House Flip 1

Flip House 1...Part 1

My husband, Mike, and I are doing a remodel in Florida. Some of you already know us from my Off Grid stories. Others will get to know us here. We sold our last house in Florida in 2005 and we have been trying to find a deal ever since. We are not professionals but we love to do remodels. Finally last Spring we came down to Fl from Tn and found 2 great deals. We knew these 2 houses would end up being our Winter project so here we are. We are very excited about both of these projects. This first house is on the South Channel of our old neighborhood and the second one is on the North Channel. We are very particular about the houses we buy here. We have very strict guidelines and we stick to them. You can say we are a little stubborn, lol. This story is about the first house. This is a waterfront neighborhood and the houses started being built in the late 60's. Many of them have never had any changes so they are mostly original. Our house was built in 1976 and is 2200 Sq. Ft. It is a 3 bedroom with 2 3/4 bath with a pool. It has been sadly neglected for many years. Mike and I hope to make it fresh and new again. We plan to have this house completed by the New Year and then we will start on the other house. So let's get started with the fun. Here are some pictures that were taken of the outside of the house last April. The front of the house which is completely overgrown. Can you say "where's the house?" The hideous driveway. It looks like one big checkerboard. We will have to see what can be done about that. Back Pool with a very old screen room which will have to come down. The side of the house has a really nasty homemade shed and a "shuffleboard" court, lol. Our back seawall with all the junk. And the real reason we buy these houses(minus the junk). You just can't beat the water here. As you can see, we have our work cut out for us and we haven't even gotten inside yet. Hopefully we can get in touch with some of old contractor's and get this house done. I hope you will all enjoy our story and keep following our progress. Like I said we are not professionals. Mike and are are just an average hard working couple and we love to do things together. We are a team. 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 Flip House 1...Part 3  Chapter 3....The Kitchen Demo Hi everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful week. Mike and I went to our next door neighbors house last night for a small party and to watch the Boat Parade that comes through our canals during the Holidays. It was a lot of fun and a beautiful night. Mike had also been talking to a young man who wants to get into flipping. Mike explained how tough it is and how in this time there are just too many unknowns. It's not as easy as some people think. Believe me it's not like those TV shows, lol. Anyway, we gave him our Realtors name and number because she is 1. very good and 2. very upfront. Turns out they talked and our Realtor is trying to talk him out of flipping. She doesn't think he has enough experience and she doesn't want to see him lose his shirt. I thought that was pretty darn ethical. Way to go lady. She is not allowed to see this site or our house until it is complete. We want to surprise her. OK, enough babbling. It's time for the next chapter of our story. This time we will be tearing out the kitchen and what a job it was. The kitchen is in the center of the house so it is a main focal point and then the water view which is just beyond the kitchen. Our original kitchen had a wall we want to remove. The reason we are removing this wall is because it blocks the water view when you enter the house. Mike is very strict about having a water view when you walk in the front door. It's a must for us. Because after all if you are buying in this neighborhood you are buying it for the water. Here are a couple of original pictures. That one has the old lumadome in the middle. We will take this out to make the kitchen bigger. In this one you can see the cabinets that hang down from the ceiling. They block the water view. We start our demo by taking off the cabinet doors. Taking out the cabinets on the refrigerator wall which will also be removed. Ah, Mike's favorite. It's show time. Here I am taking off more doors. Mike being gentle and unscrewing doors. Now that the door fronts are off it's time to get the cabinets out. We start working on the section of cabinets that block the water view. The top ones are just about down and now we can start on the lower cabinets. It's time to break out another tool. Woo hoo. Mike is going to use the reciprocating saw or saws all to cut through the counter top so we can get it apart. And the sink is out. My turn. Since we need the refrigerator we move that into the living room. We already took the dishwasher out to the garage. Next is the oven. We manage to get all the cabinets into the garage. We are starting to get one heck of a pile out there, lol. Now it's time to take the wall out. Mike starts with his sledgehammer. Oh yuck, it's plaster. That means the walls are sheetrock and "then" they are covered with plaster which makes them really hard to break through. It's going to be a long and messy job. But the clean up girl is here. I fill up about 20 commercial garbage bags with plaster, sheetrock, and dust. Mike is through to the other side. We are done for the day. We got the wall out and everything cleaned up. We are open to the front of the house. And open to the back. Not too bad for one day of work. The next day is Sunday and we took the day off to do a little homework. We went to some Open Houses and talked with