DIYs in the Wings

After a super busy weekend, I've already fried myself working overtime on the flip this week, and it's only Wednesday!!  oy.  I was totally planning to have a super stellar DIY to show off to you today, but even with all the supplies ready, these projects won't do themselves.  Soon, my dears, soon! Rest assured, though, that I have several super cool DIYs coming up that I'm excited to tackle!

One involves receipt paper,

another will use a sheet of wood veneer,

yet another will repurpose one of these thrifted books,

and the one I'm most eager to do has something to do with this antique horn.

Are you intrigued?  Hopefully I've piqued your interest enough for you to come back on Monday to see which I tackled first!

See you Friday with Frankie the Fliphouse's latest (super sexy) updates!

Disrobing Furniture

Last Monday, the upholstery gods smiled down on me.  I got an e-mail that a last-minute spot had opened up in the upholstery class starting that Wednesday and my name was first on the wait-list if I still wanted the spot.  Yes please!!! Our beloved antique chair needed some serious freshening up, and since I have big plans for it in our living room, I jumped on the opportunity.

As soon as the class started Wednesday evening, the teacher had us start breaking down our chairs- aka tear it apart.  I almost couldn't do it!  I should have started with a chair with no emotional attachment.

WARNING, if you're of the furniture faint of heart or just don't have the emotional fortitude to see a naked chair, I'd stop reading now.

I warned you.

Disrobing chair pictures commencing in

...3...

...2...

...1...

At this point, I was sneezing up a storm.  Disintegrating fabric and original horse-hair stuffing are the stuff allergic dreams are made of.

Once I got all the fabric, stuffing and burlap off, I had precisely 50 kagillion staples that I had to remove from the frame.  I counted. (just kidding, I'm not sure I can count that high... and certainly not while trying to efficiently remove staples)

At the end of the first 3 hour class, I had an entirely naked and staple-less chair.  Isn't the wood detail pretty?

It's minorly heartbreaking to see our chair like this, but I know the end result is going to be Awe Some!  I'm so excited to start putting the chair back together this week.  Especially since I think I finally settled on a fabric (that even Hubby approves of):

I think this gray ikat might be just the statement this chair needs without screaming for attention.  mmm pretty.

As an upholstery novice, I'd love to hear about your DIY upholstery experiences!  Any tips and/or tricks I should know?

Frankie: Week 12

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses.  Check out other posts about Frankie the Fliphouse HERE. It's minorly discouraging when I realize that with Clark, our last flip, week 12 was the big reveal, but with last minute vacations, multiple holidays, and factory closures I guess it's understandable that Frankie's not quite done yet.  c'est la vie.

Since rooms are starting to reach partial completion, we've reached the time in my flip updates where I stop showing full rooms and just show teasers.  Sorry!  Ok, maybe I'm not so sorry, I like teasing you with the finished result, but I will share additional pics on my facebook and instagram pages (see, I'm not above shameless self-promotion).

Anyway, back to the wonderful world of painting...

I am very pleased and unbelievably beyond relieved to say, that aside from minor touch-ups, the entire main floor is DONE being painted.  Admittedly, painting took much longer than I planned for.  Great arm work-out, though.  I think I'll be rolling paint in my sleep for the next month.

I'll still have to do major touch-ups on most of the window trim once the new windows get installed, but at least we finally have a date for that!  Even though I started the whole new-window process before we even closed on the house, I had a feeling that they'd be holding up listing and I was right.  Factories closed for the holidays, and tempered glass for the bathroom was back-ordered, making the windows the absolute last thing to do.  The windows are scheduled to be installed on Feb 6th and we plan to be listed as soon as I can finish touch-ups afterwards.

Fun flip fact:  it takes precisely 5 gallons of paint to paint 3 bedrooms and a living room.  (Recycled ReColor paint in canvas color to be precise)

I was also finally able to beat all the ceilings in this house into submission *halleluiah* and, thankfully, the 2 rooms that I attempted texture on didn't end up looking too terrible.

The bathroom vanity got blinged out with a bit of hardware.  The vanity did come with plain ol' knobs, but adding shiny, slightly more custom-looking hardware will make the bathroom feel a bit richer as a whole.  It's the little things, people!  Side note: Please disregard how dirty the wood looks- it needs a major wipe-down due to leftover construction dust.

In all the tedium of painting though, I did have a little fun and get started on the island.  Painting furniture is so much more enjoyable than painting rooms.

I'm still wavering on the color a tiny bit.  It's a little brighter in person, but I think it'll look pretty awesome when the room's all together.  And since the countertops are getting installed at long last today and may even be done by the time this posts (happy dance)!! I can finally pull the kitchen together!  This girl has a SERIOUS itch to tile a backsplash.  I may have to restrain myself from starting to tile the second the countertop guys leave.  Then again, why not?? Have a fantastic weekend!