Helping our son finish his remodel

Our son called in February and asked if I could come out and 

help them finish their house so it would be ready to put 

on the market.  

It was on the 15th that I arrived and I spent two and a half

weeks there helping paint, spackle, caulk, pack boxes, 

and whatever else needed to be done.  Plus the bonus was, I got to see the

kids and the grand kids.  I arrived on Braxton's birthday, and

left the day before Weston's birthday, so we had some

 really fund times together.  

And did I mention caulk?  Oh, we went through a lot of tubes

of caulk!  I learned from the painters we hired 3 years ago that

one of the keys to a great paint job is caulking first, and getting every

crack between the floor boards, and casings, and anything

else filled before you paint.  

So we caulked! and caulked and caulked!

I am just sharing a few rooms of the house in this post.

It really turned out great, and the house was under contract in

10 days!  So it was worth all the work.

                                                                                                                                                                      Here is the living room/Kitchen.

Several years ago we helped Jer remodel the kitchen,

all the cupboards are original to the house, however, they

are not all in the original space, where the island now is - was a 

wall with cupboards on it.  So they got moved to the other side making

the kitchen bigger and on the bottom of the island,

and giving the house an open concept living room/ kitchen.

                            

Here is another view of the kitchen

This view shows some of the living area too.

The false fireplace is a fun feature that Jer added to the room.

This is a unusable wall, basically a walk way.

The mantel was given to me as a gift from the contractor we

hired, and came out of a very, old house that was falling apart.

I loved it, and used it in every house we sold 

when I was staging.  Jer has put it here permanently.

This is the bathroom that needed an entire new floor, which 

Jer did before I came, he put a new countertop and sink in the 

bathroom before I came too.  I only had to paint and 

lots of caulking, he also put in a crown molding which you

cannot see, but made the room!

This bedroom was only sheet rocked when I arrived, 

so there was a lot of work to this room.

The walls were quite wavy too, so many days of 

spackling and drying before any painting could be done.

This is my bedroom when we come to stay. This time I came

by myself, but usually it is both Dana and I when we come to visit.

Isn't this laundry room a dream!

Long story as to how it came to look like this, but it is 

one of the greatest features of the house.   Jer made the counter

tops for the room from scratch!  So love this room.

It is pure joy when you have to fold clothes.  

Well, as "pure joy" as folding clothes can be!

Master bathroom.

All the bathrooms and bedrooms were painted in 

Agreeable Grey from Sherwin Williams.

There are 4 different grey paints in the house.

The Family room.

 My adventure to the kids for a few weeks was a job for sure.

But it was worth it, we knew the house would not last long on the

market.  One great feature of the house, is the guest bedroom is on 

the opposite side of the house as the master and kitchen,

So when we come we have privacy, which is nice sometimes with

4 grand children running around!

So happy for the kids that the house sold so fast.

It was a fun few weeks, and I must say, I am getting older,

cause there were days I was in pure exhaustion.

What do you think?

Robin

Flipping Kevin House

I am back in the saddle again,
sharing with you our Kevin flip.

We name our flips after the street they are located on.
It has been an interesting and very busy year, but
now that we are 5 houses under the belt,
and summering back home instead of working on
flips in the hot humid Georgia weather,
I have some time to share with you our experiences
of flipping houses, and working flipping
houses in our retirement.

I will continue again to bring decorating ideas along
the way with these fun flip stories.

The Kevin flip was I think one of the biggest

challenges we have had.

It took 3 months to flip, from start to finish, and it had so 

 much work to do in it and in the end our profit
really wasn't worth all that effort,
Except for a learning experience. 

Here are some pictures, but the story is one to read 

about, so you can learn from our lessons.

For some reason I cannot find the before pictures of this house.
We literally had to gut this kitchen.  It had never been updated from
the time it was originally built. The house was
built in the 70's,  So all the cupboards,
which were not that many, were horrible.
The house filthy, as several dogs were here, and some
very stinky rooms, also an old man lived by himself
after his wife died, and not much cleaning went on.


Front Door



Living Room/Great Room

We also opened the doorway to make it an open concept house.
There originally was only a regular door opening from the kitchen
to the living room, and a very small dining area, not really even
large enough to but a table with 4 chairs.
 The french doors out to the back yard, well sort of french doors,
really just a converted sliding glass door, broken and patched we replaced with
these beautiful french doors to go out on the deck.
We added granite counter tops, and glass back splash.