some Realtors about what is going on. We know a lot of the Realtor's here but it's always good to catch up. We have been watching this neighborhood for many years and I have a book that I write down every house that has been listed since 2003. There have been many many changes over the years. This time we have to be better than what is out there. OK, it's Monday. Fun time and socializing is over. Time too take the soffit out. Mike starts off by taking the ceiling fan out. Next it's the lumadome and the lights. We now have to figure out the best plan of attack. It looks like we should start at the top front corner and work our way through. Mike breaks through the plaster just opening things up. Next he has to cut out some 2x4's so we can continue. Then he uses the sledgehammer. It looks like that will be the process. Break it open a little, cut the 2x4's with the saws all, and then use the sledge to yank things down. There is blown in insulation in this house which makes a huge mess during demo. It's like it is snowing. At least it's very clean insulation. The last house we did had lots of mice droppings, yuck!! The soffit mess and it seems like I just can't keep up on the cleaning. Mike making more of a mess for me. I think he enjoys this, lol. There is insulation and plaster everywhere. We use a broom and make sure all of the furring strips in the ceiling are free of any debris. I must say the attic looks like it is in really good shape. The ducting also looks pretty new. Mike is on the final section in the ceiling. After a lot of banging and a lot of garbage bags the soffit is down and everything is clean.(at least until Mike gets the sledgehammer again) And Well since we don't have a kitchen I am using the master bath as my kitchen. I love to cook and I know I will be so excited to get back to a real kitchen. Here is my FL kitchen. Our living quarters for the next few months. And Well that's all for this week. Once we get everything apart we can start putting it all back together again. Lisa Flip House 1...Part 4 Chapter 4....Time To Take The Screen Room Down Hello everyone.  Ok, before I start tonight's story I have a couple of questions. Just to let you know Mike and I have moved to the 2nd house but we have one more week to finish this house. So before we get started on this house: 1. Do you all like French Doors or Sliding doors? 2. A driveway and a circular drive or widen driveway and take out circular drive? Remember these are small houses. 3. Favorite flooring for main living area of house? 4. Kitchen styles? We are trying to appeal to the most buyers. Ok, the date is October 5 and the garage is full of trash. It's time to call in the dumpster. I called the same company that we used years ago. They usually give us a discount because we load it so quickly. Here is the garage And It seems crazy that we already have this much stuff. This house is definitely a 2 dumpster house. The dumpster is dropped off and Mike and I load it in about 2 hours. Yes we are crazy, lol. I called the company back to pick it up and he thought I was joking. Our first 15 yard dumpster is full. We also called our old Tree guy to see if he was still around and he is. Very cool. We told him we have 2 houses for him to clear. Mike and I like to start fresh on houses and re plant. Of course we will save all of the big trees and palms. We just get rid of the overgrowth. These houses are too small to have too many stuff. I think people forget that these plants grow and need to be trimmed, lol. Mike 2, the tree man, comes out for an estimate. He can be here tomorrow. Woo hoo. The next day Mike and I have to finish up in the kitchen. We have to take out the old back wall and so that it can be replaced. We will call in one of our Sheetrock guys to see if he can do the finish work for us. Mike and I can do sheet rock but we really don't like it. What would take us a week to do a sheet rock man can do in a couple of days. Sometimes it's worth it to hire a professional. Here is the kitchen wall we want to take out. I start to take the wall down. It is almost done. Mike 2 shows up to start work on the trees and bushes. here is what the house looks like before he starts. There are 2 palms behind this bush and we will try to keep them as long as they aren't too close to the house. And, by the front door. And our lovely cactus. This was very close to the property line so we talked to the neighbor about taking it out. He has no problem with it. It's always good to ask first and not stir up any trouble with your neighbors. Mike 2 shows up and starts cutting stuff down And using the wood chipper which is a really cool machine. Mike is outside with them busy taking all kinds of things off the house. There are lights and screws all over plus some kind of display things. Here he is taking down one of the displays. We also went around the yard and the gardens and picked up about 50 one foot curved cement garden blocks. Some were buried in the lawn and had to be pulled out. There was also an old desk and some broken stools behind the bushes. Wonder how long that was there? While Mike and I were doing that the original owner's son and his friend showed up. He took some of the lights. I tried to talk them into taking the displays and the cement blocks but they didn't want those. Back on the inside I started to work on the bathtub wall. The tile was the easy part. Now it's time to break out the wall so we can replace the sheet rock. Just starting to break through and what a mess it is. Outside they got the truck loaded up and headed over to the other house. Mike 2 will be back tomorrow to take the 2 big palms