Happy New Year!!

New Year's eve, the start of 2008 is fast approaching!

Worked today, and actually am going to be at the house tomorrow. When you work at home, days off don't quite mean the same. I actually want to get some rehab stuff done.

Today, I hooked up the dishwasher, and it works! Also got the extra frame pieces done for the counters (where there used to be a blind cabinet). And more grout removal. Geez that is tedious.
Tomorrow I plan on mortaring the replacement tiles down, and finishing the grout removal. There is only about 1/4 of the kitchen left to do.

Basically starting to put things back together now, not sure when my granite will arrive - but I will just finish up everything else.

Rehab week in review

Got a lot done for a short week.
- Finished painting the wall color in both bedrooms
- painted the bathroom and repaired the toilet
- installed gfcis in the bathroom and kitchen
- finished painting the kitchen
- reinstalled the stove hood
- removed more grout

Here is a picture of the kitchen beam area that was repaired. The paint color is not that much different, but amazing how updated it looks (Brandied Pear by Olympic)



Here is the kitchen in it's current state. The dishwasher is fitted in, but not hooked up. Wanted to make sure cupboard doors and such could open before putting on the counter top plywood.


Plans for next week:
- continue with grout removal. This takes forever, even with the dremel
- repair broken tiles
- install plywood for counter tops
- add box to install bathroom light

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.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone!
Back to work tomorrow. Short week - will have to work hard LOL!

Rehab week in review

Got a lot of stuff done this week:

Removed counter tops
Finished painting the living room
Installed new light fixtures
Painted the master bedroom
Got the plumbing fixed
Painted the stairwell
Repaired the ceiling beam area
Painted the range hood white
Started grout removal

I should be done with the painting next week. That is really the thing that takes the longest!

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.

Closing!

Here is why you need nerves of steel to do RE investing.
This is a recap of what happened prior to close in the last week:

- Last Friday, notified that the bank need copies of cancelled checks for the previous flip property mortgage. All months. Was told this was the last thing they needed. Did that.

- Monday morning - was told the checks were fine, now the bank wants to verify the utilities are in working order. They were shut off and winterized. Bank says utilities must be turned on, and this was the last thing needed. I called to have the electric and gas turned on for Tuesday. The city refused to turn on the water prior to closing. We could not get around that - had several people call, no dice. So - we asked them for a letter stating why they wouldn't turn on the water to send to the bank.

- Tuesday - was told electric and gas would be on by 6pm. Great! Appraiser scheduled to come back on Wednesday at 9am to verify utilities are on. John and I go after 6 pm to light the furnace and turn on the main breaker. No power or gas. I call National Grid - was told the power was shut off at the street (which I told them yesterday) so it had to be turned on manually. They tell me someone will come out at some point during the night to do this.

- Yesterday - still no power and gas at the house as of 8am. Called and was told there was a mistake, the person who came out thought they had to verify the power was *off*, so did nothing. Idiots. Frantic to get everything on, since the appraiser was due out in an hour. Realize that this is unlikely - so call the appraiser and ask him to come a little later, but needed to have him there by noon so we could close the next day.
National grid comes out - power on, but furnace won't stay lit. (Don't care about that, just a service call there). However - appraiser doesn't know what to make of this. He took pictures of the gas stove lit to show that the gas was on.
All submitted to bank, we look good to go. Closing scheduled for 4pm the next day.

- Late yesterday afternoon, call from mortgage broker. Bank won't accept that the water is off, and wants the system pressure tested by a plumber. Told this is the last thing holding up the deal. Well - *we* know the system will fail the test, since we know there are broken pipes upstairs, the bank does not know this. I am now curled up in a fetal position on the floor.

- About 8pm last night, told we might be able to sign a waiver that we don't hold the bank responsible for any problems with the plumbing.

- This morning - said addendum is faxed and we got all needed documents and went to the closing table at 4:30pm. Since funds won't be available tonight due to the late closing time, all funds are going to be wired in the morning. All docs are signed and I will get the keys tomorrow.

What a nightmare!

So close!

Almost there. The bank accepted the cancelled cheks - but now they want the utilities on before closing, with a reappraisal indicating that they are on. It's crazy!

The city refuses to turn on the water before closing, which I understand. Not to mention the fact the I don't want the water on with the broken pipe upstairs.
The furnace needs servicing - so while the gas is turned on, the furnace can't be turned on. Luckily there is a gas stove, so the appraiser could take a picture of the burners lit to prove the gas is on. And the electric is on.
It's now up to the bank, yet again. Who knows if they will accept the utilities as they are. We have the closing set tentatively for 4pm tomorrow.

These are the kind of things that gurus never tell you about.

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.