Grover: Week 12

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 always underestimate the time it takes to properly patch holes and caulk wood working projects so they look pretty and not home-made.  I can finally, however, proudly announce that all my major tasks in the bathroom are DONE!  I still have to finish painting the new bathroom closet door and install that, and the plumbing needs to get finished up (which I am smart enough not to touch myself).

Look!  There's even a light fixture and a mirror!  I hear those are things that are usually in a bathroom.  You'd think there should be a sink in there too or something....

But that's not the only room that's been changing this week.  Let me give you a hint

Sayonara stinky kitchen linoleum!

Here's a flash-back to the floors that were there at the beginning of the week.  Continuing the hard wood into the kitchen was the right plan.

In the basement, the electrician's been busy too.  I keep forgetting to show you, but there's a shiny new electrical panel in the garage.

I'm not looking forward to getting started in the basement.  Not only will sanding and painting this lovely paneling be a beast, now I have several holes to patch.

Dear homeowners: please NEVER install your own wiring from a hidden junction box that you cover illegally with ugly paneling.  Your home will thank you.  And so will it's future owners.

On top of all that, I probably spent half of my week on craigslist.  In addition to staging furniture for Frankie, I'm heading out to pick up a Restoration Hardware chandelier for Grover's dining room for the paltry sum of $50!

Happy almost weekend!

Frankie Update

Frankie, oh Frankie.  Why must you break my heart so?  Frankie the Fliphouse (our second flip) still hasn't sold.  Great house on a good street on the wrong side of town.  Live and learn.  Without dropping the price yet again, we need to take action to get this guy gone! In the words of Sir Tim Gunn:

That saying's kinda a thing with Hubby and me.  I still need to frame this print that I purchased from ScoutMob and hang it properly, but I love the positive reminder.  I dare you to not hear Tim's voice when you read it!

Craigslist will be sick of me by the end of the next week or so- We've decided this house needs to be staged to help market it better.  I'm hunting, scavenging, and haggling for the best deals possible for furniture to stage an entire house.  That means mattresses, beds, dressers, etc.  I'm hoping to furnish the entire house quickly on a shoestring budget and make it look like it wasn't done on the cheap.  So far I've only set a time to pick up this guy on Saturday.

I know it's blue, but the style is pretty simple, it's clean and neat, and above all else, the price is right.  $50 for a sofa in good condition?  I'll take it!  Since I'm going blue on the sofa, I'm looking for a more neutral colored chair with interesting lines to accompany it.  Here are the current front-runners:

Now the race is on to see who responds to my e-mails.

I'm sure I'll come up with a quick DIY or 2 to help stage once I get some of the larger pieces procured.  Until then, I'll be that girl on my iphone every 5 minutes looking to see if anything new has been posted.

Let the staging begin!

Grover: Week 11

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 pretty much spent my entire week in the smallest room in the house- the bathroom.  Luckily I don't have claustrophobia and the progress is finally making a difference!

Last week, when I showed you the bathroom, the ceiling had been patched and primed, but the rest of the room was still in shambles:

This week?  The ceiling is painted, the upper walls are painted, the floor is grouted and the new wall board and batten paneling is at about 50%

Simply covering up the damaged walls makes such a difference here!  Today I'll be installing the rest of the paneling, then, time permitting, painting the entire shebang a nice, semi-gloss white.

At last my blue tile looks finished with a light warm gray grout- it just needs one last scrub.

I know there are still those who don't get my blue tile, but allow me to elaborate.  Although it's new, it honestly looks like it could be original to the house.  That was the goal here.  There's nothing original in this house aside from the dining room built in which is getting a small update.  I felt that the bathroom needed this "original" element to give it a sense of history.  Yup, crazy house-whisperer here.

10 points for you if you noticed what else is different in the bathroom (although it doesn't count if you already know from facebook or instagram)

New windows!!

Although the old windows were vinyl replacements, every. single. last. window was fogged up- which means that the seals were all broken.  Most of the windows now look almost exactly the same as the old ones, just clearer and less foggy.  One window looks a bit different, though.

Where there once lived broken casement windows....

now lives a big, bright, unobscured picture window.  You'd be shocked how much more light it lets in the room!

Next step in here is to get rid of the light-sucking maroon wall color.  All in due time.

Although new windows do make me happy, I'm still excited over the bathroom progress!  Now that I can see the paneling, my brain is already thinking about how to style the finished room.  Always one step ahead apparently!  Despite my brain getting ahead of me, I'm documenting the whole board and batten process and will be sharing it in a future post.

I hope you have some fun projects planned for the weekend!  Fingers crossed that we may get at least one nice day out of it.