Nessie the Flip House: Week 5

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I navigate through the business of flipping houses one house at a time!!  Check in each Friday to see weekly update of how this house progresses!  To catch up on the progress on Nessie, check out her previous posts here.  If you’re new here (Hello!!!),  or just enjoy walking down memory lane, you can see my 6 previous flip houses here.  Thanks for coming along for the ride!!  

Guess what!!  It looks like we're finally getting a building permit!...... Tuesday.  BUT this week we did get very important approval from the health department to add a powder room into the basement.  This will be a game changer for the house and what we'll be able to sell if for once it's done!

I'll be adding a toilet into the existing laundry area and finishing the space so it'll be a spacious powder room/laundry room.  It's not so good to start with, so really anything will be a huge improvement!

It's new configuration will include fancy things like a toilet that pumps up to the septic system, a sink with an actual cabinet below, and a pocket door.

Since the finished basement room- affectionately called the 'bowling alley'- is right off this space with doors to the back yard, I see this bathroom getting a lot of use.  While it's not going to be totally pinterest perfect because I plan to use the existing, non-matching washer and dryer (oh the horror!!), there are so many awesome laundry rooms to get inspired by.  I'm already jealous that my own laundry area is in a non-finishable area of my dingy, 117 year old basement.

I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head that I need to organize and figure out the look of this bathroom, though.  I've been concentrating on the upstairs design plans until I knew this bathroom would be a reality.  I finally ordered the kitchen cabinets yesterday (BLUE!!!! :-)  ) and have the upstairs bathroom 80% planned.  For the upstairs bathroom, I'm totally inspired by Sarah Sherman Samuel's bathroom- I've been itching to use a giant round mirror in a design and I think this might be my chance!

Next week, we should have a building permit, a wall gone, demo complete, maybe even rebuilding beginning, AND I'll share my design plans for both bathrooms.  It's been my slowest start to a flip yet, but this house is FINALLY starting to build momentum!!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

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Nessie the Flip House: Week 4

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I navigate through the business of flipping houses one house at a time!!  Check in each Friday to see weekly update of how this house progresses!  To catch up on the progress on Nessie, check out her previous posts here.  If you’re new here (Hello!!!),  or just enjoy walking down memory lane, you can see my 6 previous flip houses here.  Thanks for coming along for the ride!!  

My apologies for the late post- I've been sick for the past several days.  Stomach flu is sooo fun to begin with, but it's especially fun when your baby chooses that same time to decide to wake up every hour at night.  It's hard to be mad when he greets you with a smile each time though.  Anyway, now back to your regularly scheduled programing.

Remember week 3 when I hoped that I would have lots of fun things to show you this week?  Apparently I lied.  We got structural notes from an architect friend so that we could submit them officially to the town, now the town has all the permit application forms, floor plans, etc, and a big fat check.... and now we wait.  The downfall of a small town is that people generally wear several hats- in this case, they don't currently have a dedicated building inspector to deal with the permits, so the building commissioner has to do it all.  And for me, that means we may have to wait a week or 2 for the building permit to do any of the fun work.  Until then, I'm giving the landscaping the green light and hopefully we can start improving the curb appeal!!  I'm super disappointed that this is the second week in a row that I really am at a loss for anything fun to update you on.  I haven't even ordered the kitchen yet!  I know what I want, I just need to figure out where I can get it within my budget!!

Here's a sneak peek, although not the final layout:

Thanks to a neighbor (Hi Cheryl!) I learned that Nessie's neighborhood has quite the interesting history.  The neighborhood right by the pond boomed in the first couple decades of the 1900s as a vacation destination for those from Boston and the surrounding towns.  Prohibition and the Great Depression was rough and the neighborhood supposedly became overtook by bootlegging gangsters with properties getting exceedingly rundown.  Luckily, the 50s and early 60s brought a new life into the neighborhood and the area was cleaned up and renovated.  A lot of the original properties were beyond help at this point and destroyed, so the fact that Nessie was built in 1920 and renovated (on my estimation) in the early 60s, this is one of the lucky houses that was fit to stay standing.

And on that note, I'm off to call the town and see how its looking for a permit this week.  Wish me luck!!

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Nessie the Flip House: Week 2

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I navigate through the business of flipping houses one house at a time!!  Check in each Friday to see weekly update of how this house progresses!  To catch up on the progress on Nessie, check out her previous posts here.  If you’re new here (Hello!!!),  or just enjoy walking down memory lane, you can see my 6 previous flip houses here.  Thanks for coming along for the ride!! Let the smashing begin!!!

I had my planner hat on this week, while Hubby actually put on his demo hat.  He may not be the one to build anything, but he can wield a crowbar and sledge hammer with the best of them.

Handy Dad got in on the action a bit too and helped Hubby tackle most of the kitchen.

The stove is actually new- still with the protective film on parts, so were shockingly keeping an appliance for once.  Now, the really question is what should we do with this state of the art Lady Kenmore???

Meanwhile outside, we have a brand new septic system, and a totally cleared, nicely graded back yard to go with it.

We didn't realize how much of our overgrown landscaping would be taken care of by the septic fix!  It really takes care of half of the landscaping that we were planning to do already.

We're still getting quotes for the rest of the landscaping though, including retaining wall, patio, those little stairs, and the walkways to the front and side doors.

I'm still working on planning the design and figuring out what we need to do for the town to approve our plans.  Because this house is pretty neutral style wise to start with, just a nice kitchen isn't going to cut it.  I'm thinking blue cabinets, wood accents, and white walls.  This IKEA kitchen is actually what sparked the inspiration for me.  This particular one is just a bit too modern, but it got my wheels turning.  I'm thinking more mid century modern- I REALLY am fixated on the idea of blue cabinets!

Aside from septic, this one's starting out a little slower while we get all of our ducks in a row, but I have a feeling once the major work starts, it's going to fly!

Have an awesome weekend!!!

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