Name: Renovating A $155K Mansion In North Carolina | Unlocked
Uploaded: 2025-03-25T05:47:36.000Z
Duration: 8 min 41 s
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To-infinitive

When we came to see the house for the first time, we didn't need a key.

Modal verbs - A2

You could just crawl through the busted-out windows or just open up the front door because there was no lock.

It had been taken over by the elements, by people.

It was very dilapidated when we walked in, but there was just something about it that I said, we'll make it work.

Hi, welcome to our home in Aberdeen, North Carolina.

My name is Abby Brothers, and my name is Trey Brothers.

We live in a 6,000-square-foot mansion in Aberdeen, North Carolina.

And we bought this house for $155,000, and we renovated it for $268,000.

When I saw the house online, I immediately knew.

It was the same feeling when I knew I wanted to marry Trey.

And so when I sent it to Trey, I was hoping he would say, yeah, let's look at it.

So as soon as we pulled in the driveway, I'm like, yep, that's it.

For me, it was probably walking in, and it had that feeling of home.

And I was just like, all right, I can live here, fix it up a little bit.

I mean, it did have the kitchen inside the basement, so slight work.

So the Page family were wealthy industrialists in the area.

They actually founded several towns in North Carolina and helped bring the railroad into the state and throughout the state, especially this area we live in.

It truly looked like a time capsule when we walked in.

There was confetti on the floor where it looked like someone had thrown a party years ago and then just walked out.

The room above it was in the first floor, and the kitchen was in the basement.

We found our home on Zillow, out of all places.

I was looking in the surrounding area and accidentally zoomed out, and this house was the first one that popped up in the search.

I clicked on it, and I took a picture, and I sent it to Trey.

And I said, hey, let's buy and renovate this house.

It was an incredible deal, like a once in a lifetime, at least for us.

And then we got into the green and blue and purple,      Initially, knowing it needed a lot of work before we even purchased the home, we walked it with multiple contractors.

So plumbing, electrical, a general contractor, all of the areas recovered.

And we just walked it and got estimates so we knew how much it was going to cost for renovations total.

And then kind of added that along with how much we purchased it for.

And once we realized we were making a great decision in profit, we just jumped on it.

The last appraisal on our home, appraised for over $900,000.

It was important to keep the original details of the home because it's history.

Homes aren't built like they were in 1913.

And if you do want those sorts of details in a home now, they're very expensive.

Essentially what we did in that nine months was get it to the point where it would pass inspection so we could live here.

And then we've just progressively done the rest of the work as we have lived here.

I believe the most expensive aspect of it was probably the floors.

Most of the houses, the original hardwood floors from 110 years ago, keeping those original and repairing what we could was probably the most expensive aspect of it.

When we purchased our home, it was filled with antiques.

And so part of purchasing it was we wanted to keep all of the antiques with it.

And we've slowly brought them back into the home or we've refurbished and brought them back into the home.

When you come in the double doors, immediately to your left, you'll see the living room.

Some of the original furniture was this dresser, which was in the house whenever we purchased it.

And the closet, we actually flipped out to make storage for our living room.

And in this window particularly, we had a tree growing through the window when we bought the house into the ceiling, which is no longer there, obviously.

And this is all the original 110 year old wood floors.

So to the right of the foyer, you have this study.

So underneath the steps, we did add a half bath.

So we decided we needed our guests to not have to walk through a bedroom to get to a  It was originally a phone closet.

So as a little nod to that, we did paint it red, kind of like a phone booth.

So on the trim here are names and numbers because this is where you would write the name or the number of whoever you're calling, just so they kind of, instead of having a phone book in here.

So off of the foyer in the back to the right, you have the dining room and kitchen.

When we initially bought the home, you could walk to about this point in the dining room until the rest of it was falling into the basement.

What's really cool about this is it has its own little fireplace.

When we took off the plaster off of the brick, it was really unique because behind the mantle has all of the original Mason's names that had put up the brick in the house.

I wasn't going to live in a very large home and have a very small bathroom.

So we decided to open up the sun porch and create our own master bathroom with a very large walk-in shower and a clawfoot tub.

The clawfoot tub is not original to the home, but it is a very old tub.

It was actually in my great grandmother's home.

This was actually a buffet that was in the dining room.

It was very waterlogged and it matched what was the original dining room table and like a china cabinet that were in there.

When we first visited the home, the staircase is what drew me in.

During the renovation process, we couldn't touch the staircase because it's grandfathered in.

On the second floor, there are four bedrooms with two bathrooms.

And then there's also another portion of the second floor, but it's kind of off by itself.

And there is another bedroom with a bathroom.

We also have a, what we call the sleeping porch upstairs on the second floor.

I'm not really sure why, but we did have those taken out because there is a Jack and Jill bathroom between all the four bedrooms on each side.

I don't think you put this much love and work into a place and then just go, I don't want it anymore.

So we have every intention of living here forever.

We'll probably try to see if one of our kids will end up staying in the area.

We only have one right now, but we'll have some in the future.

I have to remind myself sometimes of what it used to look like because it was in such disrepair.

And even right before we bought it, there was some threats of having it torn down.

So to think that people will say, oh, you saved it.

I don't think of it that way because it's our home.

But then I kind of have to realize we did, we saved this place and living in it is what makes it a home.

It was an amazing experience and if it gives just a few people out there a little bit of push to do the same, I would hope they would.