down. We wanted to save them unfortunately they were too close to the house and they were rotted. The next day Mike 2 brings a stump grinder back and gets to work. He also gets ready to take the palms down. He is going to back his truck up and cut the palm about 1/3 of the way up and drop it into the back of his truck. oh yeah this sounds like one of those "are you crazy?" moments. If this works it should be really cool, as long as he doesn't flip his truck. Here we go. Backing the truck up to the palms. Cutting and dropping the first. Now we have people on the street watching this. It's not every day you get a show like this, lol. And the second one coming down. After all of that we were only able to keep 2 palms and a lime tree. Now that all of the bushes are gone we can finally see the house. After that was done Mike and I went over to the other house to check on the stump grinding. This is a great machine to get all of the stumps and roots ground down. All looks good. Mike 2 said he would take the refrigerator, dishwasher, and the laminate floor that is through out the living area. Very cool. Maybe we can get the other house dismantled before we get in. The next day. Today Mike 2 and his friends are supposed to take down the screen room. It is an old rusted screen room and we want the house to be fresh and new. Anyway, Mike 2 offered to take it down if he got the scrap. Sounds like a win win. While Mike and I wait for them to show up we start tearing down the old shed on the side of the house. First we have to take everything out of the shed and put it into the garage until our second dumpster shows up. Yes we are ready for a second one. Thankfully the owners took out all the furniture out of the house and the pots and table on the seawall. Originally I thought they were leaving all of that stuff. I thought I would have a big yard/garage sale and let people take anything out of the house they wanted. Great idea but that was a "what the heck was I thinking moment." We don't have time for that. Anyway, back to the shed. We are being very careful about taking stuff out. There is a lot of glass, wood and bottles of stuff(?) in here. Taking the sides off the shed. We are almost finished and Mike 2 and his guys show up to take the screen room down. The screen room is over 30 years old and it is pretty rough. Where we are located it isn't necessary to have a screen room. Our waterfront community is the farthest out in the gulf in our county which means we have no mangroves, we get great breezes, and we have no bugs. That is the biggest reason Mike and I like this neighborhood the best. Mike 2 and his guys bring their tools around back and get to work. Mike 2 is planning on unscrewing everything and piling the metal in his trailer to scrap it. The big problem with that is all of the screws are rusted and can't be unscrewed which means they have to knock the whole screen room down. Now a job that shouldn't have been too bad for 3 guys has turned into a bear of a job. Time to take the screen room off.(that is the planter Mike and I will empty and take out later) First section coming down. Mike and I end up helping them with this job. Mike helps with the sledgehammer, could you have guessed, lol? and I help load up their trailer. The big section is down. By now we have attracted an audience from across the canal. She is out there taking pictures, lol. This turned out to be a job Mike and I could have never done on our own. The metal part is still on the house. They have to be careful taking this last part down. It could crash through our windows. Getting the metal down. The last part is the covered area of the porch area. This is a big heavy piece of metal. All 4 guys are needed for this. Here they are getting the big part down. Thankfully no one got hurt. Mike gives Mike 2 some money even though that wasn't part of the deal. This job turned out to be much bigger than any of us thought. After Mike 2 and his guys leave our second dumpster shows up. We get it almost filled with everything in the garage and then we start on the back of the house. Mike works on taking down more wires and lights while I empty that big planter that was next to the screen room. Wow- that was an exhausting day. I think we will sleep well tonight. We have been in the house for 8 days ande are moving right along. There are alot of behind the scenes that I never get pictures of. We spend a lot of time tearing things apart. It is kind of obvious considereing we already got a second dumpster. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter of our story. Next I will wrap up everything we did in October. Lisa Flip House 1...Part 5 Chapter 5....Time To Move The Dock And Say Goodbye To October Hello everyone. I am happy to say that Mike and I took the whole day off. Our neighbors invited us for dinner and a boat ride. They really want us to keep that house. Well after a back breaking day with the shed and the pool enclosure Mike and I are left to clean up the back area. On one side of the screen room there was an old pot that was about 2 feet by 20 feet and filled with sand. I guess at one time it was a garden. Anyway we have to bring it up front to the dumpster and it's too heavy with all the sand. We also have to clean out the back garden which was a raised garden. Raised gardens next to the pool just don't mix. Since we don't have a wheel barrel I have to use our hand truck and two 5 gallon buckets to get all of the sand out. I must have taken at least 20 buckets of sand out of the planter. Now it's light enough for Mike to help me carry up front to the dumpster. Then I move on to the back garden and take out about 8 buckets of sand. It's not enough but I am done. Mike works on taking more stuff like wiring and broken lights off the back of the house. There seems to be an endless amount of wires, screws, and hooks on this house. 