Living Room/Great Room


Kitchen

The stove is in the same place in the kitchen,
 but to the left of the stove was the HVAC, which
took a large corner out of the kitchen area,
so we moved it to the hall closet so the kitchen could have
more cabinet space.
I chose cupboards to the ceiling so that there could be
as much storage space as you could possibly get in this small kitchen.
I also chose white cabinets so the space would feel larger.


Kitchen

I really love how this kitchen turned out.
New granite looks awesome, and all the greys
feel so calm and cool here.


Kitchen

We lived in this house for 3 months while we were working
on another flip, and it was such a comfy house to live in.


Kitchen

I love the look of the floors, and how they flow from
the living space to the kitchen space,
This really makes the house look bigger by doing this.
Of course new appliances, as the old weren't even in the house.
And all new lighting fixtures throughout the house.
I went with an industrial look in black.



Dining Area

The living area, was small, and the garage had been converted into a room,
but both rooms were odd.  Dana and Jeremiah built up the floor from
the original garage area to match the living room, and then
took out the wall between them, making this beautiful large
living space. and next to the kitchen we added a wonderful laundry room space,
that was the original back of the garage, and which simply did not exist in the house.

The original garage conversion outside wall was not secure,
so we also replaced that opening, put in a new vinyl window, and then
added crown molding through out the living/kitchen spaces.


Living/Great Room


Hall


Master Bedroom


Master Bath shower area




Master Bath


Master Bath shower

We updated the bathrooms, new vanities and sinks,
and right here where the shower is, used to be a closet.  Just the
right size to make into a shower, and make the bathroom a
full bath instead of a half bath.


Hall bath

Here we replaced the shower/tub and the vanity.
Updated the mirror, and lighting.

We painted the inside of  this house in Sherwin Williams Azure Grey.


Back porch


Back Porch

This back porch was original to the house,
but it had blue criss cross open slats around it, We pulled
all of that off, trimmed the bushes, and painted the porch.
The color of the porch came from a bucket of paint that came with
the house.

Laundry Room

This room is a wonderful size, with enough space to put a folding

table and storage shelves.   We installed 2 cupboards above the

washer and dryer area to match the kitchen.

Front of House

The outside of the house was painted to match the vinyl siding that
was installed to replace the original garage enclosure.




Our finished Kevin flip

Now the real story!!!

Jer purchased this house at $24,000.
When we arrived and started working on the house,
so much work needed to be done.

These are the things we discovered.
HVAC needed to be replaced and moved, new vents to the area
where the garage existed and the new laundry room.
We were new to the area, so we found a person on line to replace the
HVAC.  He did a terrible job, and we had him come back 3 times
to work on the system.  He never put the filter in correctly,
and we had to hire a different person to pull out the HVAC
and put it in the closet correctly with a accessible filter.
The problem existed that the HVAC became filled with dirt,
because of no filter, then the HVAC started draining water all
over the newly laid laminate floors
 (this happened 3 months into the project just as we were ready to
 put the house on the market), getting them wet
and buckling them.  We had to replace all the laminate in the hall
area.  It was a pain!!!, and a lot of extra work and money.  Thus
instead of only paying $4500 for the system it cost us another
$700 and 2 days of work on replacing the flooring.

Also when we started working on the house, there didn't seem
to be any electricity working, lights but not outlets, except for one outlet
that was in the orignial garage area.
After going under the house and investigating, we discovered that
the all the wires had been stripped from under the house,
so all the electrical had to be replaced under the house, thus,
every electrical outlet and box had to come out and be replaced!!!
Ouch! and lots of extra work, about 2 weeks.
This is the kind of thing that doesn't show in a walk through of
the house, and since it was purchased on Auction.com
you purchase the home as is.

The master bath was just a 1/2 bath, so we
added a shower to the space.  We also replaced the bathtub and
vanity in the hall bathroom, making the master bath a full
bath instead of a half bath.

We started working with a real estate agent who was really
more experienced with rentals than with selling houses.
We had this house listed with him for 6 months and it never sold.
We probably had about 5 showing that entire time.
He only posted 5 pictures on the MLS,
so there wasn't much for a buyer to see and attract them to want
to visit the house.

After that 6 months we changed agents to a very sharp agent,
who sold this house in 5 weeks.

Yeah!!! Another house sold.
We did make money on this house,
only about $7,000.
For the amount of time and energy spent, it was
a great learning lesson.

Beware of the area you are buying in, and
make sure you have a great agent!

Here is the virtual tour from our new real estate agent.

http://view.paradym.com/3754078/prt/10003

It's a flip!

