2nd Open House

Had my second open house on Sunday. 5 couples came through - they all liked the house, no takers, though. Seems only one comment on the house being too small. Encouraging - people are starting to shop now.
More snow scheduled - 6-12 inches tonight. That's always good for showings.....

I have decided on no more 2 bedroom homes for flips. Unless the square footage is enough so that a 3rd can be added.

weather finally clearing up.

Well, the ice is melting. Looking to hold another open house this weekend. No snow in the forecast - so maybe things will look up. Nothing has gone under contract in my price range in the last 2 weeks. At least I feel better in some respects because it's not just my house! LOL!

I had my eye on another property, but that got snapped up already - thought that might happen.

Open house this weekend

Having my first open house this weekend. Not too much activity in the market right now. I don't know if the crappy weather has been keeping people away or what. Lots of rain and slushy stuff, then a few inches of snow today. Sigh.....

I think I have found my next house - so I really, really want this one to sell now!!

slow

Well, this time of year is slow. Not much activity on the house, but that is what I expected at first. I ordered sink clips, hopefully they will be in early this week.

Hoping to have an open house soon.
I need to talk to the county about my taxes. The assessment on my house is way higher than it should be for the area. Not sure what is up with that, but I need to get it straightened out.

I am on the lookout for the next house now. :)

House is on the market!

The house is on the market and ready to go. Of course, we are supposed to get 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow, and we will be leaving town. So no one to shovel the driveway for the next week. Sigh..... Who knows if there will be any showings in the next week anyway.

Here are a few more pictures:
Living room before:


Living room done. Didn't need too much except paint, switch plates, curtains and a new ceiling fan.


The staircase before - nice industrial grey carpet.

Stairs after. Runner matches the color of the door and the curtains. Really helps pull everything together.

Just about done

Finishing up detail stuff like paint touch up, moldings and cleanup. A few things will have to wait until we return from vacation, like sealing the countertops and finishing the sink install.

Kitchen before:



Kitchen today






Bathroom before:


Bathroom today:

Rehab week in review

Wrapping things up at house.
This week:
- Installed granite counter tops and grouted them
- reattached all baseboard moldings that weren't broken
- touch up paint upstairs
- cleaned up both bedrooms
- installed bathroom fan grille
- installed shower rod and curtain
- put up some curtains

I have the sink ready to install, however the sink came with these tiny little clips. I need longer/adjustable clips due to the depth of the underlayment. Grrrrr...
My last flip I used an Elkay sink, and it had long adjustable clips. I didn't realize that the sink I bought for this flip would be different. Hopefully I can get those locally and won't have to order them, but will have the sink at least in place to put the house on the market next week. Always seems like there is something that puts the brakes on when you are cruising!

Curtains and counters

Here is a pic of the curtains. They need ironing, but I like the color. I don't even know where my iron is, so who knows when that will get done.


This is the kitchen preview. The backsplash still need to be grouted, and the sink is just dry fit into place - but looking quite nice!

Tile system

Okay, I checked the name of the tile system I used. Schluter - http://www.schluter.com/4677.aspx
They have some pretty cool stuff for tiling.

I got the granite part of the backsplash up today, will do the last of the mosaic tomorrow. It looks nice!

I also put up some test curtains, and really like how those look. They match the door color almost exactly. I do need to iron them, though :)

Tomorrow I should finish up the rest of the tiling and then do little leftover projects like paint touch ups and moulding replacement.

Granite tiles

Spent the last couple days cutting and laying the granite tiles. I had to rent a tile machine that could handle granite - and boy, they gave me a huge one! It took 2 people to move the cutter, but it worked great! Cutting was a breeze.
This is the new tiling system I tried. Of course, I can't remember the name of it - will have to find that and post.
It consists of metal tracks for the edging, and you cut strips of tile to fill it in. There are inside and outside corner pieces - so no mitering has to be done. It was quite easy to use, and really looks different.
I also used ditaset between the underlayment and the tile. This is a cushioned material that is designed to keep the tiles and grout from cracking if the substrate expands and contracts.
This is top of the system. It comes in different metal colors, I chose brushed chrome - since it matches stainless steel. You can see the ditaset, it's the orange stuff (this is dry fit for these pictures). The ridge slips underneath the tile and is mortared down. The tile then butts right up against the edge.


