Frankie: Week 5

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.

Since I was missing for week 4, I'll skip directly from week 3 to week 5.  This week's alternate post title is "Adventures in Tedium"

I'll warn you now- this week was b.o.r.i.n.g.  Well, not really boring for the work side, since I'm still pooped, but it was uneventful to say the least.  Prep was the key-word this week.

I did a LOT of scraping, patching, and sanding so that this ceiling

eventually looked like this

It was a miracle.... that involved numerous curse words and practically an entire package of sandpaper, but a miracle nonetheless.

If you were a hole in this house that wasn't supposed to be there, this week was not your week either.  I went on a patching frenzy!  I bought this 1 gal. bucket of spackle on Monday...

See what I mean about tedious, though?  Patch, sand, rinse, repeat.  Since I'll be painting every ounce of wood trim (it's in horrific condition), I have a lot of surfaces to prep.  A lot.  Seriously- every surface in the house with the exception of the floor is getting painted and it all needed patching and sanding.  Even the door knobs will be painted!

On top of all the mind numbing surface prep, my lists are back!  It makes me smile every time I get to check a box off!  Only a few boxes are checked, but I'm building momentum.

This week also made our bank account much lighter on account of having to purchase supplies for the next phase of the project- the rebuilding phase!  Purchases included:

-countertops

-bathroom vanity

-bathroom mirrors

-bathroom sconces

-tile- Kitchen/hall floor, bathroom floor, & shower walls

-kitchen pendant

-kitchen sink

I just keep telling myself that this messy, tedious week is leading up to the fun part.  Hopefully the contractor will be able to start on the bathroom next week, and I'll become one with the paint brush.  Once I start painting, I think this whole house will start coming back together pretty fast!

Flip Plans: Bathroom

I'll be the first to admit, my plans for the bathroom aren't nearly as exciting as my kitchen plans (which I'm super excited to implement btw).  The bathroom is a much smaller space, so I have to be a little calmer.  You can rest assured, however, I will have some fun with brighter accessories when it comes to staging.

The shower is getting a fantastic white subway tile treatment much like Clark did.  It's a small space, but I'm trying to make it look as large and luxurious as possible (on the smallest budget- challenge accepted!).  Since I'm having a contractor put together this space, I'll need to get on top of buying all these pretty materials- chop chop!

I'm absolutely loving this bathroom via The Marion House Book- it incorporates a lot of my vision for the room & I found it AFTER I made all the decisions.  Great minds think alike.

plan sources: mirrors/sconces/vanity/drawer pull/floor tile

Salvaged Tile Art

Last week when I was brute-forcing the bathroom floor out, I was hit with inspiration in the form of concrete chunks.... that's not too odd is it?

In my demo delirium (I've decided that's a thing) I looked at these pieces and fell in love with the modern art that smashing a floor created.  I thought it might be a bit too crazy to frame a chunk of concrete (not to mention HEAVY), so I salvaged some individual tiles that were intact and had a bit of fun.

The lighting seems to have been a bit funky in my house/I probably had the camera setting wrong while doing this project, but the real color of the tiles is closest to the smashy pictures above.

I got a shadow box frame from Michael's (with a coupon naturally) and started experimenting with tile patterns.  Once I settled on a placement, the tiles got glued directly to the frame's black fabric backing.

The entire project was complete in just a matter of minutes.

Who knew tiles saved from the dumpster could be so pretty?

Before gifting it to our real estate agent for all her hard work in helping us find Frankie (thanks again Amy!), I attempted to get a better picture of the shadow box on the picture ledge in my office.  The colors are better, but it's a bit shadowy.  I guess my photography skills were on vacation during this project.

I don't know about you, but projects like this (even with the bad photography) just make me smile.  What was last week considered ugly and dated in the form of a floor is now an abstract piece of art with a history.

Have you salvaged materials from a renovation and given them a new life?  I'd love to hear about it!