Flip House 1...Part 6

Chapter 6....November Part 1 Well the first month is done and it was a very full month of work. Mike and I took and met up with some camping friends for a few days. Now we are back and ready to go. Little by little we continue to shop for the house. It used to be much easier because I think the choices were better and also "everything" is so expensive. We did buy the sink and vanity for the second bathroom and we bought a new patio door for the back room. I also started calling contractors to get quotes for our pool, pool deck, and driveway for both houses. I called and left messages with 8 different contractors and only one called back. Guess who got the job He can't fit us in right away but he can sub the pool deck out and they can start at the end of the week. Sounds good. Meanwhile Mike and I get started in the kitchen. We prime and paint the kitchen ceiling first and then the walls. When it is dry we will be ready for the cabinets. Here is Mike hanging our new kitchen light. That Friday, Mark shows up to start the prep work for our pool deck. He goes around and does some patching before he can texture and stain over the river rock. Mike and I take the old rotted door off the back of the house and install a new door with a built in screen that slides into the door. Very cool. At least the screen won't block your view when the glass is closed. Now the kitchen is ready for cabinets. We bought the merlot cabinets at Lowe's with 25% off and then an additional 10% and I really don't think we could have done better. We paid $1850.00 for all of the kitchen cabinets. We thought it would be better spent if we did the "catch" words, granite and stainless, at least according to the local Realtor's. Not my choice but hey it isn't my kitchen. We start the installation with the upper corner cabinet and work our way out. After the top cabinets are in we start working on the bottom ones and we run into a small snag. Our floor by the sink is un level. So after some chiseling of concrete and some shimming of cabinets we finally get the bottom ones in place. I will have more pictures as we get farther along. My camera must have been sleeping that day. During the next week we started replacing doors around the house. It sounds like an easy job but when you have an older house nothing is easy, or straight, or level, lol. We replaced the doors and not the whole door frame so we had to take the old ones off, measure and cut the new ones, chisel out for the hinges, and check the fit. We spent a lot of time taking doors down and putting them back up. And to think we will most likely have to cut them again when the carpet is installed. We get the front door hung and I start to paint it. I ask Mike "what happened to the plastic coating that was on the glass?" He said he took it off Great now I have to tape it up so I can paint around the glass. I told him to not be in such a rush, lol. Here is the new front door with only a primer coat on. I will have to get a couple of more coats of paint on the door. Here is Mike chiseling the wood for the door hinges. The next day Mike hangs the new outside garage light and the new door. I'm sure the garbage men will love us when we give them all of the old rotted doors. We will cut them into thirds before we put them out by the curb. It's times like this when we really miss our burn pile. Mark shows up to start working on our pool deck. Rick tapes off the pool and the house. Mark will do the texture and spraying. It is a 4 step process. First the acrylic coating and will be rolled on, then the acrylic texture goes on, then the bonding agent, and then the stain color. Mark rolling on the first acrylic coating. The first coat is done and it already looks cleaner. Tomorrow they will do the texture and bonding agent. First the texture gets sprayed on. It's really more like the machine spits it on because it is so thick. Then Mark spreads it around and smooths it. The texture is done on the pool deck. While this is going on outside I am inside working on the windows. Some of them stick so with some WD-40 and Mike's help we get them opening and closing smoothly. Then I thoroughly clean them. Next I sand the window frames in the bedrooms and the bathroom and give them a coat of flat white paint. I tried it in the smaller rooms to see if they would look better. They do look better but it is a lot of tedious work. I don't think I will do the rest of the house because the windows are too big. Here I am painting the bathroom window frame. The next day mark shows up to do the final coat which is the color for the Cool Deck. While he is doing that, Mike and I go shopping for fencing. The pool deck is done. Mike and I start installing the fence on the first side. Poor Niki is going to miss visiting with our neighbor. They have become buddies. First we measure the posts and the panels to see how they will lay out, then we will drill in the base plates and anchor them into the concrete. Then we attach the post and cover and then the fence rail. Mike putting the post in. Next we start the panels. That's it for today. Mike talked to Mark about doing some extra work and since Mark needs the work he agrees. The next day Mark shows up with some friends, a jackhammer, and a wheelbarrow. They are going to break up some of the concrete jungle that we have on the side of the house. We will later put sod in. Mark and his crew starting to break up the concrete. While the are working outside Mike and I start painting the Living room. Mike does all of the rolling and I do all of the cut in and I haven't found a good brush here. Mike painting the living room ceiling. Be gone dingy old looking walls, lol. The guys outside got all of the concrete broken up into small pieces. They take all of the small concrete pieces and place them on our seawall. You can out them out there as long as they aren't painted and it helps strengthen the seawall. What a massive job. We are thankful we met Mark because Mike and I don't have young enough backs to do that anymore. After they finish Mike and I go out to start working a little on the front garden. Here is Mike cleaning up the front garden. The next day. Mark 2 shows up to drain the pool. While the pool is draining we go to look at some granite slabs. We find one that we think matches really well with our cabinets. The lady there says she can meet us at the house to take the measurements. Mike and I stop and buy a kitchen sink before she arrives. Once she is there she takes the measurement and schedules an appointment for the guys to come and do the template. She also came out to get some money. Back to the pool. After the pool is drained, Mark 2 re grouts the tile. We are now really moving along. Soon the pool will be done, the fencing will be done, and the granite will be installed. Woo hoo. Lisa

