For Sale!

That’s a wrap people! The show is over. The work is done. Let’s pack it up and put this baby on the market!

Well…I guess it is not completely over. The house has to sell first before we are all completely done. However, the house is 98% ready to be handed over to a new owner. The house was staged today by Rita Lopez with Tarragona Design. It looks gorgeous! I could not be happier with the work Rita and her team have done.

My parents have done a beautiful job with the landscaping and my dad with his unbelievably cool mailbox!

Ready for a new owner to love and cherish this home.

Reminder of the house before we started the work.

Living room staged and ready for the professional photographer.

The dining room, light and bright, ready to entertain.

The dining space closed off before the work had begun.

A tired kitchen looking for a face lift.

Comfy office space in the kitchen with a tranquil view of the backyard.

Back deck ready for a cookout or enjoying a quiet morning’s coffee.

Sweet hall bathroom ready to impress the guests.

Closed in cave-like bathroom before the remodel.

Reminder of the master bathroom that once was but is no more.

Jack thinks this room is perfect for a nursery.

One more final picture of the beautiful home.

So the next chapter is selling. We will list the property for $395,900. We have checked the comps in the area and we are not the highest priced house and not the lowest. Other houses in the area that were remodeled and staged similar to ours sold for a similar price. Our fingers are crossed that this beautiful home will find a new loving family.

Coming Soon!

We are in the home stretch people! This past weekend Mom, Dad, my husband and I have been at the flip house nonstop (except for trips to Home Depot). We stained the back deck, installed transitions pieces for the flooring, touched up painted in every room, swept, mopped, hung doors, weeded flower beds, hauled gravel, mowed, power washed, dug holes, filled holes, and more. The house is looking so fresh and new. The old ugly concrete in the front is gone and replaced with beautiful gravel and limestone steps.

The backyard has gotten some updates with a fresh new deck stain and some gravel along the back of the house as well.

Two of the bedrooms are completely done. That feels so good to say!

The master bedroom is very close to completion. The doors have all been installed. The master bathroom is getting very close to being complete. The only thing we have left is to hang the towel hooks and reconfigure the drawer to the sink vanity. But take a look at the beautiful new shower and sink.

We added sliding doors for the master bedroom closet and bathroom. The hope is to give the house a little charm and character.

On Wednesday we are hosting a preview open house for friends and family. We want to show off our work and begin to spread the word about this beautiful home for sale in the hot South Austin market. This house is in a great location and is turn-key ready!

We hope to have a for sale sign in the front yard by the end of the week! Fingers crossed we get asking price in the first week on the market!

It’s In The Details

As we round the corner to the home stretch of finishing our first flip house, the little details are now piling on and overwhelming me. My to do list seems to only grow and every task seems easy on paper but ends up amounted to hours of physical labor.

In effects to keep the costs down, Mom and I continue to work on these little details with the great help from Dad and my husband. Last weekend Mom and Dad installed ship lap in the kitchen. It looks great! They did a fabulous job!

However, now the detailed work on filling all of the nail holes, caulking the top and edges, and sanding, then painting is left to do.

We also finished the flooring and the contractor has been in to install all baseboards and trim around the doors.

Now we are left with filling nail holes in the trim and baseboard, sanding, taping the floor and the wall in order to then paint all the trim. Not to also mention trying to fix my amateur mistakes on the flooring in some areas.

I have been visiting the house everyday, slowly chipping away at these little task that are left to do. We still have not yet touched the outside landscape which still needs to be done.

The countertop installers were back today to install the bathroom countertops. Then the plumbers will return to finish installing all faucets and toilets. It will be so nice to have inside running water again.

Also left for the contractor to take care of will be the installation of the appliances and the drywall repairs in the garage. The garage walls were in bad shape and they had to make additional holes when moving some electrical and plumbing around for the kitchen. So the walls in the garage will be the last item on the contractor’s list to repair. Soon his work will be done, they will move out, and the small details will be left for us to complete.

Additional small details to work out is the idea of staging and realtor for the sale. I know staged houses sell faster and for more money. However, we just need to finalize our budget to see how much money we have to spend on staging. Also I know having a good realtor is very important, however they require a 6% commission which on a house selling for $385,000 is around $23,100! That could very well be my entire profit! So then what??

So many more details to figure out, finish up, and finalize before we put a for sale sign in the yard. I will continue to stop by the house to work on the small projects that matter. We hopefully will finish the trim this weekend and maybe even hang the barn sliding doors in the master. Then we are left with landscaping the final weekend before we list the house. Fingers crossed we have not spent too much and can sell it fast!

Flooring, flooring, flooring!

I am already so tired of laying flooring. My husband and I have been working on flooring for about 30 hours now. And we are still not finished! I know, we work slow. Here is our progress.

