Millie: Week 26

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. Progress slows a bit when you're fighting the plague.  But, there has been progress! and it's pretty stuff too.

The kitchen cabinets got fully installed and the countertops got templated.  Countertops are getting installed on Tuesday! Then... TILE!

The biggest visual change this week happened upstairs.  I scrambled to do paint prep (sanding, caulking) so that the painter could do his thing in the 3 upstairs bedrooms and hallway.  Finally, the pink room is no more.

The hideous louvered bifold closet door also got replaced with a vintage door from the ReStore.

And the back hallway:

Well, it's amazing what a little paint can do.  Clearly a little more paint is still needed for that YELLOW window frame.

In addition to all this, the former master is looking pretty snazzy once again.

In the midst of all this, I kept myself busy with snow clearing, random patching, caulking, cleaning, more snow clearing, and general stuff that needs to get done but isn't so pretty.

Next week's operative: finish the walls in the new master so we can get fixtures installed and subsequently working plumbing.  Fingers crossed!!

Millie: Week 25

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. Back when we bought this house in August (oy), Hubby and I discussed and decided that it wasn't worth the energy and cost it would take to rush this house onto the market and it would be worth taking my time and waiting until around March (weather pending...).  Boy I'm so glad we made that call.  If we had gotten the house done as quick as possible, we would probably be trying to sell it in this:

And taking into account the amount of time/energy I spent on that silly yard, I want it to be a selling feature!  That it is not under about 4 feet of snow.  "Hello future buyers, this field of snow is actually a beautifully landscaped patio oasis.  Can't you tell?"

That being said, week 25?? Crazy!  But it's just about at a point where I can start moving the construction mess out of the house and it'll start looking like a livable dwelling once again.  Just about.

As you can see from the snow pic, removing the construction mess is easier said than done.  There was a dumpster under there somewhere!  My dumpster guys were barely able to get that out and haul it away.  I'm waiting until after this weekend's next blizzard (!!!) to get a fresh dumpster.  Until then, all the demo debris from the basement laundry room is hanging out in the basement.....

On the bright side, it only took my contractors a day to take this:

and make it this:

Now I need to figure out what to put on the new floor.  This is the very rare instance where I'm thinking that peel and stick tile is the way to go.

While they were playing in the dirt, I was trying to finish up the master bathroom walls again.  I need to hustle on this room so that my plumber can get fixtures in and turn the water on to everything so I can have functional plumbing once again.  I had shifted my hustle from this room previously to prep for another important room.

I was a crazy painting lady in the past week, all in preparation for the kitchen.  In the midst of this past Monday's snow storm (as opposed to last weeks, the week before's, or the up and coming one..... sadface), kitchen cabinets finally got delivered.  Before I show you, let's reminisce.  Wouldn't you want to cook here??

Maybe you'd like to cook here once I install a stove.  The cabinets are still in the process of being installed but guys, huba huba.  They're Martha Stewart cabinets in the color Ocean Floor.  I adore the color of the cabinets- a nice warm gray that has a little bit of weight without being dark.

I can't wait to get the counter and farmhouse sink installed and get my tile up!  Oh she's gonna be a stunner!

I need to get the rest of the work done in the whole house in the next month.  Ya hear that, social life?  See ya in a month!  Maybe some of the snow will have melted by then.  Let's do this!!!

Millie: Week 24

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. Another snow day this week and it looks like Mother Nature is not planning to be kind this coming week either.  While all I want to do is whine, rage quit on winter and hibernate until the crocuses start popping out, Hubby won't let me.  Meanie.

Despite the annoyances of New England this week, I was feeling surprisingly good about the progress at the flip.  I hired grunt labor to clear out the remaining demo debris in the basement and to start sanding the skim-coated bedroom walls.  I need to hire grunt labor more often.  It allowed me to actually focus for a change.

My contractor was also finally over the flu and started to bang out the items that I have on his list.  The prettiest of those items:

Why yes, that is a fully built and functioning pocket door with salvaged leaded glass windows.  It just needs stain and a lock to get checked off the list.

The least prettiest of my contractors to do list was the basement laundry room.  There was something seriously wrong with the raised floor- bouncy, squishy, and felt like you were about to fall through.  No me gusta.  Here's its gorgeous before:

I had my fingers crossed that it was just a matter of replacing some old plywood but not so much

They had to completely rip it up to reveal the dirt floor below.  It was a dangerous collage of rotten floor joists sistered up with new joists that were not attached to anything.  Throw in a few random cinder blocks for structural support....  Because of this lovely flooring "construction", the adjacent (creepy) bathroom is also being sacrificed.  Bye bye "bathroom"

The realities of the basement are a bit frustrating.  Because we need a new structural floor, the plumber needs to move some drain pipes.  Because the plumber needs to move some drain pipes, he needs to bring the pipes in this area up to code.  This means more money.  We're still in decent shape with the budget, so this shouldn't send me over, it'll just make for some creative penny pinching at the end.

But back to the pretty things.  For the past 2 weeks, the kitchen and I have been bonding hard.  Aside from some organization elsewhere in the house, my week was spent repairing patchwork-ed trim around the kitchen window and sanding, caulking, patching, and priming all the kitchen cabinets and trim.

Next time I decide to save, repair, and repaint 100+ year old cabinets that aren't in the best shape, can someone please remind me how time consuming that is? It'll be totally worth it in the end, but it sucked up much more time than I anticipated.  "I can get the kitchen mostly set in a week"  OK, Karen, how's that working out for you?

BUT all the repair and prep is finally done and every painted surface in here is primed.  That might be a bit of overkill, but since it's the kitchen, I wanted to make sure any past stains stayed in the past and that the paint job would hold up to the daily abuse a kitchen is exposed to.  I don't want my buyers cursing a half-a$$ed flipper fix.

The walls that still have wallpaper are going to be covered with backer board then tiled.  Beautiful marble herringbone tile.  That tile will be my pièce de résistance.  I DARE any future buyers to not want this kitchen!!!  (kidding!  I don't dare them to not want anything.... please love this house.... you know you want to buy it!)

You may have noticed in the first pic that one of the the radiators got a new door too.  I could take credit, but that was on my contractor's list too.

It'll need to come off to get painted with all the rest of the doors, but now it'll blend nicely with all my repaired antique cabinets.

I MAY have also started procuring staging furniture to add to the pile of no room in this house.  I just can't resist a good deal when I know it'll be perfect for staging this house!

An upholstered headboard for the new master ($50)

A sweet antique twin bed and mattress set ($100)

And next week, fingers crossed, I'll be picking up 2 of these guys for $50 (total!)

and these for $100

Keeping my eyes peeled for deals like these are how I'm going to be able to stage this 4 bedroom house for my self-imposed budget of $2500.

I'm super excited to see this coming week's progress!  All the framework is laid for progress in leaps and bounds.  I'm so eager for all of you to see the rooms that have been hiding in my head for the past 24 weeks!