10-11 It's time to get the bathtub out of the second bathroom. It sounds easy right? Well it's a cast iron tub and Mike and I can't budge it. Mike says "I watched them do this on TV." Uh oh now I know this will be interesting. He said in order for us to get it out we have to break it. OK, how do we break it? You guessed it. So Mike gets the sledgehammer and starts pounding away at the tub. Nothing is happening. I said "are you sure about this?" Yeah we just need one crack and it should break. Oh..kay. This tub is really stubborn. I think they must have fast forwarded the episode that Mike watched on TV, lol. Finally, Mike breaks the tub. Now the toilet is in the way and Mike is ready to get it out of the way. And we pull the tub out. Next we have to get the tub through the door. Mike works on breaking it while I get the hand truck. This tub is really really heavy. FYI, if you ever break a tub like tis be very careful of the edges. They are very sharp and will cut you up. The tub is broken. Yay. We finally get the tub out and it was not as easy as TV, lol. At least not the cast iron ones. After more hours than anticipated the tub and the toilet are in the dumpster. For the rest of the day we empty out the garage and load it onto the dumpster. 10-12 Today Mike 2 is going to move our dock from our second house to this house. We will eventually get a new dock for that house. Mike 2 and his friend have to go to the second house by boat. We will help them unbolt everything and then they will tow it to this house. Mike and I drive over to the second house and wait for them. We can see them coming down the channel. At least it's a nice day. Here they are getting the dock ready to move. Once they get the bolts off of the seawall they slide the ramp onto the dock. And away they go and Mike 2 says "thanks for the dock." Mike and I will meet them at the house. It takes them awhile to get over to the house. We actually were worried about them. It was a little choppy on the Gulf and they had to hang on to the dock. But they make it safe and sound. Once they get their, Mike helps them bolt in the ramp to the seawall. And oops we don't have enough anchors so we have to run to the store. Twenty eight dollars later for a bag of bolts and the dock is in place. After they go back and get the boat out of the water we meet Mike 2 at the second house. He is taking our refrigerator and stove. He is also going to come back to take the laminate flooring throughout the house. If we are really lucky we can get the second house stripped before we move into it. The second and last dumpster for this house ready to go. Now that we have taken 2 full dumpsters of stuff out of this house we have to start shopping and re fill the house. 10-13 Mike and I are back in the kitchen. Mike makes a new post so we can have electric at the island. Next Mike hangs boards(furring strips) for the sheet rock to be nailed to. Yay now it's time for one of my favorite jobs. I know, just call me strange, lol. It's time for me to put the insulation back in the ceiling. FYI, is you are touching insulation and it irritates you cold water will help. Here I am putting in the insulation. And The kitchen ceiling is ready for sheet rock. The next day Mike 2 showed up to pressure wash the roof. Now it's time to start the shopping process. Mike and I hate shopping and we need a lot of stuff to put this house back together. First we started to shop for and price Kitchen cabinets. They have gotten so expensive. We ended up buying stock cabinets from Lowe's because they were 25% off and I had an additional 10% off coupon. We just couldn't beat that price anywhere else and we do have a budget to watch. We also picked out the stainless steel appliances and we picked up our new bathtub. We will make multiple trips back and forth to Lowe's to pick everything up. We don't want them to deliver the cabinets because if there is a problem it becomes a hassle. Mike and I pick out our cabinets from the shelves and have them put on skids with our name on it. This will make it easy for us to get some every time we are there. Our new bathtub is in place. We are going to tile the outside walls. Our seawall also got pressure washed. We called a landscape contractor who we have used in the past. We asked him for a quote on tearing out the concrete in the driveway and installing pavers and also putting half pavers around the pool. His quote came back at $16,000. We will not be doing pavers, lol. We also called Norm who is our old drywall contractor. He said he can do our job at the end of the week. Woo hoo. It's so much better to let the professionals do drywall especially when the plaster has to be matched. For the remainder of the week Mike and I pick up all of the Kitchen cabinets and get rid of all the boxes. Thank goodness we brought our small motor home down. We took out the back sofa and use it like a cargo van. We also had the appliances delivered and they are ready to go. We picked up the bathroom vanity and the sink and a ton of small stuff. I think with all of this shopping Mike and I are being very supportive of the economy, lol. We also did a lot of smaller jobs around the house. We bought new doors and changed some of them out. It is amazing ow long it takes to make one door fit. Mike also took down an old antenna off the roof and took out a clothesline. I would love to have that clothesline back in TN. I