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!!
WE HAVE A BUILDING PERMIT!!!!! Now I breathe a sign of relief and we can really make this house happen. Building permits are a weird thing and vary so much from town to town. In this case, aside from there being a wait list due to the building department being under-staffed, the town wanted more documentation than I've ever had to provide as well as having to work around dated town zoning by-laws. Since the house is on an old non-conforming lot (meaning it doesn't have the amount of land that would currently be required to build a house and is grandfathered in), even refinishing the basement bowling alley room came into question since it wasn't originally counted toward the house square footage. This weird zoning restriction is the reason I'm not going to be able to do too much with the curb appeal within the timeframe that we own the house. Thankfully, a chat with the building commissioner and changing some room names on my plans, I was able to finally get sign-off for the bowling alley and the rest of the interior renovations.
Now that we have a permit, I'm lucky to have a contractor who wastes no time. 4 guys with the right tools can make quick work of demo.
Once upon a time there was a wall between the kitchen and living room, drywall and/or paneling on all these walls, and a warped ceiling.
Now we have a completely blank slate!
When my contractor pulled down the old kitchen ceiling, we realized that the "beam" that was put across the kitchen in the 60s was completely bowed and not actually supported by anything. Not the right way to remove a wall. The camera is not playing tricks on you- the ceiling was that bowed...
Problem solved by adding a new beam and proper supports, but it's things like this that keep chipping away at my budget. This will probably be my most expensive per square foot renovation and most of it is going to fancy things like plumbing, structure, and electrical. The silver lining that came with needing the new beam is that now the entire kitchen ceiling will be flush. There will only be a small transition into the living space which is unavoidable without completely restructuring the living room ceiling which is decidedly NOT in the budget.
In addition to the kitchen's disappearing act, the bathroom is all gone as well and the new vanity got delivered yesterday.
After seeing what's not in the house anymore, it's not hard to believe that we've already filled up one 30 yard dumpster and are ready for the next!
Ahhh, writing this post felt good. Hooray for progress and hooray for finally having something exciting to share with you! Fingers crossed that we continue with the momentum since both landscaping and reframing inside the house should be starting next week.
Have a stellar weekend!!