Yes, my husband and I are laying all of the flooring ourselves. However, the carpenters are coming in to the baseboards and trim work, thank goodness! We are trying hard to lay the flooring without transition pieces. We will have to put transition pieces to the bathroom and it one of the bedrooms where the boards just did not match up well.

Other great progress has been made this past week besides just the flooring. The cabinets and counter tops were installed and look amazing.

You can see we went with white shaker cabinets with slab front drawers. Troo Designs did our cabinet work and did a great job. I also choice modern bar handles for a fresh clean look.

I love the counter tops. It is hard to capture in the photo, but the counter tops are speckled with grey and tan specks. DS Surfaces did the counter tops and I am in love with them! I was very nervous about my selection, but I very pleased with how it turned out. Even my son, Jack, approves.

Another transformation that happened this past week was the exterior paint! I love how the house just comes back to life with the new paint job. Thank you Painting 512, they did exceptional work! I could not be more happy with all the work that has been done on the house so far.

Oh, did you also notice the new porch light fixture. I found that for a steal at Restore for only $20. The electrician also visited the house this week to put up some lighting in the rooms. He reinstalled some of the fans and finished out the recessed lighting in the house.

And to come full circle, we are back to flooring again. Matt and I worked on the flooring today for about 10 hours and will (cross your fingers) finish it up tomorrow. Here is our flooring status right now.

So we need to finish the living room, dining room, and kitchen. We also have to finish the linen closet and the hall coat closet. I will be so thankful with flooring is done!

The tile guys were also back at the house today working on the back splash. I will share more pictures of the kitchen on my next post. On our to do list is to install ship lap in the kitchen and open shelving on the sink side.

Oh and I have failed to mention the amazing, hard work of my parents! Mom has been at the house painting and painting. She has worked on all the door frames, window areas, doors, and more doors. She is amazing! Then Dad has been over reconstructing all the shelving in the closets. The closets were a disaster so during demo work we ripped everything out of the closets and Dad has been providing handy man work to rebuild shelves and hanger rods in each of the bedroom closets. He will then move to reconstructing shelving for the linen and pantry closet. Thanks Dad and Mom!

Also on our to do list is landscaping. We would like to rip out the concrete slab out front and replace it with gravel and concrete pavers. We will also add a gravel flower bed along the left side of the house and along the back. We still need to power wash the back deck and stain it as well. The good news is the do to list is shrinking. So check back again soon, we continue to make progress every week!

Painting and Tile Work

The house is really coming together! This is the exciting and fun work where we get to see the design take shape and the house become beautiful once again. Mom, my aunt, and I have been painting the interior ourselves (mostly Mom). She has been working at the house almost everyday painting each room, closet, wall, and ceiling by hand. She has been rolling, brushing, and spraying paint in the bathrooms, bedrooms, hallway, living and dining room. She is amazing!

Last Friday my aunt and I helped her finish the walls in every room. The house is now a clean, modern grey/white color. The bathrooms are a calming, reflective blue/green and the kitchen has a modern distinct black ore accent wall.

Master bathroom with Reflecting Pool paint job.

Kitchen with Iron Ore accent wall and new recess lighting!

Besides getting painting done in the house, the tile was installed in both bathrooms. The crew worked very hard and did a beautiful job.

We are very pleased with our tile section and the subtle tile design in the master shower. It is hard to see in the photos but along the back wall of the shower, the subway tile is vertical in rows instead of horizontal brick pattern. Along the side walls and in the niche it is horizontal brick pattern.

Also this week, the new windows were installed by Travis Roofing company. They did beautiful work as well and we are so pleased with the investment.

This weekend on our list of things to do is to finish painting the ceilings and then begin to lay the flooring! Big changes are coming soon.

The cabinets will also be delivered this week and installed next week along with the painting of the exterior of the house (done by professionals, of course).

We are so pleased with how the project is coming along. We still have a long list of little jobs to get done but so far we are still on our timeline for completion by early August.

I still have some shopping to do. I need to purchase the vanity sinks for the bathrooms and a barn door for the master bathroom.

After the interior is shaping up, we do plan to move outside to clean up the yard and add landscaping for more curb appeal. Stay tuned!

Making Real Progress

I am shocked at how much progress as been made at the flip house this month. After the foundation work was complete the projects have just been coming along at a great rate.

The foundation need minor adjustments because the house had already undergone major foundation repair years earlier. Olshan Foundation was the company we went with because they had done the initial work on the house and was the best price for the additional work that needed to be done.

Next the bathroom conversion started to pick up pace. My contractor hired the plumbers to come out and move the toilet and shower over in the hall bathroom in order to add a standing shower in the master bathroom.

The bathroom on the left is the master, while on the right is the hall bathroom. The sheet rock was finished today along with new texture to the walls. We will be able to begin painting the bathrooms this week and then tile will go in next weekend.