This is the front view, with the channel empty.

This is how the granite strip looks. You just use silicone to hold it into place, and grout around the edges.

Since the tiles come right up to the edge of the counter, there is a 1 inch gap in the back. I chose a mosaic to fill it in. There will be a backsplash as well, not shown here.

Rehab week in review

This week the work done was as follows:

- finished grout removal
- regrouted kitchen tiles
- installed bathroom light fixture
- got all pieces cut for counter top underlayment (attached all but one piece)
- got dishwasher installed and test ran
- installed new hand towel ring and tp roll dispenser
- replaced the upstairs baseboard molding

I picked up my granite yesterday (I love it!!), and got the metal edging pieces laid out so I could measure how much to build up the rest of the counter top. I then went to Lowe's and got more underlayment to put on tomorrow. I am going to rent a tile saw. We have one, but it is a small one, and I don't think it can handle the granite. I am going to measure for all my cuts, then get the saw and cut everything at once.

Grout removal done

Goodness - glad that is done. Even with the dremel tool, grout removal is tedious boring work. After finishing that - I got the rest of the loose and broken tiles up and then replaced them. Spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning the rest of tiles in preparation for grouting.

They actually look good all cleaned up! Tomorrow I will work on the actual grouting.
My granite tiles will arrive on Tuesday, so I have a few days to get most of everything else finished before then.

Water Heater and painting

Had the water heater checked out today. There wasn't really anything wrong with it. He just cleaned it and got it to light and stay lit. Only cost $80 - so I am not bothered by that.
Interesting note, the water heater person had been at this same house a couple years ago. Apparently the previous owner had a shady contractor in doing crappy work. She hired this company to come out and give her a list of what needed to be done to get the work up to code. Basically, he said all the plumbing had to be redone. Poor woman. She lost her house a year later, after putting in all that money.

Today I got the rest of the kitchen painted except for touch ups. I also reinstalled the stove hood (which I painted white), and painted the rest of the bedrooms upstairs. Then I started the edging around the bathroom. Tomorrow I plan to finish painting the bathroom, then remove the doors to the bedrooms upstairs so that they can get painted. Fingers crossed that I will finish all painting this week.
Then it's pretty much just counter tops.

Plumbing

There was good news and bad news with the plumbing. The handyman opened up what we thought was the pass through for the pipes and found this:

Not a pass through - but a solid beam (covered with plywood). So, we weren't quite sure how to proceed at this point. The question was whether to open up the ceiling and find the pipes or go through the wall in one of the bedrooms. Since we didn't know the status of the pipes, other than that there was a big leak - we decided to go behind the tub.

After opening up this wall - the problem was evident. The cold water pipe had separated just above the shut off. It wasn't broken - it had just popped out. Got that soldered back into place and no more leaking!! So - we didn't have to repipe anything. Saved me money and time that way.

The bad news is that the water heater doesn't work. Tried that today. It's only 3 years old, but won't light up. So - have to have someone come look at that. At least I know a fixed price ceiling on this, in case it would have to be replaced in a worst case scenario.

Now I can start putting the kitchen back together. It looks bad now LOL

Painting

Progressing quickly with the painting. Got the first color coat on both bedrooms. Chose a buttery yellow color, it's quite nice. I started trim painting upstairs as well.
I can't wait to get the pipes fixed in the house. Then I can do more work on the kitchen.
I was able to scoot some of the cabinets over on one side to make more pass through room to the basement door. I took out more cabinet width than dishwasher width, so I could do that. I will also move one of those removed cabinets to the area near the fridge. I bought a little extra granite in case I was able to do this.

I have to say that grout sawing is very tedious. Since I am keeping the tile, I need new grout. Much of this grout is filthy and the color just makes the tiles look a little weird. I have a grout saw, and it works well, but just takes time. I think I will work on doing a little each day, rather than doing it all at once.

