Flip House1 ...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 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