Flip House 1...Part 7

Chapter 7......The Month Of November Wrap Up 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 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