I did turn the water on to the house, just to check the downstairs pipes. I slowly opened the main shut off valve, and then I heard water trickling behind me from somewhere. Silly me forgot to close the drain on the water heater! None of the pipes downstairs are busted - so that is very good news!

Oh, and more snow expected tonight....... sigh.......

Shovel, shovel

We got quite a bit of snow yesterday, on top of what we got Friday. So - not only do I have to shovel my own driveway, but the one at the flip house as well. Ugh!! Have had about enough of that! John was looking at electric snowblowers online today :)

Got all my lights on the first floor changed out, and they all work - so no new wiring needed there. I even got the ceiling fan replaced. That took quite awhile, and I was so sure that it wasn't going to come on when I put the power back on. There were *a lot* of wires! But, it did.
Think the neighbors probably heard me shout for joy.

The countertops are removed and I also removed the 2 cabinets which are going to be replaced by a dishwasher. There was a bit of mold behind the cabinets from the water damage, so I had to bleach that out. Luckily it's just surface mold. The kitchen looks officially torn apart now!

The granite tiles were ordered on Saturday, along with the edging system I am using. I can't wait to see how this is going to look! It will probably take at least 10 days, with the holidays in there, I am hoping it won't be too long.

Rehab week in review

Well, the first official week is done in the new flip house.
What was accomplished:
- Furnace fixed
- water turned on (although not running through the house yet)
- evaluated and made a list of what needs to be done
- driveway shoveled (twice!!), with a big storm expected again this weekend.....
- Worked on basement cleanout
- Picked out granite tile for the counter tops
- Removed wallpaper downstairs
- patched all the walls
- started painting

Painting is going pretty quickly. There is very little trim to paint, since all the trim downstairs is a nice wood. There is a section of the kitchen I am not painting until the work on the pipes happens next week.

I found the most beautiful granite tile. It's called St Cecelia and it has beautiful wine colored accents in it. This will play off the door color really well. I am going to tile with a metal channel, and mosiac backsplash. It's going to look really sharp (I hope!). It will take 10 days or so for the tiles to arrive.


Goals for next week:
- shoveling for sure LOL
- Remove counter tops
- finish painting downstairs
- replace light fixtures
- fix closet doors
- start painting upstairs

Creepy

You never know what you are going to find when you clean out someone's stuff. This house doesn't have a ton of things to go. I won't even need a dumpster (yeah!!).
Found this adorable little thing in the basement. So creepy
Someone actually liked it enough to buy it!


Had the furnace people come out today. The furnace actually needed more repairs than thought - to the tune of $1400. Good thing I am saving money on the dumpster and the tile floors. That will help offset that in the budget. Just one of those things that you never know what it's going to cost. But the good thing is - we now have heat!

Demo and evaluation

Okay, first off - it's freaking cold in that house! Someone will be out to do the furnace tomorrow - but it's hard to work when it's 30 degrees *inside*.
Here is the kitchen.


The colors are pretty drab in here, and that wall paper doesn't help. Removed the chair rail and started pulling the wallpaper down.
I am thinking I will keep the tile floor. I wasn't sure at first, but the more I look at it, the better it looks. Just needs a good cleaning. There is one broken tile - but I found a box of extras in the basement (lucky there!)

The tile is neutral, which is good. With a better color on the walls, this will definitely look better.
Once the heat is on, then the water will be turned on, then the upstairs pipes can be repaired.

Almost there

Well - we got the *last* condition from the bank late Friday afternoon. On my last flip - the mortgage never appeared on my credit report, so this bank wants copies of cancelled checks to show that the mortgage was paid. So - had to get copies of 4 months worth of checks.
That was the last condition. If for some reason, they don't like the copies I can't do anything else to prove the payments. If they do accept the copies, then we will get the clear to close.
FINGERS CROSSED!!!!

This might be the last stated income loan I try to do. Unless something in the market changes over the next 6 months.