Before & After

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

If this is your first time over here, Welcome to the new Year of Serendipity!!!!  I'm still tweaking a few things here and there (including updating my rather sad home tour and pathetic 30 before 30), but I'd love to hear what you think! In the midst of launching this site and ironing out kinks with my web designers, I've gone spray-happy again.  I can't help myself!  Spray paint is such a fantastic way to make an instant transformation.

As I mentioned last week, I have target lock on my front porch.  My itsy bitsy never used front porch.  So far, I've purchased paint to refresh the trim and started looking at solid stains for the floor, but I may have started a little backwards... I started with the furniture.

I found 2 perfectly scaled chairs on Craigslist and a small side table at the thrift store which all called for a few coats of spray paint.  So far I've tackled the side table.

It went from this:

Thrifted Table Before

to this in about a half an hour:

Canary Yellow Thrifted Table

Talk about instant gratification!  I'm not too worried about having a wooden side table on the porch since it won't be exposed to too much of the elements, but that's also why I went for an inexpensive thrifted piece (with some sexy legs, no?).

I was very tempted to run outside at 8am this morning and try to get the chairs painted, so I could include them in this post, but I probably want to do them right and not just fast.  probably.  because they're going to be fan.tas.tic.  With the glorious weekend forecast (rain rain rain), it looks like I'll be impatiently waiting until Monday/Tuesday to do the chairs.

I hope your holiday weekend forecast is better than ours and you can enjoy some sunshine!  I'll just enjoy my sunshine colored table instead as I watch the rain.

Do you have any awesome holiday weekend plans or projects?  and what do you think of the new site??

 

Meet Clark 2.0

(aka "Clark: Week 12", aka "Clark's Big Reveal", aka "OMG Did I Just Do That?") If you’re new to my weekly progress posts, Clark is my first ever flip house (named for the street that he’s on). Check out my previous posts here.

Twelve weeks ago, I introduced you to this misfit of a house.  He wasn't quite an eyesore, but he had been neglected for years and foreclosed on and just needed to be shown some love.

clark before

Twelve weeks later, Clark has been given a new life and is ready for a new family to love him.

clark ext complete

It's just beginning to really sink in to me- I flipped a house in 3 months.  I flipped a house.  In 3 months. ME?!

But my own disbelief in my abilities isn't why you're here.  You want to see the big reveal!!!!!

Photo shoot day (yesterday) was dreary and gray here in Massachusetts and I wasn't about to make you wait any longer, so the lighting in the pics was a bit challenging.  You've been warned.

But, without further ado.....

Come on it, take off your shoes, and enjoy the tour!

w12 ext 1

First room on the tour is the living room.  The formerly burnt orange living room.

Clark before living2

I bid farewell to the burnt yuk color and welcomed a creamy color called Canvas.

w12 living room

And I opened up the wall between the living room and kitchen.  It makes the space feel enormous (which is paramount in a house under 1000 sf)!

clark before living1

The textured ceiling is still there in a crisp new white.  I swear the room is a cream color, not green.  It's the only room without an overhead light, so it's suffering from the dreary day outside.  (someone also needs to take some photography classes- hint: it's this girl)

w12 living room 1

Once upon a time there was a closet in the living room, but it was sacrificed for a good cause: the kitchen.  Speaking of which....

front door before

Oh hai kitchen.

w12 living room opening

Remember what it looked like when we bought it?  Not enough room for modern appliances and cabinets that were about 25 years past their usable life.

Clark before kitchen1

How do you like dem apples??  Now that's a kitchen!

kitchen after

How about another?

w12 kitchen 1

And another.  If this kitchen doesn't sell this house, I don't know what will!

w12 kitchen 2

I guess there are a few other rooms in this house too if you ever decide to leave the kitchen (and really, who would blame you if you didn't).

w12 hallway

The three bedrooms didn't get any drastic changes- paint (trim, ceilings, walls), new light fixtures, and a good carpet cleaning

Bedroom #1- The artist formerly known as the red room.

Clark before redbed1

The murder red was thankfully covered up with a new color, Cloud.

bedroom 1 after

Bedroom #2 didn't undergo such a drastic color transformation.  It went from very badly painted gray...

