Great Green

Guys, Frankie the Fliphouse is starting to look downright sexy as he gets cleaned up.  It's kind of exciting!  I can't WAIT to show you the final reveal.... next week (sorry). One thing that really makes the kitchen, though, is the dresser-turned-island.  It may have elicited a happy dance from me.  I hope whoever buys the house falls in love with this piece too, otherwise, I'm taking it with me!

I found this dresser at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $62.50 (50%off!) and immediately knew this was the piece I had been looking for.  It was the right height and scale, AND as a bonus, it was already on wheels!

I found these date stamps on the bottom of one of the drawers.

Luckily the dresser was in stellar shape for being 98 years old!  There were only 3 prep steps that I needed to do before painting.  First, I used a heat gun and scraper to rid the back of the cracked veneer.

After the old veneer was gone, (prep step 2) I patched the blemishes and sanded.  The last prep step was removing the top.  Luckily it wasn't glued down, so I was able to remove a few screws I could reach and brute force the top off in no time.  Strong like bull.

The fun part was painting, putting on new hardware and attaching the butcher block top.

Drum roll please!!!  No? ok, well, here's what she's looking like today:

Hubba hubba, amIright?

I actually ended up using the darker/brighter color that I polled you guys about.  Once I changed the offensively colored CFLs in the house for more true-color bulbs it was the exact color I was hoping for.

I added a towel bar for added functionality.  Plus it gives me the ability to style it with a cute little hand towel (which, since I'm styling a house for sale, not to use..... this cute little towel, may actually be a pillow case.  sshhhhh, don't tell).

I'll break it down for you:

• Dresser: $62.50
• Butcher block from IKEA: $129
• 2 paint "samples" matched to Benjamin Moore Medici Malachite: $6
• Paint finishing wax (optional): $10
• Knobs: $0!  (I raided my own knob collection)
• Towel bar: $5
• TOTAL: $212.50 (not including tax)

If I had used cabinets for an island, the price would have EASILY been double, most likely triple.  For a piece that takes the kitchen from nice to WOW, it's totally worth it!

79 Days Left

It has reached that point in winter when my natural inclination is to curl up in a ball on the couch, bury myself under several blanket, and hibernate until I see green outside.  If only that were socially acceptable.  Since it's unfortunately not a viable option, I need to find ways to keep myself moving.  One way that usually works for me is setting goals and deadlines. One HUGE deadline I have coming up is my 30 before 30 deadline.

T minus 79 days until I turn 30 and I've made woefully little progress on my 30 before 30 list!  Hop to it, Karen!!  Lets review:

Well that speaks pretty loud- I need to start checking items off my list!!!

In my defense, a few more than 4 are in the works, but I only included the ones that are actively planned (such as a ski trip in March).

I've already checked off a few major items including several travel goals:

And, although I haven't exactly accomplished instagraming every single day, I've been making an effort to regularly chronicle my life (for better or worse), which is actually quite fun.  Come follow me there!  Year of Serendipity via instagram

I'm still looking for the perfect artist for my next tattoo, since the artist I REALLY want is unavailable.  I'm looking for someone in the Boston or NY area with a background in art who can make a floral tattoo look like a painting- I'm taking suggestions if you know of any!!

Several of the items on my list I'll be able to make swift action of once the weather is a bit nicer and I can spend more time outdoors:

"explore my hometown?"  I plan to hop on my bike (vintage, check!) one sunny day once the snow is all melted and explore places I've driven by and not stopped, or heard about and never been.

"buy a treasure at the Brooklyn Flea" and "picnic in Central Park?"  Not nearly as fun covered in snow, but my dearest sister-in-law should plan for some visitors in April!

Also once the weather turns nicer and the days are longer, I'll be dragging my basement furniture hoard mentioned in #16 out to our yard where the items with either face my Critter spray gun or be donated.  Sadly, the Critter is more of an outside toy, so I will wait impatiently.

I'll admit, one of the most intimidating items on my list is "establish a relationship with a mentor."  Specifically a residential design mentor.  With my background at a commercial design firm, I'm less confident when it comes to the business of residential.  I've sent several e-mails to people I admire and received either no response, or they wished me luck.  I guess this is the law of numbers though- the more I reach out to, the better my odds.

Ok, well, now that I've acknowledged my lack of progress, I'm calling myself to action!  I've got a lot to do before April 30th!

I'd love to hear from you guys!  Tips on how to get it all done?  Tattoo artist suggestions?  Mentor experiences? or just your 2 cents about my crazy list- lay it on me!

Frankie: Week 14

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. The last major item on the To Do list got checked off yesterday with about a dozen exclamation points- new windows!!

Despite the annoyance of scheduling the windows, the install guys were complete rock stars.  I'm resisting the temptation to show you a (very boring) series of window pics throughout the house.  Spoiler alert: they pretty much all look like this:

Seriously, though these are some sexy windows.  At least compared to their predecessors, remember?  They were even uglier up close.

In the back 2 bedrooms, I did keep the existing vinyl windows on the right, so the new windows don't match them (sad trombone).  There was a method to my madness, though: I wanted the sides of the house to have all the same windows and I wasn't prepared to spend an extra $1000 to replace the already replaced, but matching windows on the back.  Never fear!  I have a solution!  Installing neutral white miniblinds will help to unify the windows in the bedrooms(which are also different sizes) and add privacy.

With all the major items off the list, I've been working through my list of what feels like a million little things.

After trimming down several doors to allow for the new floor heights (which the contractor had already supposedly trimmed...), I was finally able to get ALL the doors rehung and start putting the newly painted hardware back on.

All the wonky electrical has now been fixed and updated throughout the house (by a pro!), I was finally able to glue & screw down the butcherblock island top,

and while the window install was happening upstairs, I finally got started on the basement.  Basement beginnings included removing about 3 kajillion nails from the ceiling, organizing everything left over from the upstairs work to keep/donate/trash piles, and prepping every single surface on the planet in the basement for paint.

The walls got prepped by scraping flaking paint and using a wire brush to remove all the efflorescence.  I'll follow this with paint designed to seal basement concrete walls.  I used this same process in the last flip and it seemed to do the job, so here's hoping it'll work again!

With the basement cleanup finally started and all the major items with a check next to them on my list, I feel a huge weight lifted off me.  Fingers crossed, but I'm hoping this last leg of the flip will go swimmingly!