The kitchen area is also coming along nicely. The garage door has been relocated to the side wall, opening to the dinning/living room instead of opening to the small kitchen. This now gives us space to relocate the frig to where the door used to be and add a peninsula off of that wall to give more counter and cabinet space. Cabinets will hopefully be coming the week after next. We hope to paint the kitchen next week so that we don’t have to paint around the cabinets.

The hallway ceiling was raised to the regular 8 foot height. The ceiling in the hallway had been dropped to accommodate the duct work for the HVAC unit. We have relocated the HVAC to the attic and rerouted the duct work through the entire house.

The electrician has also been at the house adding recessed lighting in the hallway, living room, kitchen, and bathrooms. He also up-dated switches and plugs throughout the house. We will also have to up-date the breaker boxes to the house as well, a not so glamorous expense.

Living room before
Living room now

You can see in the photo on the left the wall between the living and dining room. The wall is now gone and the house has a much bigger, open, and brighter feel to it. The sheet rock needed to be repaired in every room. The crew finished re-texturing the walls and ceiling today. I can’t wait to get in there and start painting!

Mom, daughter, and I worked hard today refinishing the doors to the house. To save a few dollars, we have spray painted the handles black and cleaned up the hinges which will also be sprayed black. We repainted the doors a nice bright white to make everything look fresh and new again.

The house is really coming along and things are looking great! I am excited to start to see paint and tile happen. Then windows and cabinets will be next!

Color Consultant

My wonderful painter, Painting 512, included a free color consultation and today was the day to pick colors. It took us two hours to pick five different colors of paint. I was a little shocked when the consultant said the appointment would be 90 minutes but couldn’t believe it when 2 hours past us by.

I shared with the consultant my vision and ideas for paint colors and my inspiration tile. Here is the tile I found at the Restore for about $0.50 a tile. There are only about 80 tiles, so not enough for a full back splash but enough for two accent rows below some shiplap.

We worked with this tile and the plan for white cabinets to select the back accent wall in the kitchen which will be Iron Ore from Sherwin Williams.

Next we moved to the wall color for the rest of the house. I wanted a soft grey but not something that is being over done. I also want it to run throughout the whole house and be neutral enough to appeal to maybe buyers. So with that criteria we landed on Egret White from Sherwin Williams. Then adding a simple white for the trim and doors in the house, High Reflective White from Sherwin Williams.

For the bathrooms, I had found a paint brochure for the most popular colors and had my eye on this year’s winner, Reflecting Pool from Sherwin Williams.

Next we moved outside to decide on the exterior colors for the house. I am all in favor of painting the brick. It is not in great shape and not very pretty of a color to start, so paint away.

I again was thinking gray and black possibly. I wanted to add in some wood tones but after some time and consultation, I came to realize four colors is too many for the exterior of a house. We were looking at gray, black, and white trim. The windows will be trimmed white so we need to consider that when planning the colors. I really like the Iron Ore, so we brought that outside and will use it for the front door and the trim. I decided on Essential Gray from Sherwin Williams for the house and Alabaster White from Sherwin Williams for the eaves. My color pallets are now complete!

I also hired a cabinet company today, Troo Designs, and I am committed to moving forward with our kitchen design plan to expand the kitchen into the dinning area by adding an eat-at peninsula counter. This rearrangement will cost extra because it requires moving the door out to the garage to the adjacent wall and relocating the refrigerator plug and water line. However, kitchens and bathrooms sell houses, so I am crossing my fingers and taking the plunge that these extra expenses will pay off in the end.

My contractor, Catalyst Construction, is already starting on projects at the house. The crew finished the demo work on the hall bathroom removing the tub and toilet. Things are starting to move along. Let’s keep it rolling!

It’s a numbers game

You are possibly wondering what we paid for the house. Maybe you are wondering what is our reno budget. Or you are wondering how much do you think we can get for the house when we sell it. So here are the numbers so far for this project.

List price: $274,000

Purchase price: $276,960

After closing costs: $285,507

Reno budget: $75,000

Resale price: $380,000

Possible profit: $19,493

The estimate for work on the house is currently over our $75,000 budget. I am working to find ways to trim the reno cost at every turn, but it is going to be a real challenge. We are going to have to cut some things off of our work list. The big projects to be done are to add a shower to the 1/2 bath, rearrange the kitchen to create a peninsula for more counter space, repair the foundation, move the A/C unit into the attic and replace the unit, replace all windows, lay all new flooring, repair the walls throughout the house and in the garage, paint the whole house, replace the back sliding door, and landscape to add curb appeal.

All of these projects seem very necessary, but all of the projects do not fit into our budget. We have looked at comps in the neighborhood and creating two full bathrooms seems like a must. Also moving the A/C into the attic to raise the ceiling in the hall and bathroom also seems like a must. We know kitchens sell but, I am rethinking the need to rearrange the layout. In order to stay within our budget, we may need to keep the layout the same and just update the cabinets, counters, and backsplash.

