted and not safe in the least. We had to remove it.

The kitchen was not much to look at. There was a cistern hatch on the left side that led to the rainwater cistern (we made that into a laundry and storage). All the plumbing had to be ripped out, as well as all electrical wires.

The foyer was a mess, in that there was a leaking fountain/pond and the laundry was to the left in the photo above. We removed the walls for the laundry, and turned the washing machine water supply lines around in the wall to exit the other side as an outdoor shower. We relocated the laundry inside the cistern which we would not need due to the availability of city water. Lastly, we removed the rebar railing and replaced with glass block and tiled the entire area.

The bathrooms upstairs were hideous. The made-in-place terrazzo tubs were cracked, spalled and unfit to use. We jack-hammered out the tubs and space to run new plumbing. The skylights leaked, so we closed them off too. We also enlarged the bathrooms by knocking down the wall and installing new walls that included the sink area (below photo) that was ugly as well.

The view from the left of the first floor (now) pooldeck shows the old first floor railing we removed to allow access to pool..and the overgrowth of trees and bushes. We also widened the path to this area and paved it too. In the right side of the photo you can see a round porthole that had a smashed window in it. We decide that since it was under the stairs, we didn't need it..and closed it off. We removed the trees and brush..and installed the pool.

  The view of the water is what kept us going. You can see beyond the cracking concrete and overgrowth that the waters was a beautiful blue..

Not much to say about the roof on the second floor. The roof was covered in a foam that was scraped off..and rusted HVAC equipment that didn't work anyway. We removed everything and then had to pour concrete footings for the future third floor.

This is the future queen/bunk bedroom. We removed the closet, and of course rewired everything. Sand blasted the floor and replaced all windows/doors..

This was the future king master on second floor. Removing the closets allowed us to use a large armoire and gave access to plumbing. new windows, wires, tile, paint and furniture have made it very nice.

A view from the outside of the first floor bedroom. This room had a wall between the (now) sitting area and bedroom area. It had rodents living in it and plenty of bee's nests..as there were no doors. It is now a pretty orange color and we collapsed the two "bedrooms" into one larger suite with a sitting area.