This summer has been insane… I’m so grateful for the opportunity to take this flip on, but wow, am I tired. We are now on 17 weeks of working on our first non-live-in flip house. In 3 weeks we should be finishing everything up and listing it!!!
Here is a little glimpse into what our life has looked like for the past 4 months…
Each week day we get around for work, pack our breakfast, lunch and dinner, and pack our work clothes. We drive to work together (since Jake’s new job is in my office building!), eat our lunch together, then after work we drive to the Fanchon Flip house. We eat dinner there, change into our work clothes and then work around 3 hours on the house. Most Saturdays we spend the entire day at the flip house, and we take Sunday’s off. Crazy, right?!
Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it. Because this is not really what I want my life to be like… no room for others, little space for creativity and fun. But, I know that we are doing this now so that someday we will have even more of those things I crave in our lives.
Ups and downs…
There have been so many highs and lows throughout the weeks that we’ve been working on the flip. But, in retrospect, none of them have actually been too bad thankfully. Let’s just list some of the hiccups for fun:
- We installed the wrong thickness of cement board for the shower, so we had to remove it and put in beefier stuff. It takes longer than you think…
- Our tile floor failed (aka the cement did not properly secure the tiles to the subfloor) – emotionally it was too much for us to fix, so we hired someone to retile the bathrooms.
- We broke the porcelain apron front kitchen sink while installing it… so yeah, had to buy a new one.
Wow, actually that’s like all I can think of… so really, not too bad in the grand scheme of things. But, in the moment as you face the various trials, it just feels so defeating. I think it’s because we are working on such a small margin of life right now.
So far we are on budget and *almost* on time…
We created a budget when we initially bought the house, then multiplied it by 10% to be our final budget of around $60,000 for renovations. Right now we are projected to come in 4% under that budget, which is pretty exciting!
And we aren’t too far off on our timeline. Initially when we bought the house we planned for it to take 5 months from purchase to sale. Since you should assume at least 30 days after you finish renovation to find a buyer and close, that’s 4 months for renovation. We bought the house at the start of April, so end of July was the 4 month mark. At this time we are projected to take 3 weeks beyond that. Which, considering everything really isn’t too bad!
My biggest concern is the seasonal timing. Ideally we wanted to be on the market before school started. We’ll miss that window and so the new goal is to be listed as far ahead of Labor Day as possible. The fear is that the housing market declines after Labor Day as people settle into the school year and gear up for the holidays…
What’s left to be done…
We are getting so close to the finish line, I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! Below is the tick list of what still needs to be finished in the next 3 weeks.
- Kitchen
- Fix the exhaust vent
- Install crown molding
- Install toe kick
- Secure dishwasher
- Electrical inspection
- Hang pendant lights
- Patch drywall and paint
- Finish grouting backsplash
- Dining room – Swag chandelier (turns out it’s off center and looks weird)
- Living Room – Swap recessed lighting trim
- Stairway – Install hand rail and fix wiring on pendant lighting
- Mudroom – Install laundry sink
- Closets – cut and install shelves and rods
- Master Bathroom
- Grout shower
- Install shower door
- Install vanity, toilet, mirror, and accessories
- Install freestanding tub and faucet
- Hall Bathroom
- Install toilet, mirror, and accessories
- Install shower surround
- Half Bath
- Install vanity, mirror and accessories
- Basement Bath (why are there so many baths???)
- Paint second coat
- Install baseboard
- Install toilet, vanity, mirror and accessories
- Deck – we’re going to hire someone to replace the top boards
- Landscaping – we’re hoping to hire someone to complete this
- Carpet – this will be installed in the 2nd floor and basement
I really just can’t wait to clean up in here. It kills me to have all that dust on the floor. But I’m so happy with how it’s all coming together. I think it will be a very modern beautiful kitchen for someone.
The pendant lights should really pull it all together too, but we can’t install them until the electrical inspection has been completed. (Really crossing my fingers that that goes smoothly…)
I’ve started buying some staging accessories (at my favorite places.. Goodwill and Salvation Army). And I’m still on the look out for the right stools to go under the island…
I’m excited to see it all staged because I think the accessories will do a lot to soften the harsh black & white look that it has now.
We got the bathrooms all painted (Palais White by Behr). It’s definitely a lot warmer than the other walls which are Site White by Sherwin Williams. I like the warmer white in the bathrooms, just hope that it plays nice with the cooler tones outside.
Picking out lights is hands down my favorite part of flipping… Ha! But how neat are these black and white pendants? I’ll have to get a better close up of them later.
The shower is tiled finally!! It still needs to be grouted and get a door installed. I think a light toned grout will soften the contrast of this fun tile and pull it all together.
I’m super happy with how the floors look in this picture too. I think the long wood-look plank tile was a fun spa-like choice for this master bath.
These are a couple finds I got on my Goodwill trip… The metal display shelf I’m going to use in the master as a modern towel rack. And the baskets will be a fun warm accessory to put blankets and pillows in.
Last week I stumbled upon these dining room chairs for $7 each. When I got home I looked them up and they are going for around $600 a pair on Wayfair!!! I was definitely on a deal-find high that day J They do have a smoke odor which I’m hoping to remove before using them.
I do still want to find a couch to use in the living room, but will probably wait until the last minute on that. At this point, I think we’ll skip staging the bedrooms and just try to do the best we can in the kitchen, baths, and living area.
I just can’t wait to have everything finalized and to get those pictures taken. Living for that before and after!!! I’ll leave you with a few more pictures of the current state of the house..
