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

Chapter 42...Clogged Culverts, Ceiling Tile, And Closets

Off Grid...Chapter 42 Our holiday was great because we got a ton of work done. As you should all know by now Mike and I do things differently than most. Christmas for us this year was a work day just like our anniversary and my birthday this year. When Mike and I have a project that is our priority. Christmas was great because it was beautiful out and we got a lot done. Next year we will do the tree and decorating. Then we will truly be able to sit back, relax, and enjoy all that we have done. For now- we work until we get it done. Monday 12-22 It's time to work on the last room in the house, the office. First we have to run to town "again" for more sheetrock and 2x4's. The closets are using more material than expected. It seems like we live part time at the building supply and Lowe's. I am so tired of those stores. Making the closet for the washer and dryer. The sheetrock is up for the washer and dryer closet. Tuesday 12-23 Today we are working on the last closet in the house. Woo, Hoo. It's the closet for the electrical in the office. It will be identical to the washer and dryer closet and the space in between the two closets will be perfect for a daybed. Our grandson is waiting to stay over and he can't wait until we finish that room. The first frame is done for the electrical closet. This closet is more involved because we also have to sheetrock and paint the inside of it. This will be a walk in closet so it has to be complete. First we have to measure and screw the sheetrock into the studs for the first interior wall. Installing the first interior wall. All of the interior walls for the closet are done. And after many hours of measuring, cutting, and screwing the closet is done. The sheetrock is "done" in the entire house. Woo Hoo. No more cutting and installing sheetrock. We are done except for the spackling and painting. Wednesday 12-24 Mike starts the day by putting the first coat of spackle on both the closets in the office. I am right behind him cleaning the big plops on the floor. Now that we have all the walls up in the office we can go back and finish the ceiling. The first thing we do is finish hanging the perimeter track around the closets. Then we move on and install the last of the main grid and the cross tee's. And Mike continues installing the full ceiling tile. It was a very good day. We got a lot done and we are very happy. Thursday 12-25 What a beautiful sunny day. Mike has been itching to work outside so today is the day. We have been having problems with my internet satellite dish. My satellite dish for the internet is a portable system(for when we travel) and it sits on a tripod. Unfortunately when it is really windy my dish gets moved and I lose my signal. The first thing Mike does is dig a hole to bury a 4x4 post. This is still temporary but at least my dish will stay in place. While he did that I took the tripod in the house and cleaned all the mud off and we put it back in the motorhome. Installing the post. Here is my newly mounted dish. At least it won't move now from the wind. Next Mike starts working on the other downspout and drain pipe. We finished the first one a long time ago and today we are doing the other one. First Mike digs out the trench "again" and installs the long drain pipe. Then he connects the downspout from the gutter to the pipe. Now all of the excess water will drain far away from the house. After he is done we cover the pipe with dirt. It's still very muddy and mucky so we will have to let it dry out more. Back into the house to start working on the ceiling. Mike is installing the last of the full ceiling tile. Installing the last, yeah, overhead light in the house. Lastly, the really hard part. Mike has to start cutting the tiles to fit. He starts with the angled tiles by the door. Friday 12-26 It took all day but now it's time to celebrate. The ceiling is done in the entire house. Woo hoo. Mike is so happy. The office ceiling is done. After the ceiling was done Mike did a light sand on the closets and a second coat of spackle. Later on we hung the closet door for the washer and dryer. Saturday 12-27 We are so close to finishing the office. We still need the cabinets, the bed, and the desk. We drove to Lowe's to pick up 3 24" cabinets to put in the office. We will have a total of 8 feet of cabinets in the office. We already have one cabinet home that we had in the bathroom for awhile. We also picked up my kitchen cabinet knobs. They were on sale so I finally got them. We get everything home and we have to open the cabinet boxes up to carry it all down to the house. The boxes are just too heavy so we have to make a lot of smaller trips to get the cabinets in the house. Finally we are in the house and putting the cabinets together. I can't wait to start organizing. Putting the cabinets together. Here is our "wall of cabinets". Talk about storage. Now that's a lot of storage space. Next we start working on the knobs for my kitchen cabinets. The kitchen knobs are done. All 25 of them. We can't get used to them. There are so many. We've never had kitchen knobs before so it looks a little "much" to us. Sunday 12-28 It's rainy and drizzly out today but we discovered a problem yesterday that we have to take care of. On our way home driving up our driveway Mike says "where's the culvert?" Uh, oh. Yup it's buried in mud and we can't see it. So today we went down with our rubber boots, gloves, shovels, and the tractor. Sure enough our 30 foot culvert that runs under our driveway is full of mud on both sides. We start to dig it out. This is our clogged culvert. Digging and dumping the muck into the tractor bucket. We dug out 5 bucket loads. It's getting better. By now we are a muddy mess and we just can't get it done. It looks like the pipe is completely clogged and we just can't reach it all. This was our own fault. We should have been watching the culvert all along to make sure there were no problems. We can only hope that a heavy downpour will clear out the mud. If that doesn't work we will have to call Jimmy to tear the 30 foot culvert out of the ground, get the mud out, and re install it. It's a good thing we didn't pave the driveway yet. We head back into the house and dump or muddy clothes into a container. What a mess. We didn't do anything else today. After 2 hours of digging in the rain we had enough. Just another week in the Mike and Lisa world. We are getting so close to finishing. Now if we could just get some more nice weather to start our outside projects. I hope you enjoyed our story.  Lisa