Clark before graybed1

...to a lighter, neatly painted gray (also Cloud)

bedroom 2 after

The master bedroom (or at least the room I deemed as the master because it was marginally the largest room with the largest closet) started as another burnt something color.  Here's a good tip for picking colors- if you find it in a diaper, it's probably not a good color for a wall.  Rule to live by.

Clark before master1

Now it's always summer in here.  Literally.  That's the name of the new color, Summer.  It's a nice soft, buttery yellow to distinguish it from the other 2 bedrooms.

master after 1

master after 2

But aside from the kitchen, there's one other room that I spent a lot of time and effort in.

The bathroom!

The former owners (prior to the foreclosure) tried to put lipstick on a pig and had the gall to advertise this as an updated bathroom.  I'm sorry, if you have a cracked plastic shower surround and moldy linoleum, an updated bathroom it is not.  I don't care if you put a new pedestal sink in it or not, it was still disgusting.  The picture really didn't show it in all it's gory glory, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Clark before bathroom1

Remove the disgusting and add a boat-load of charm and that's what we see today.

w12 bathroom 2

Are those some sexy floors or what??

w12 bathroom 1

Only the pedestal sink and the tub remain from the original room.

w12 bathroom 3

I have a few very minor things left on my to do list, although most won't be noticeable to potential buyers... which is good because...  this guy is officially LISTED!!!  And he's going to charm the pants off of any potential buyers!

The listing went live on Monday (I know some of you peaked already), but we aren't doing any showings until the open house Saturday.  So if you're in the market for a 110% move-in-ready house in Worcester with more charisma than you can handle, come on by!

I'm like a proud parent with this house.  I didn't realize how attached I've grown.  I guess when you spend 40 hours a week pouring your soul into a space, you're bound to form a bond.

me clark

I just hope he finds a good family who will love him, and care for him, and feed him, and take him for walks...... did I take it too far?  I think I'm getting punchy at this point.  I need a vacation.

So, what do you think??

Mirror Mirror

Clark's pieces are all coming into place- He'll probably be at 95% at this week's update Friday, and I anticipate ONE HUNDRED PERCENT by next week's update.(!!!!) Last week, I mentioned the medicine cabinet was a bit of a headache.

med cabinet 1

I had hopes of putting a new, more modern styled medicine cabinet in, however my plans were foiled by the hole in the wall.  The hole was a very non-standard size and I realized it was impossible to find a new recessed cabinet the same size.  I toyed with the idea of just covering it with a flat mirror, but this is the only storage in the bathroom.

med cabinet hole

I bought a medicine cabinet, but soon realized that to open up the hole further would be a HUGE undertaking.  poo.  Unless I wanted to totally open the wall (hint: I didn't), my only option was to revamp the existing medicine cabinet.

She needed some love, but wasn't beyond help.  The worst problem was the mirrors themselves.  The mirror finish on the back was peeling and scraping off at all the edges.  Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a deteriorating mirror?  Let's just say, you'll have to take my word for it.  The rest of the cabinet needed some cleaning and serious de-rust-ification (technical term, I promise) to make it like new.

med cabinet 2

med cabinet 3

After a quick Google search, I found a glass store 5 min from the house that would be able to replace the mirrors and transfer the sliding hardware to the new mirrors for $100 (less than a new medicine cabinet= win).  The silver frame wasn't irreparable, but I thought it might look like a clash of styles in this bathroom, so you can probably guess what I did.

med cabinet 4

Both the inside and frame got primed, then sprayed a nice, clean semi-glosss white.

I already had both cans of spray paint, so the only cost for this project was the new mirrors.

med cabinet 5

The glass shelves inside were also in good shape and only needed a whipe-down.  I also attempted to preserve a little bit of this cabinet's history by taping off the sticker/logo before painting so it would still be visible.  This is clearly the original medicine cabinet to the house (which was built in 1957), and I'm a sucker for stuff like that.

med cabinet 7

Even though I was intent on replacing it, I'm very pleased with the end result of Clark's medicine cabinet.

med cabinet 6

Now that the bathroom is almost all back together, you'll have to wait until the final reveals to see the full space.  (spoiler alert: it's awesome)