New windows, flooring, and paint is a must but to help save money we have already pulled up all the flooring ourselves. That saved us around $2,600 in demo labor costs. Another way to save money was to hire a separate window company than my general contractor. I found someone who was just a few hundred dollars cheaper but every little penny counts in this business. I have also hired a separate house painter as well to save some money. We will do the interior painting ourselves and possibly install the flooring ourselves to save money as well.

This weekend I plan to do some shopping around for materials. I will also be purchasing all the materials myself to save money. My contractor could purchase all the materials for me, but this cost would be added to his bill which would increase his total cost. Anything I can do myself will help me not have to pay him to do it. I am very lucky to have found a great general contractor who is willing to work with me on my budget and let me do some of these things on my own. He also has experience flipping houses and has been providing me with very helpful advice along the way.

Finally, I thought after all this money talk I would leave you with some design ideas. Here are two pictures I am using for inspiration for the two bathrooms. Let me know your thoughts.

Demo is done man!

That is it! I can’t scrap any more floors, pull up any more tile, sweep up any more debris. I am done and so is my husband and my mom. We have worked like champions this past week. We were over at the house almost every night after our normal 9 to 5 jobs. Then over there again all day Saturday to finish the demo job. My husband chipped away at the tile and the filler with the jack hammer like a boss! Mom pulled down plastic shower wall liner, chiseled out mortar from the base of the wall, and hauled out trash to the dumpster like Wonder Women! I can’t tell you how many wheelbarrow loads of busted up tile I carted out to the dumpster. It feels like a thousand! Or how many scraps with a heavy duty razor blade I made across the concrete floor to get every spec of glue and filler off of the floor.

I realize HGTV does movie magic and those home owners really do not do the demo work themselves. It is one thing to break apart a cabinet or two, bust a wall with a sledge, it is a whole other thing to clear a whole house that was tiled wall to wall of every spec of tile fragment there is. And honestly, we could not even remove all of the tile in the house. The master bathroom’s sink is busted, we can’t shut the water off below the sink so we can’t remove it at this time or finish removing the tile under the sink. But really, that is okay. I removed enough tile for one house and if I have to pay our contractor to finish removing the last 10 tiles in that bathroom, I can live with that.

We have saved around $2,600 of demo costs by doing the job ourselves. Of course we paid that money and then some in sweat and muscle ache but that is all part of the job. If you are not willing to get dirty, and I mean really dirty, then this is not the endeavor for you.

The house after demo work has been wrapped up. You can see the one bathroom with leftover tile and sink.

This week I will meet with more contractors to continue to collect bids on the work. I am continuing to try to get the cost of the remodel down to a lower price. I am meeting with a plumber, cabinet salesperson, and foundation repair company this week. All of these will be second or third bids for each of these projects. Fingers crossed someone will have good news for us.

My next blog I promise to begin to share costs and budget. You may be wondering now how much did we purchase the house for, how much is our remodeling budget, what other costs have sneaked into the equation. Trust me there has been plenty of extra costs so far and I happy to share that with you in my next post. Stayed tuned!

Demo is underway!

Mom and I started right away on the demo work. We went to the house on Thursday and Friday evening to start the process. Mom jumped right in by removing all the baseboards and switch covers. She then pulled up the laminate flooring that was in the master bedroom. Next we all tackled the wall between the living room and dining room.

Here is the living room before and after we started demo. We have taken down the wall between the rooms to open up the space.

Here are some pictures of the kitchen during the demo work this weekend. The light will also come down and be replaced with recessed lighting in the ceiling.

The bedroom floors have all been removed along with the doors and the closet shelves. Thanks to my mom and my aunt! This is a full family affair.

We finished the weekend with the jack hammer. Luckily a friend of mine is a DIYer and has purchased their own jack hammer as they work to remove all of the tile in their house and put down wood floor. So we borrowed the monstrous tool and set to work destroying the floor. It was slow going at first but we started to finally make some real progress. I will most likely stop by the house again tomorrow evening to continue to pull up all of the wood-looking tile in the dining, living, and hallway areas.

You can see in the picture below that my husband is also a huge help in all of this. Funny enough he is really enjoying the demo work. He says it is satisfying. He is a sweetheart for helping me with my wild hair project!

Oh my dad also stopped by to mow the yard and clean out some of the junk left behind in the backyard. He also helped remove all of the appliances from the kitchen and the sink. We have all of the appliances in the garage while we remodel the kitchen. We also carefully removed some of the cabinets in order to donate them to habitat for humanity resale store. We will try to donate anything we can from the house. The seller left behind extra tile and laminate flooring that we will donate as well.