I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses. This flip, Millie is the most challenging and most exciting yet! You can find more about this house and about my 3 previous flip houses here. Guess what happened yesterday.
Why yes, that IS tile on the wall of the upstairs bathroom. The other half of the bathroom is still tile-less until next week, but YAY PROGRESS!!!! The floor tiles I started dry-fitting, so they aren't adhered down yet- that will probably be today. The quicker that I can get this floor done, the quicker I can get a toilet back in this house! Yes, I have been toiletless for 9 weeks. Well not toiletless per se... I do have 4 toilets on site.... just none of them working.....
If you remember last week when I noticed that the wall-hung sink supply lines were coming out of the floor, not the wall as needed. That issue got fixed, but not without causing more work and more cost. My fave. Since the bathroom floors had already been closed over, I had to open up the ceiling below which falls in the basement stairwell. More work for the drywallers (hopefully) next week. It was either this or get a new vanity which would end up costing even more.
And while we're sort of still on the topic of bathroom floors- the wood floors in the downstairs new master suite got sanded down and 2 coats of poly. I'll give you a moment to appreciate the 100 year old floors.
Now I can finish walls and put down fixtures on top of a sealed floor. Once the entire house is done, my floor guy will come back and do a final coat so they'll be super snazzy for selling. The rest of the floors on the first floor will also be getting refinished, but since this is the only space getting plumbing fixtures on top, this area got refinished first. Aren't they pretty?
I, on the other hand spent a good part of my week staring at much less pretty surfaces..... wallpaper. I am elated to say, however that the 2 upstairs bedrooms that still had wallpaper left over are now wallpaper free. (a friend stopped by yesterday and was disturbed at how garish the pink trim is in person. I wish the images could truly capture the acid pink color)
Next step now that the wallpaper is gone is to patch several holes and try and repair the loose plaster. I've been working on a test spot in one of the bedrooms. When plaster and lath walls settle, the 2 layers can separate making the walls bouncy and unstable. After much internet research, I am testing out one method on the left. I have drilled holes through the plaster only and injected adhesive. The screws and washers are holding the plaster firm while the adhesive hopefully dries. I'm crossing my fingers that this adhesive works since I wasn't able to get ahold of the specialized adhesive that several sites recommend. Does anyone have experience repairing plaster?? If so, what adhesives did you use?
I also went into manic organizing mode yesterday. With flooring guys, contractors, plumbers and an electrician in and out, somehow the kitchen has been sacrificed in the name of construction mess. And it makes me twitch. I'm embarrassed to admit that the rest of the house was only marginally better. No wonder I couldn't focus to save my life! I'm the type of person that feeds off my surroundings (probably why interior design means so much to me). If my environment is a disaster, chances are, so am I. After a few days of getting anxious and not being as productive as I usually like, I realized I needed to hit 'reset' on the mess and find some zen.
I've already talk to the contractors and their messes will soon be wrangled, so I focused on the rest of the house that I could organize. My organization of choice on the job site is 5 gallon buckets.
This pile of buckets may not look it, but it's super organized. One bucket holds cleaning supplies, another sandpaper, another caulk and adhesives and another tapes (electrical tape, drywall tape, painters tape, etc). With the clutter on its way to being under control again, I'm hoping I can find my deep focus once again and bang out the upstairs bathroom floor. And maybe, just maybe, I can get a working toilet back in the near future!