got stuck with the window tinting removal job. Holy cow. There are over 50 small windows in this house and I have to remove all of the tinting. We would have left it on but it is cracked and peeled in too many places so it looks really bad. I will have to do this job a little at a time. It's the last week of October and Norm, our drywall, man shows up. Woo hoo. Lets get the kitchen going. Mike helps Norm and Kevin hang the drywall on the ceiling. While they do that I paint boards for the back soffit. When they tore off the screen room there were some rotted boards that we have to replace. Me painting the boards. Kevin gets the drywall done in the bathroom. And the Kitchen drywall is up. Woo hoo. Now it has to dry. Norm will be back on Monday to do the plaster. Over the weekend Mike and I work on hanging the soffit boards. Nailing them in. Moving along. Hanging a soffit board and then a trim piece. Now it's finished. And on Monday Norm shows up to do the plaster. Well that is what we did our first month. We have a lot more to go to pull this house together. I hope you all enjoyed the story. Lisa Flip House 1...Part 6 Redoing the Pool and Pool Deck 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 7 Kitchen Cabinets, Granite, Wood Floor, & Driveway Staining In this chapter a lot of different things are going on so we will be all over the place working. This house is driving Mike nuts because he likes to work on one project, finish it, and move on to the next project. Well... we haven't been able to do that. 11/21 Back to the fencing. Mike and I picked up more fencing to complete the back fence. This is our process. First Mike drills into the concrete. And then he screws in the concrete anchors. After that is done the post has to be bolted down. Then we put the white cover over the post and start screwing in the fence panels. We have to make a gate for the fence since they don't pre make them. After we cut it down and add the wood for the cross bracing we install it. The fence and gate is done on one side. The fence and gate on the other side by the garden area. While we are working on the fence Mark 2 shows up to finish the pool. He starts off by cleaning the pool with some potent chemicals. Next he makes repairs on the pool with new fiberglass. He rolls on fiberglass to patch it. Mike calls our old curbing man to see if he can give us a quote. He says he can come the following day to give us a quote on both houses. The next day he shows up and gives us a reasonable price. We do the same thing on every Florida house for landscaping. First we get rid of the overgrowth. Then we have curbing installed around the house and around any larger trees or garden areas. After that we re sod up to the curbing. Then we out rock in the gardens to keep it clean before we paint the house. Then we plant. It makes a little more work to do all the planting at the end but it keeps the house the cleanest for painting. His crew will be back before the end of the month. That night Mike and I start working on the wood floor in the kitchen and dining area. The hardest part of this job is figuring out to start the job, lol. We are installing a real Mahogany click and lock floor. We start at our angled entrance. 11-23 Mark 2 is back to work on the pool. He starts off by rolling on the first coat of resin and this is some really stinky stuff. We got our first quote to replace the front window and back window of the house. It came in at $1576.00 for 2 windows. If it was my house I would have replaced the windows and put in Formica counters in the Kitchen and finished the back fence. Since it is not my house and I don't think many women buying a house will want Formica so we will have to pass on the windows. At least the new owners, if they want to replace the windows will get the tax credit. But a lot of the houses here still have working original windows. And on that note the granite men show up to do the templates for our tops. Here are our templates. And They will use those templates back at the shop to make our granite tops. That night Mike and I get back to work on the kitchen floor. It's coming along. 11-24 Mark 2 shows up to do the final coat of resin on the pool. I get back to doing a job I was avoiding in hopes that we would be able to get new windows. I am going through a ton of razor blades. Here I am scraping away. And on the back window making a mess. Mark 1 shows up to pressure wash the driveway and prep it for staining. Mark is hungry for work so Mike and I decided to give him some extra work. We could have done the driveway but this way it will get done faster. Mark also gave us a quote for ripping out our old lawn and putting in new sod. Later on the we get an estimate form a painter to do the outside of the house. He came in at $2580.00 which is way too much. Back to the drawing board. The Home Depot measuring man showed up to measure our house for carpet. We found a carpet that will match our counters, cabinets, and wood flooring perfect, at least that's what we hope. Home Depot had to do a full measurement before they can give us a final price. 