Grover: Week 7

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses.  Check out  more about this flip, Grover, or check out posts about our last flip HERE. I think I'll be painting for the rest of my life.  Guess what.... I painted more this week!  One bedroom and the hallway and their respective closets (aside from some minor touch-ups) are complete!!!  And that includes the trim and the ceilings.

That means that these rooms are ready for the floors to get refinished!  I guess it's time to call the floor guy and get him going.

The bedroom and closet doors are on their way too.  Most are primed and a few have a first coat of finish paint.  At first, I tried to use the latex primer that I already had on hand on the previously unpainted doors...

Latex primer on the left, oil based primer on the right.  Difference much?  I was hoping to avoid the smell, but you'll save yourself several coats if you just start with oil based primer.  Lesson learned.

But painting's actually not all that got accomplished this week, surprisingly.

I'm ridiculously proud of the patch I did on the swirled hallway ceiling.  I'll be sharing my process next week, but until then... patch?  what patch?  Ok, so it's not perfect, but you only see it if you're really looking.

The electrician also tackled a bunch work throughout the house... homeowner wiring is kind of like a puzzle... For example: a 3-way switch that goes to the basement stair light, also apparently is controlled by another 3-way switch in the garage and also leads to another mysterious, un-locatable light that's most likely hidden in the finished area in the basement.  Sounds logical.  His most visible progress this week was relocating the thermostat and doorbell (and outlet and switch) from the removed wall.  Speaking of the wall, it passed the first inspection, so that means the drywall can go up!

While the electrician worked away and I painted away, the contractor tiled away.  Clean white subway tile in the shower always puts a smile on my face.  Not only because it looks lovely, but also because it means that I can get started on the rest of the bathroom!!  I'm not excited for that or anything. (!!!!)

I'm getting started on tiling the floor today (since the contractor laid the backer board on the floor for me.... it took them part of a morning- that would have been at least a 2 day job for me).  I started dry-fitting the tile yesterday.  That's always fun because you get to see what it'll look like without any of the mess involved.

The plumber is coming back Monday to fix a broken toilet flange (the part in the floor that the toilet mounts to), so if I have the tile laid by then, I can get the toilet reinstalled too!  Since this is the only toilet in the house, the less amount of time it's out of commission the better.  Luckily, my sister lives 5 min down the road, so I don't have to rely on a porto-pot or public bathrooms.  Thanks Sis!

Hopefully from this point, the progress will be less of watching paint try and will forge ahead in leaps and bounds!

Have a great weekend!

Grover: Week6

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses.  Check out  more about this flip, Grover, or check out posts about our last flip HERE. I keep being surprised how fast this flip is passing.  I'm pleased to say this week, it is finally starting to look and feel a bit different!

Remember how there used to be a wall in between the kitchen/dining room and living room?  Well, no more!

I'm so happy I decided to open up the wall- it's going to completely make this space!  The above is a view from the front door.  Just look at all the light coming from the back of the house!  It's going to be even brighter too, when I nix the dark drab colors.

Here's a before and after comparison from the same angle:

What a difference, amIright??  Don't worry, the beam isn't bowed, that's just my camera lens.  In fact, the beam is as straight as an arrow.  The contractor was even able to jack up an old bow in the ceiling and really square up the house- go him!  And since I'm so in love with the open concept here, this will be the view from the middle of the kitchen:

I originally wanted to open it up another 3', but that extra 3 feet would require a new  beam and concrete footing in the basement and all the work that went along with it.  I'll keep the 3' and the $600 on my pocket, thank you very much.

Still staying in the kitchen, the contractors are moving a wall that no one will see, but it will make such a difference.

I'm stealing almost a foot from the smallest bedroom's closet to create a proper recess for the fridge.  The previous recess caused the fridge to stick out a good 6 inches into the room.  It looked like a mistake.  The bedroom closet will still be plenty large for the room, and now, the fridge will look like it was meant to be there.

Moving down the hallway... the clean, wallpaper free, white, primed hallway... It's never looked better!

Before we head to the bedrooms, let's take a peek in the bathroom where the contractor has been prepping the walls for the new shower tile.

I know right now it looks like the contractor's having all the fun, but I am eagerly awaiting my turn on projects.  Once the contractor tiles the shower walls and preps the floor for tile, I'll be tiling the floor myself and adding board and batten to the walls.  Those are the biggies, but of course I have 10 million small projects throughout the house to make him pretty again.

While the contractor has been working away, I've done my best to stay out of the way in the bedrooms and have successfully prepped and primed all 3 bedrooms trim, walls, and closets.

The master even already has a coat of semi-gloss on the trim and I've started debating room colors.  I'm thinking a soft green in the master and a light gray in the 'kids rooms.'

I'm trying to get the bedrooms painted first on this flip, unlike the last 2 where the painting was one of the last things to happen.  Since I'll be getting the floors sanded down and refinished, it makes sense to paint first when I'm not as worried about spilling a few drops.  PLUS, painting them now means that once the floors to get refinished, the bedrooms will pretty much be DONE!

I feel like I'm dragging my feet a bit on this flip, but we're admittedly holding off on a few big-ticket items for as long as we can.  Until Frankie sells (booo) a lot of our money is still tied up.  We just dropped the price again- come and get him!!

Grover: Week 5

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses.  Check out  more about this flip, Grover, or check out posts about our last flip HERE. I'm not quite sure how week 5 got here already.  This was one of those weeks where I was running around like a crazy person only to look back and wonder what actually was accomplished.  On top of it all, I almost forgot to take pics last night before leaving.  I was in the car with it running when I remembered and ran back in and snapped a few iphone pics (which means the photos in today's post are going to be very top-notch).

The big tedium of the week was started last week: sanding, scraping, and priming trim.  Thankfully all the trim in the 3 bedrooms is now ready for finish coats!

The other big thing this week was a dumpster.  Get it, big?

I've unloaded ALLLLL the demo from the house into it and thankfully have some room in the house to move around again.  There's also still room in the dumpster for when the wall starts coming down on Monday (got pushed back due to waiting for permit).

I spent several hours at IKEA on Wednesday ordering the kitchen and purchasing the bathroom vanity.  I've already half assembled the vanity in order to nail down a location for the new medicine cabinet recess.  Although there is a recess there currently, it's about a foot off center and would look pretty ridiculous if I located the new vanity there.

Heading over to the kitchen, I'm minorly apprehensive about the door fronts that I picked for the kitchen.  I hope the graining doesn't look dated.  I went with the one on the left which is real wood.  The one on the right, although I like the graining, it's just a print of wood on plastic and would be too dark.

Handy Dad also helped me clean out a few things in the yard yesterday including this modular fence (my guess was a dog pen) from underneath inches of dirt.  It's like they tried to bury it in hopes it would go away.  Not so, previous homeowners, not so.

I did hit a few small hick-ups this week too.

As I was hoping to prep the hall ceiling for paint, I noticed that the top layer of plaster was lose in one corner.  On a flat ceiling this would be no biggie, but on a swirled ceiling like this is, I'm going to have to get creative.  Luckily it's in the corner of the hallway- probably the most inconspicuous place in the house.  Guess who'll be googling how to repair swirl textured ceilings??

I also decided that the light fixtures that I installed last week just weren't bright enough with only one bulb, so I set out to replace them..... but the replacement lights that I got won't sit flat with the hardware provided.  That's what I get for going with cheap lights.

Not a big issue, just an annoying one since I now have to return these and buy a third set of lights for the bedrooms.  Third time better be the charm!

I'm very eager for the contractor to get started... I know once he does, the progress will be in leaps and bounds!

Have a great weekend!