Florida Flip 2...Bathroom Demo and Soldering Pipes

The Bathroom Demo and Soldering Pipes Good morning. Mike and I are in the middle of building a big shed but I can write a quick story. I will take you back to the second bathroom demo. We are gutting the entire bathroom down to the studs and starting over. Just a quick picture of Mike working in the laundry room. We need to take out the old appliances, replace them with new, and redo the room. Mike is working on the plumbing. Onto the bathroom. We have that beautiful very 70's avocado green bathroom. We asked around and no one wanted anything from this bathroom so the quickest way for Mike and I to gut it, is to break it apart. Mike is starting with the cast iron tub. These are just too heavy for us to remove in one piece so we have to break it apart. Mike using the ax to break it...and these tubs are stubborn. Taking a break and doing an easier job. The vanity. The vanity is almost out. Next is the toilet and to speed up the job Mike decides to just break it out. Mike cleaning around the toilet area...yuck!! I hate that job. And back to the tub Using a crowbar on the tiled wall. Mike carefully cleaning up the shattered pieces. If you ever break up a tub or tile be very careful. The pieces are very sharp and can cut you open. While Mike is in the bathroom working, I am taking out the tack strips in the small bedrooms. Mike working on the bathroom walls. After the tub and walls are out we have a huge mess to clean up. What else is new, lol? It has to get worse before it gets better. And more. Time to take out the soffit above the tub. And then the bathroom ceiling. Getting a little side tracked, lol. Mike is taking out the door jams on one of the bedroom doors. We will be replacing all the doors in the house. New door going into the laundry room/garage. Mike is back up in the small attic. We need to add a fan to the bathroom. Here I am using my new fun tool to take out the tile on the bathroom floor. Note....the fancy flip flops and socks Do not do this at home When Mike and I live somewhere when doing projects we tend to just jump into a job when we feel like it Once the floor is out and we get cleaned up, it's time to work on the new tub. Mike needs to work on the plumbing for the tub. Mike soldering the end on the shower pipe. Soldering an elbow for the diverter for the shower. The diverter with piping in place getting ready to be installed. Prepping the pipe to be installed. The diverter is installed and there are no more leaks It may look like a mess but this is a nice job. The new ceiling fan and vent in the ceiling. Of course I put the new insulation in. The new electric for the new bathroom fan. New window installed. And the tub is in place. The messy part is done. The house is prepped for new sheetrock. Time to call in a crew. They do it so much faster than Mike and I can. That will be next week. It is so nice when you get to the point of putting a house back together. I hope you enjoyed this part of the story. 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