11-27 Today Mike and I started painting the bedrooms. Again he does all the rolling and I do the cut in. Here he is painting one of our many dreaded closets. They are dreaded because there is no way to get done without making a mess. The space is just too tight. It was a good day. We got both bedrooms done. Home Depot called us with our real quote. They are trying to nickel and dime us on the install. That's how they can advertise $139.00 for whole house installation because they charge extra for everything. We told them we would have to shop around some more. We went to a couple of smaller carpet places that were recommended. Yes they could match the "price" but the quality of thee carpet was far less than the HD carpet. Finally we go back to Home Depot and talk to the Flooring man. After a lot of haggling they gave us an additional $736.00 off. Ok we can handle that. when the carpet comes in they will call us with an install date. Now we have to move it along in this house. While we were there I also ordered the master bathroom vanity which turned out to be a small fiasco but I won in the end. They don't carry the vanity in the store so I have to order it through their catalog. I know the vanity because we used the same one in TN otherwise I never order something without seeing it. So Home Depot's on-line site had the double vanity for $529.00 with free shipping and the HD store catalog has the exact same vanity for $699.00 What a rip. So I have to talk to a salesman and the manager because I want the on-line price plus my 10% off. I also want it shipped to the store and not my house this way if there is a problem with the vanity DH has to take care of it. Finally I get the $699.00 vanity for $476.00. Woo hoo. So between the carpet and the vanity it was a good day of savings. 11-29 Today Mark is going to stain our driveway. We decided to keep the driveway since it is in good shape and hopefully make it look better. The first square is stained. I hope this looks good. Mark and Rick staining the driveway. While Mark and Rick are outside staining the driveway, Mike and I are inside painting the bathroom and the hallway. We get done with tat and start the ceiling in the den area. The driveway has 2 coats of stain. The next day is busy. Mark and rick will be back to do the border and lines on the driveway and the curbing will also get done. the outside should really start coming together. Woo hoo. Mark starts off by taping off the driveway. The curbing crew show up to work. It's a pretty cool process. First they dump in the sand And then they mix in the concrete and then add water. After it is mixed on their truck they put the mix into a wheelbarrow and bring it to the curbing machine. They shovel the mix into the machine and it spits out curbing. How cool is that? I love it. It's the little things that make me happy, lol. Next they smooth out the curbs. And add some expansion joints. Now that they finished the curbing at this house Mike and I go over to the other house with them. We come back to see how Mark did with the border. We talked about doing the border and putting in 2 or 3 vertical lines across the driveway but no seeing it we decided against the additional lines. We don't want to make the original squares in the driveway stand out. Here is our driveway with the border. Now we have to pick a house color. We might do it the same as the border. Well that finishes up our second month in this house. I think we are doing pretty well. Now we will be in for the final push. I hope you all enjoyed our story. Lisa Flip House 1...Part 8 Chapter 8 Granite and Grass Hello everyone. I hope you all had a great week. It's time for another few days in the Mike and Lisa world. There are a lot of pictures this time so it will take a little time to load. As an update for those who asked. The For Sale Sign was put out on Wednesday of last week and this house has been listed. We have been watching the market here and priced it lower than any of our competition and none of our competition has done any remodeling. So we will see how we do. We also offered an 8% commission to see if we can move it fast. As far as price I don't want to jinx us so I won't post that yet. Let's just say that between the realtors, Uncle Sam, closing costs and carrying costs they might make more than us. Ok onto our story. 12-1 Moving right along. Today Mark and Rick will be tearing out our old lawn while Mike and I work on the gardens. Mike and I went to our old rock place to see if they still carried the rock we really like. We used to use a pink granite/marble(?) that looked really nice in all of our Florida gardens in the past. Unfortunately they don't stock it anymore because it is too hard to find. So we had to settle and get a large white marble. Mark is going to pick this up for us after he drops off his rototiller. Back at home we start getting the gardens ready for rock. First I shovel out any excess dirt and then I will put weed cloth down. Mark starts to rototill. At the same time Mike starts prepping the house for paint. Here he is scraping it down. The rock is here. Now we just have to get it from the truck and the trailer to the gardens. I start out by shoveling the rock into 5 gallon buckets and dumping them into the garden. I tried using the wheelbarrow but I am too wobbly with it so I have to do it the hard way. Here I am shoveling the rock. Mike uses the wheelbarrow to dump rock into the back garden. We ran out of rock so Mark goes back to fill up his truck bed with more rock. And 2 tons later we are finally done. Mark is done tearing up the lawn and will be back tomorrow with sod. Now that was a job. Later on Mike and I work on installing some of the curtain rods. Mike hanging a rod in the front room. 12-2 Mark and Rick show up and 4 pallets of sod are delivered. And. Rick starts laying the sod. The right side is done and it looks good. They start laying sod on the left side of the house and find out they are short. Mark has to go to another sod place to pick up more sod. Finally the sod is done. It is two different colors right now but it won't take long for it to blend. Mark also added fertilizer. While Mark and Rick worked on the side Mike and I had to do more of the dreaded shopping. Later on that night we installed the microwave in the kitchen and brought in the refrigerator and the dishwasher. We will put the stove in after the counter is installed. 