Flip House1 ...Part 9

Chapter 9....Getting Ready To Move Out Hello everyone. We are almost done. I think I have one or two more stories after today and then the final "before and after" chapter. So let's go back in my story to: 12-5 It's been a rainy night and day so far today. Mike and I are going to start working on the bathroom tile job. Mike starts out the day by putting the new tile saw together. Holy cow, it took him forever. I can't even imagine how long it would take the non mechanically inclined people like me, to get it together. I really wish companies would try to follow their own instructions "before" they market and package their product. Finally it is together and we can get to work. First Mike puts the thin set on the wall. I hand him the tiles and he outs them up on the wall using the spacers to keep the tiles even. Mike using the new tile saw. We got up 6 tiles and we are done. Sorry but there are just some days when you can't keep going. It's been a rough week so far. 12-6 OK, today is a new day and we need to do a lot more than we did yesterday, lol. Back to the bathroom. We put more thin set on the wall. We got the back wall of the bathtub done and next we try to work on the wall with the tub spout. Unfortunately Mike tries to use the plunge cut on the tile saw and he ends up breaking 3 tiles. Ok, we have to skip that side until we can buy a hole saw for the tile. So we move to the back side of the tub. Here is Mike using a level to make sure it all looks good. The one side and the back are done, except for the grout. After we got that done we started working on the floor. We have some spots that need to be filled in to make the floor level. This is where we took out the old vanity. Mike mixes up the leveling compound and smooths it in. While he has the concrete patch out he also fills in where we took out the half wall and banisters in the Living room. I block that section off with buckets and boxes to make sure it doesn't end up with paw prints. Then we work on installing the new porcelain tile we bought for a small foyer area. We start out bu laying it out to make sure we like the pattern. We are using 6 large tiles for this area in front of the door. Here I am spreading the thin set on the back of the tile. If we ever do a large floor with this size we will put the thin set right on the floor. It will be easier. The tile is down. It looks good. Now we have to wait for everything to dry before we can grout. 12-7 we got a call this morning from the carpet installers. They will install our carpet in 3 weeks which means we have to be done with the inside of the house and moved out. It's time to hustle. The leveling compound in the bathroom is dry so Mike and I start tiling the floor. He does the measuring while I butter up the backs of the tile and hand them to him. He mushes them down onto the floor. The floor tile is down in the bathroom. We get all of the tools and the tile saw cleaned up and move onto other things. I taped off some of the doorways to get them ready for trim paint. Mike went around the house and did some more patching. He patched the intercom on the back patio and in the master bedroom. He also ripped out the old ugly black floor trim in the patio.(I know someone here will like that) 12-8 Today mark and Rick show up to pressure wash the house before it gets painted. They will also do any patching on the outside that needs to be done. Mike and I paint the back room. Then we get the back patio stripped out and ready for paint. Mike takes out the old ceiling fan and starts to install the new light in the patio. The back room ceiling and walls get painted. I will have to take down the blinds another day and paint around the windows. After that Mike and I go over to the other house and he installs a new water heater. While he does that I tear out the carpet and pull up the tack strip in the master bedroom. We have to get the master bedroom and bath in livable condition so we can move into this house. Time is clicking away. 12-9 We called to have the water turned on at the other house. We will have to go over and check on the water heater later. We got a call from Home depot and our master bath vanity is in. We get to the store, check it out, and bring it home. It looks great. Mike and I did have a small concern about the small bath vanity. It looked too high to us but it turns out that the newer vanities are being made taller. Both of our bathroom vanities are 34" tall. This seems to be the new norm. We get back home and check on the bathroom floor. It has been rainy and damp so the thin set isn't dry yet. We still have to wait to grout. Next we go outside and work on a small leak in our sprinkler. Mike fixing the leak. And the new sprinkler head is on. Back to the bathroom. Mike starts to work on the toilet. We bring the vanity into the bathroom and Mike cuts a hole in the back for the plumbing. 12-11 Today Mike installs the new dual flush toilet. And does the plumbing under the sink. And last he puts caulk on the top of the vanity so we can install the top. Later on we headed out to find mirrors for the bathroom and do some more shopping. 12-11 Today we finished the bath tile. We were 1 1/2 tiles short to finish the wall. Now that we bought a hole saw, Mike was able to finish the tile around the tub spout. Finishing the tile on the wall. Mike installed our fancy new tilting mirror. He also redid a tile by the toilet that he didn't like. After that we did some odds and ends. We installed door knobs and hung some curtains. I also painted the shelves for the bathroom closet. 12-12 Mike is almost done installing the wood floor in the kitchen/dining room. Woo hoo. While mike worked on that I painted more doors. And I sanded and painted the grills. Then we went out back and started to work on the back garden. First we laid out the plants the way we liked. Then we dug the holes and planted the plants. Here is Mike digging a hole. And the small back garden is done. That night we got to finally enjoy living on the waterfront. We watched the annual boat parade with our neighbor's right from our back yard. 12-13 We started the day off by mixing the grout for the bathroom. Mike put the grout on the walls and I wiped it off the tile. So typical. I am always cleaning up after him, lol. After we did the walls we grouted the floor. Grouting the walls. The walls are cleaned and finished. And the floor is done. We went back out that night to buy a bathroom light. We kept putting it off because they are so expensive. Well we had to break down and spend the money. In the next chapter we will get that installed. I hope you all enjoyed our story. We are almost done with this house. Next week will be painting the outside and doing the front gardens. Lisa