Flip House 1...Part 2

Look Out Florida...here we come:):)

In order for Mike and I to go to Florida to work on the houses we have to shut down our house for the winter in TN. On September 29 we prepped our TN house and loaded up the mini motorhome(van). We left for FL in the wee morning hours on September 30. Woo hoo. We are so excited to get back to some sunshine. It was a rough year in TN this year. Mike promised that when we first got to Florida we would take a break and relax for a week or so before we start work on the house. Promises, promises. We arrived at the house at 6pm on September 30. The last time we saw the house was when we made an offer on it last April so it was very exciting to actually see, touch, and feel what we bought. the only difference is that the furniture was taken out by the previous owner's son. First things first. I have to clean up our new living quarters. We plan on living in the master bedroom and using the master bath as our bath and our kitchen. It will be a little awkward but at least we are on site to get this house done. I wash down the walls and scrub the floors while Mike unloads the van. Niki, our pug, is confused but I'm sure she will get into the swing of things real soon. She's been with us a long time now and she knows we are a little bit crazy, lol. She is also ecstatic because we are setting up here bed in the bedroom with us. She had "never" slept in our room before. We get the air mattresses set up and Mike turns to me and says "we need to call in a dumpster" I knew it. So much for a vacation. We are going to start work right away and we are actually both happy about it. We just can't resist work especially when the sun is shining. Mike and are nice weather workers. 10-1 Our first full day in Florida. Woo hoo. First we have to go shopping. Mike drops me off at Walmart to pick up kitchen supplies and food while he goes to Home Depot for tools. We didn't know how much stuff we could fit in the van on the way down so needless to say we need a lot of stuff. Let the spending begin. Mike bought the biggest Dewalt battery operated tool set. He said all of the men were drooling because he got the best toys of the day, lol. Woo hoo. We are back at the house and ready to work. This is our favorite thing to do. The first and most fun part of remodeling is the demo and we got a brand new sledgehammer just for this job. We start working in the second bathroom. We are going to completely gut this bathroom and update the whole thing. Here are some original pictures. and Mike takes off the shower doors and brings them into the garage. Next he takes the track off the wall for the sliding shower doors. Next we work on getting the old tile off the wall. This turns out to be a fairly easy job considering a lot of the tile starts to fall off as we hammer. Me taking out tile. Mike working on the back wall of the shower. After we get the tile off the wall Mike takes the sledgehammer to try and break up the tile on the ceiling. Now we have to be careful. We don't want the whole ceiling to collapse on top of us. So that part isn't as easy as the walls. This is going to take a little more effort and a lot more mess. I stay in the bathroom to clean up the mess that we made. As you will all find out I spend an awful lot of time cleaning up after Mike. Mike works his way around the house tearing anything apart that he comes across. Here he is taking down one of the ceiling fans. Then he starts to take out the original intercom system. Check it out it was an 8 track player. It was probably "state of the art" at the time, lol. Next he starts to work on taking a half wall and a banister out. Here is the original wall and banister. It's a good thing I had that picture from April. Mike is tearing things apart faster than I can get in the same room as him. Mike taking the rails out. Then he takes the base off. And finally he gets to use the sledgehammer to bust out the wall. That was our first full day in Florida. I think we did pretty good so far. We already have quite a pile in the garage. I may really have to call the dumpster in soon. 10-2 Our second day of work. I start off the day by going into the bathroom to take down the wallpaper. Thankfully it is coming right off the wall. That's a first. Shh, now I probably jinxed myself for the next bathroom. I also clean up the debris that is in the bathtub. While I am working in the bathroom I hear Mike out back banging away. I run out with the camera and see that he has already taken most of an old wood cabinet apart. Here he is cleaning up the last of the cabinet pieces. We both go back into the bathroom. Mike starts to take down the mirror. I hate this part. You can only hope it comes off the wall in one piece and doesn't smash all over the place. Yay, it's coming off in one piece. We carry the mirror out to the garage together. Next is the vanity. Mike using the sledgehammer on the vanity. We got the sink off and now Mike is tearing apart the rest of the vanity. And the vanity is gone. Not too shabby for our first 2 days of work. There is much more to come. Next week's story will be our Kitchen demo. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I will write again next Sunday night. Lisa