12-3 It's the big day. We are supposed to have our granite counters delivered and installed. Woo hoo. The granite company gets here and here. Here they are getting the granite off the truck. They get the granite slab onto a dolly and roll it into the house. Once they have the granite inside they have to lift it onto the cabinets. This is not an easy job because it is so heavy. The men start to lift the biggest piece. Now I really don't want to watch. Lifting the biggest slab on top of the cabinet. They get all 3 pieces of granite on the cabinets. One whole piece was for the island and the other 2 pieces made an L in the kitchen. I was very happy where they cut the granite. Our seam is along the front and back of the sink so it's a very small seam. The seams are clamped together so they can epoxy them. Ooh another cool tidbit, at least to me. They use epoxy on small pieces of granite to install the sink. First they put the sink in place in the counter top. then they spread the epoxy on small pieces of granite and then they go under the sink and attach the sink to the granite form underneath. then the sink gets caulked in. Spreading epoxy on the scrap granite. Underneath the sink. While they are working on the granite I get out all of the paint and start painting the trim and doors for the 2 bedrooms, bathroom, and trim on one side of the house. They seal and polish the granite before they leave. now Mike can start the plumbing. Here is our sink and new faucet. Mike working on the plumbing for the double drains. And it's all nice and neat just the way we like it. I help him get the drains in place and caulked in. We also got the dishwasher hooked up and tested, and the ice maker from the refrigerator is now connected. Later on we bring in the stove and hook it up. woo hoo. We almost have a kitchen. 12-4 Today we had to make another trip to Home Depot, the story of our lives...lol. We bought tile for the bathroom floor and a water heater for the other house. We have to get that done before we can move over there. We also bought out kitchen cabinet hardware. the last time we did cabinet knobs we were very disappointed. We bought the stainless or nickel knobs and once we installed them on our cabinets it looked like Christmas decorations. So we went for something a little more discreet. Back at home we start installing all of the cabinet hardware. Mike uses a template for all of the doors. Next we work on the drawers. This is how we did it. First we have to find the center of the drawer. We take the drawer out and put a piece of painter's tape where we think the middle is. Then we take a straight edge and lay it down from one corner to the other corner and make a line. Then we do the same for the last 2 corners. Now we know exactly where the center is. Criss cross the tape on the drawers. Then Mike drills a hole through the drawer and we put the drawer back into the cabinet. Mike screwing the handles into place. The Island is done. And now what some of you have been waiting for. We still have a little more work on the floor but the kitchen is almost complete. Well we are beat. It was a very busy few days. Next week we will work on the second bathroom. I hope you all enjoyed this part of our story. Lisa Flip House 1...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 Flip House 1...Part 10 Chapter 10....Time To Finish This House Hello everyone. I hope you all had a great week. Today's story will be the next to last story. Next week I will do a whole chapter of the before and afters. So now let's go back to where we left off. 12-14 Today Mike worked on finishing the small bathroom while I worked on stripping, cleaning, and painting the back patio. First I started to take down all of the vertical blinds so I could clean them. We looked into other window treatments but decided to keep these because they are in good shape and the windows are an odd size. Prepping the patio room. Taping off the windows and ledges so I can paint. Cleaning the blinds...yuck!!! Mike starts to hang the bathroom light fixture. The light is done. Then Mike installs the floor trim. We went with a wider trim because that is the newer trend. I don't like it because it reminds me of the thick rubber commercial floor trim. Later on Mike and I take off the back patio door to re hang it. Since the cool deck was put around the pool area the door just started to hit the ground. Mike fixing it. 12-15 Today Mark showed up to start patching the house so he could paint it. While he was doing that, Mike and I went over to the other house to get ready to move in. We painted the master bedroom closet, bedroom ceiling and walls. Mark painted the first side of the house. We went with the same color that is on the band on our driveway. 12-16 Mark showed up to paint the house while Mike and I worked inside. Mike grouted out front foyer tile. Next Mike caulked around the skylights for some added protection. 12-17 Mark and Rick showed up to finish painting the house. While they did that, Mike and I went over to the other house and painted the concrete floor in the master bedroom so we could move in. The front of the house is painted. The back seawall is painted. Oops...the color on our back pool deck and the house are too close. We will have to paint it a little darker. While Mark had his truck there I emptied out the refrigerator so the men could move it to the other house. 