This is my abandoned house.

If you’ve been following the series, you already know this place used to be a fully finished Colorado home that sold for around $550k in 2019… and then got destroyed when the next owner turned it into a drug house. Because of the contamination and damage, I was able to buy the property and the detached 6-car garage/shop for $284k – which is still a crazy amount of money, but for Colorado and this size of house, it’s about as cheap as it gets.

In this episode I give you a full recap + progress tour: we walk around the busted back deck, look at the boarded-up windows, and then head into the 35' x 60' shop where I share my plan to divide it into a framing/carpentry shop on one side and a future guest house / Airbnb on the other.

Down in the basement, I show the rebuilt stairs with new stringers, the bedroom layout changes, the broken windows, and explain the difference between a sump pit and an ejector pit and why this house needs the latter.

Upstairs I walk through all the layout changes in the master, the new laundry location, subfloor patches, storage added over the closet, and my favorite part so far: the arched built-in wall in the living room where I’m recessing a TV so it looks like art.

Then it’s on to today’s work: trying (and failing) to get permission to burn scrap, yanking out a tree with the forklift, renting a skid steer with an auger, re-planting the tree in a new spot, and using the machine to fill the mystery hole in the garage.

I’m insanely thankful for all the friends helping on this project. Between providing for my wife and two boys, keeping Coffman Construction running, and trying to fix an abandoned house, this is a huge undertaking. Thanks for being here and following along as we turn this place from drug house to family home.

👉 Subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode in this series.

Chapters:

• 0:00 – Intro & “This is my abandoned house”
• 0:20 – How it became a meth house & what I paid
• 1:25 – Exterior tour: rotten deck, boarded windows & master corner
• 1:51 – 6-car detached garage / future shop & guest house tour
• 2:44 – Basement HVAC trunks & rebuilding the stairs
• 3:22 – Basement bedroom layout change & new closet
• 4:02 – Sump pit vs ejector pit (gross but important)
• 5:57 – Upstairs master bedroom rework & laundry hookup
• 7:34 – Living room archway, built-ins & recessed TV idea
• 8:56 – Friends helping, family life & the weight of this project
• 9:19 – Today’s plan: exterior patches, burning scrap & deck demo
• 10:27 – Fire department says “no burning trash” (rare L)
• 10:56 – Tree removal with chain and forklift
• 12:13 – Deciding to replant the tree instead of trashing it
• 12:34 – Renting a skid steer & auger for the new tree hole
• 18:12 – First time using an auger & digging the hole
• 19:34 – Planting the tree and staking it upright
• 21:36 – Filling the mystery garage hole with the skid steer
• 21:56 – More holes, skid steer lessons & wrapping up the day