Dori the Flip House: week 2

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses.  My latest flip house, Dori sports the 3 L’s in real estate, but will need more than a bit of creativity to make the house sellable. You can find more about this house and about my 4 previous flip houses here. I didn't get the demo finished this week like I hoped, however things are moving along nicely.  I'm really not in too much of a rush currently, because not much can happen in the next 2 weeks as we wait for the building permit to come through and the windows that were ordered to come in.  I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have the permit in hand when the windows come in and we can jump on that.  Once windows happen, everything else can and the line of dominos can start falling.

So until then, I smashed more,

and opened up the kitchen to the living room a bit,

and loaded about a kagillion loads of demo debris into the dumpster,

and mowed the large lawn (just the front pictured), all the while thankful that my own lawn is essentially a postage stamp,

and figured out a MUCH needed plan for some curb appeal (hint: it includes stained shutters and a blue door- image via Young House Love),

and got multiple landscaping quotes, and planned out the kitchen, and ordered appliances with the holiday sales, and ordered light fixtures for almost the entire house.

(1- Hyannis Wall Lantern for outside, 2- Nimbo Flushmount for the kitchen,3- Octagon Flushmount for the bedrooms)

My plan is to have everything purchased in the next few weeks so when install begins it can go full force.  If this flip house goes according to plan (fingers crossed) once stuff starts happening, everything will start happening.  Windows will lead to drywall which will lead to painting and tiling which will lead to kitchen and bath install and then flooring, staging, and selling.  That's the plan at least!

Dori the Flip House w1

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses.  My latest flip house, Dori sports the 3 L's in real estate, but will need more than a bit of creativity to make the house sellable. You can find more about this house and about my 4 previous flip houses here. So this week I deconstructed. A lot.  And by deconstructed I do mean smashed.  And made a big mess.

It turns out that the previous owners were masters at covering up issues.  If you can't see it, it doesn't exist, right?  Like termite damage.  It doesn't exist if you put paneling over in and a new toe kick on the cabinet they completely feasted through....  Luckily for me, it's not active and they dined on one cabinet and paper wallboard only, leaving the studs completely alone, but I'm treating it anyway. No bandaid fixes for this flipper.

Tell me this wasn't a bit creepy to find behind paneling:

But on a less creepy note- the kitchen has bid us adieu and my new plans are coming together nicely.

I'm going for a completely different feel here than the other houses.  My goal here is funky condo alternative.  I won't even be using my go to subway tiles.

The most tedious thing so far has been getting rid of the darn brick veneer wall.  They used some good adhesive because I had to tear that sucker down brick by flippin brick.

I'm hoping that by the end of next week, all the interior deconstruction can be DONE.  2 weeks of demo would far surpass Millie's 2+ months of demo.  I'm eager for this house to be a blank slate (and stop being an assault on my olfactory senses) so I can start rebuilding!

Meet Dori, Flip House #5

On to flip house #5!  Since we didn't close until Friday afternoon, I wanted to wait until today to show her off. Meet Dori!  She's clearly a bit of a change from the last house, but still quite a challenge in her own right.

As always with my flips, this house is named after it's street, but this time there's a bit more to it.  The name of the street is the same street name (although a different state) that my Grandma lived on for 50+ years, so this house is getting named after her: Doris or Dori since she'll soon be a modern gal.

Dori really doesn't have any character to speak of, so any personality this house will have in the end will be brute-forced in by your truly.  What this flip house does have going for it are the 3 Ls- Location, Location, Location... ok, I'll add a 4th "L" to that since she also has a very generous Lot for the area: part grass and quite a bit of woods behind.

I'm still working out the details, but the basics include, new windows and doors, new drywall walls and ceilings and trim everywhere, new flooring in all but 1 room, a new bathroom, a new kitchen, updating the wiring and plumbing, making the utility/laundry room look less like a horror movie, sprucing up the yard and garage, and adding a bit of curb appeal.  That's nothing, right?

I'm going to try REALLY hard to take a bit more hands-off approach, but we all know I cannot actually be hands-off.  I can't let the contractors have all the fun!

My pet projects where I'll be getting my hands the dirtiest here will be making the small kitchen highly functional and pinterest-worthy, and making the laundry/utility room a space where you might actually want to do laundry.

Let's just say, the whole house currently smells the way it looks- smoky, musty, and dated.  (Dated can be a smell, right?)

There's no escaping that fact that Dori the flip house is a starter home, but with a swift injection of creativity, she's going to be a fun/funky little home for the right family- I can see it now!  Use you're imagination when looking at the pics- just picture clean and fresh walls, snazzy new floors, crisp trim....

At only 1068sf there's a whole lotta ick packed into each square foot.  I need to get her to a blank slate before I can start adding character.  My mind is racing with all the things that I need to do and coordinate.  Let the games begin!!

Friday I'll be resuming my regular "Flip Fridays" and show you how destructive I get this week with my buddy the sledgehammer.