12-18 Today is moving day and it is rainy and gray out. Mike and I have been together since 1998 and this will be the 11th time we have moved into another place. We are used to it. We get moved over and set up. Mike has his TV and I have the Internet. All is good. 12-20 Now that we are moved out of the house it's time to work on the master bedroom and bathroom. Thankfully the master bathroom has a neutral shower in good shape and a new toilet. We only have to change out the vanity, do new plumbing, flooring, fixtures, and the lighting. Mike starts to tear out the vanity. He un does the plumbing. 12-21 Mark shows up to repaint the deck. Mike and I start painting the master bedroom ceiling, closet, and walls. After we paint, Mike patches the bathroom walls. After Mark finished he asked Mike if we had any extra work for him. We really didn't but Mike told him he could paint the garage if he wanted the work. He said yes. 12-22 Mark and Rick showed up to paint the garage. The guys start out by taking everything out of the garage. Then they start painting all the holes in the walls from the previous owner. Mike already patched a lot of them. While they do that, mike and I go to Home Depot to pick up some more plants. Here we are loaded up. Just call us "Sanford and Son" We get back home and Mike checks in with Mark. I am about to start the first garden. We hit some roots so Mike has to get the saws all out. The walls are painted in the garage. The garden on first side of the house is done. Me digging out the second side. Mike hanging a blind in the bathroom. And the garage floor is painted. What a day. We all did great. We will let the garage dry out over night and then Mike and I will put the washer and dryer back. 12-23 That morning we order our first dumpster for the second house. I'm sure the neighbors were thinking "the new people moved in and now they are going to have a dumpster in front of their house for the Holidays". They don't know us yet Mike and I filled that 15 yard dumpster in less than 2 hours and it was gone an hour later. We got a really good price this time. Back to the other house. Mike and I sanded and cleaned up the master bath. Then we painted. 12-24 Today we tiled the master bathroom floor. Then I painted the mailbox post a nice clean white and Mike installed the new mailbox. 12-26 Mike grouted the bathroom and I cleaned after him. 12-27 We worked on the plumbing for the vanity and put it in the bathroom. After that we cleaned up and cleared everything out of the house. The carpet installers are coming tomorrow. Woo hoo. 12-28 Today is the first day for the carpet installers. They will be here 2 days. First they install all of the new tack strip. Then they unload the carpet. they have to run back and pick up the rest of the carpet. 12-29 They are back and they are starting to install the main living area. Here they are stretching the carpet out. While they install the carpet Mike works on installing new shower bars and a new shower head in the master bathroom. And The installers did an outstanding job and they were very professional. I could tell you some horror stories about FL carpet installers. These guys were great. We got their number. The carpet is done and vacuumed. Now that the carpet is in we just have a few finishing touches. We took all of the closet doors to the other house to be cut down and painted. 1-2 Mike installs both of the new mirrors in the master bath. While I iron all of the curtains. 1-4 Here we are in the garage prepping the closet doors. Mike cuts them down. And I sand and clean them so they can be painted. Then we bring the doors into the spare bedroom and Mike hooks up the paint sprayer and paints them. The next day the doors are ready to be moved back to the other house. We carefully load the doors into the van and take them back to the other house. Mike and I hang them. Woo hoo. We did it. It's happy dance time. House #1 is done and now we are ready to call our Realtor. It took us just over 3 months to finish but it is done. Yay. Next week I will post all of the before and after photo's. Those are my favorite to see. Lisa Flip House 1...Before and After It's time for all of the before and after shots. We bought this house last April. When we looked at it the house was still furnished. The front of the house before: And After: The driveway before: And After: And The side of the house with the old shed before: Side of the house after: Back pool area before: And after: And Back seawall before: And after: My first picture of the garage after we took out many shelves but it has all the junk from the house: And after: Now it's time to go inside the house. This house is 2230 square feet. I drew up the floor plan but it is not to scale(sorry). The Living room, Kitchen/dining, and back room/den are roughly the same size. Here is the layout: The patio before: And after: The Master Bedroom before: And after: The Master Bath before: And after: The Foyer before: And: And after: The Living room before: And after: The kitchen before: And after: The Dining area before: And after: The back room/den before: And after: The Front Bedroom before: And after: Hallway before: And after: The bathroom before: And after: The back bedroom and closets before: And after: And most importantly, when you walk in the front door you can see the water. Well I think that's all of the before and after pictures. Mike and I worked really hard to get this house done. It took us just over 3 months to finish. I hope you all enjoyed a glimpse into our crazy life. We are onto another house and then we will be back to the Off Grid house. Until next time..... Lisa