Robin

Second House Flipped

Hello!

Finally back with the living in Utah again!

We have been in Georgia again working on houses.

We went back the middle of July and just got home a week ago.

Yes, flipping houses, you guessed it.

Our second house turned out so amazing.

So here are some photos of the house.

For some reason I cannot find the before pictures of this house.
We literally had to gut this kitchen.  It had never been updated from
the time it was originally built.  So all the cupboards,
which were not that many, were horrible.

The stove is in the same place, but to the left of the stove was the HVAC
so we moved it to the hall closet so the kitchen could have
a larger area for cupboard.
I chose cupboards to the ceiling so that there could be
as much storage space as you could possibly get.


We also opened the doorway to make it an open concept house.
There originally was only a regular door opening,
and the french doors, well sort of french doors,
really just a converted sliding glass door, we replaced with
these beautiful french doors to go out on the deck.
We added granite counter tops, and glass back splash.



I love the look of the floors, and how they flow from
the living space to the kitchen space,
This really makes the house look bigger by doing this.
Of course new appliances, as the old weren't even in the house.
And all new lighting fixtures throughout the house.



The living area, was small, and the garage had been converted into a room,
but both rooms were odd.  Dana and Jeremiah brought up the floor from
the garage to match the living room, and then
took out the wall between them, making this beautiful large
living space. and next to the kitchen a wonderful laundry room space,
which simply did not exist in the house.



We updated the bathrooms, new vanities and sinks,
and right here where the shower is, used to be a closet.  Just the
right size to make into a shower.

Love how this all turned out!

Just waiting for a sale of this house now.

We painted this house in Sherwin Williams Azure Grey.

What do you think?

Robin

Flipping Houses

There are certainly different seasons in our lives when

 we decide to do something different.

Right now this is what I have been doing.

Since August last year we have been discussing 

new plans with our son Jeremiah, of working on buying and selling 

houses.  So I started looking for cheap houses in our area to

purchase and flip.  It is a very difficult market where we live,

we even had several homes we put offers in on,

But things just were not working out for us in our home state.

Jeremiah started looking for houses in other areas of the U.S., 

and alas, our partnership formulated and we started buying 

Houses together.

Jer found 3 houses, that we all put money in on
in the south and our adventure began.

It took a little time to get there, trying to get our schedules together,
and April began the trek to our newly purchased houses.
As we were planning this, Jer was sent to Germany for 6 months with
his job, and thus we were able to work together for a week,
and then Dana and I were on our own to finish the houses.

The first day we were introduced to a contractor, whom we now
really like, and we have been working as a team to finish the 3 houses
we purchased.
It took about a month to finish this house, we will name as
the Woodsman house, and get it on the market.

We have finished our first house, put it on the market, 

And 2 weeks later accepted an offer and we are up and ready 

to finish our first flip, and let the new owner take over.

It has been a challenge but at the same time very enjoyable.

I love to decorate, but I also love to work.

Some days we work so hard I get back to the house and crash

Not even thinking there could be anything else to do but stop!

But as a whole we are enjoying this new chapter in our lives.

Here are picture of our first house.

This house originally had green shudders and pink pillars!

We also added the arch over the front window.

The living area didn't have the arch window or the open doorways,

even though there were doorways there, they were much smaller,

the floors were vinyl, and the kitchen and living area

had 2 separate types of vinyl.

This room turned out awesome, love the floors, and we also had

a contractor come in and scrape the popcorn ceilings and paint for us.
Where the 2 hanging lights over the island now are, there was a
shop light, and none of the lights in the house had boxes in the
wall or ceiling to attach the fixtures to,
so Dana needed to install these for code.

This kitchen looks so awesome now!  It originally was completely wallpapered

in floral/fruit wall paper, as were both bathrooms, laundry room, and closets wallpapered too, but in

different wallpapers.  I spent 3 days just stripping wallpaper!

We used mindful grey from Sherwin Williams to paint the walls in the house,

We also had all new cupboard doors made for the kitchen and 

new drawer pulls and knobs for the entire kitchen.

New granite countertops, and a subway tile backsplash were added

to the kitchen as well.

The house flows really well with the laminate flooring that flows

from the front door through the living room to the kitchen and

all the way to the back door.

We also added the island to the kitchen with granite.

Both bathrooms got new vanity tops and fixtures.

I love how the house turned out.

I will see if I can find some original photos of the inside of the house.

Our first house is a great success!

Here are the before pictures of the house.

Enjoy!

Robin