Dori the Flip House: week 9

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses.  My latest flip house, Dori sports the 3 L’s in real estate, but will need more than a bit of creativity to make the house sellable. You can find more about this house and about my 4 previous flip houses here. I really do wish I had it in the budget to hire my painter, but alas, I don't.  Which means that I spent the better part of my week suited up, trying not to glob up the walls with too much primer as I took my first leap into using an airless paint sprayer.

In order to save myself several thousand dollars on a painter and weeks of time rolling endlessly, I picked up this sprayer from Harbor Freight (on sale and with a coupon naturally).

And in a matter of a few days, every wall and ceiling in the house got primed, and all the ceilings got 2 coats of ceiling paint, and I'm very glad to be done spraying above my head.  Well, every room except the bathroom.  I didn't spray anything in there since I didn't want to risk overspraying onto the new tile and the tub.  For the first time in one of my flips, I didn't use my standard subway tile.  I won't claim responsibility for this work, though, the only tiling I plan to do in this house is the backsplash- everything else the contractors will handle.

Another exciting thing that happened this week is this pile of boxes- you should know what this means by now....

Kitchen!!! AND my contractors are over at Dori as I type this installing it!  I'm still too much of a control freak to just let it autopilot, so I'll be over there shortly to monitor progress.

In addition, a few less exciting for you to look at things that are rather exciting progress-wise for me:

All the windows and the new slider got trim, and I finally sold the old stove on craigslist!  The room looks exponentially bigger without it.

and my electrician got back to work wiring things up so they'll soon work.  Look!  There's even a few light switches!  Who cares if they don't work yet, this to me is a sign that the end is near!

Today, the kitchen cabinets go in, the bathroom floor is getting tiled, and hopefully in the next few days, the interior doors will finally be available for my contractor to pick up and install.  This house may actually have some hope of being finished in the next few weeks!!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Crash! A NEW Era

It's been quite a while since I posted a "Crash!" feature- almost a year actually!  Let's not do that again.  This time, I was a house crash-er at my parent's new (ish) house. About 3 years ago, I shared a mini home tour (which was looking back was mostly vignettes) with you just before my parents moved out of the home I grew up in.

For some silly reason, they wanted to live closer to their children and grandchildren.  So they sorted through 30 years of living in one home, held a huge tag sale, packed up the rest, and moved about 2 hours away.

Flashing to the present, Mom is just about as addicted to blogs as I am.  She decided to take the new house as an opportunity to reinvent her style, and reinvent she did!  She used to gravitate toward antique and Americana and now, while the antiques are still present, the home has a fresh, airy feel.

I am definitely a product of both my parents.  Example: the white bookcase above.  The base of the bookcase showed up in the last tour, but looking a bit differently:

My dad built the hutch top/bookshelf and my mom refinished and painted the whole thing.  I kind of love it.  Like the true librarian she is, Mom uses stacked books throughout the house to tell a story with the titles. Notice: Homes, Not so Big House, Living in New England, and House of Dreams

Mom's most recent furniture refinishing project shows up in the dining room.  The antique table that I grew up abusing using, got a fresh coat of paint on the base with some light distressing.  It looks like it was meant to be this way all along!

Mr. Fiddle Leaf Fig there is the sibling to my dying IKEA one.  Clearly Mom's doing something right because he's more than doubled in height!

Mom's styling stamp is all throughout the house (with Dad's approval of course), but his styling is evident on his dresser: vintage toy car, cut book "P" that he and Mom made a la Anthro, and a vintage cast iron mailbox bank.  Mom might have had her hand in the pile of books, though.  I believe one of the books is titled Man of my Dreams.  How delightfully cheesy are they?? (xoxo)

Even the outside has their touches all over it.  A pop of color door with new, beefier trim around it, neutral shutter, a bountiful garden and a sweet house number sign off etsy (if my mind serves me right).

While they had 30 years to personalize their last home, I think my parents have done quite nicely in the relatively short amount of time they've been in this house- isn't it beautiful??

If you live in the central MA or Boston area and want to see your home Crash!ed on the blog, e-mail me (karen@yearofserendipity.com) a few pics and a bit of the story of your home.  I'd love to make this a regular feature! 

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Dori the Flip House: week 8

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses.  My latest flip house, Dori sports the 3 L’s in real estate, but will need more than a bit of creativity to make the house sellable. You can find more about this house and about my 4 previous flip houses here. I feel like a broken record here: this week, while stuff happened, it's not very drastic, BUT next week will be spectacular!!!

This week:

all the new drywall got taped, mudded, and sanded.  She's all ready for paint!!

Outside got sexified with a new patio

only a few notches better than the old patio..... I had honestly blocked from my mind how horrific it was

and lots of grass got planted

AND is already starting to grow!

My main job this week was to make sure to keep the grass seed damp and to stay out of the way of the drywallers.  Gave me a good opportunity to focus on some design clients and get started on wedding planning for my sister in law!

Like I mentioned already, next week will be BIG.  You'll start seeing trim, paint, tile, and all the things that will start to make this look like a livable house once again.  I hope you're as excited as I am!!

Happy Weekend!