Flipping Out

New week, new fliphouse apparently.  We closed on Millie on Friday and are closing on selling Grover tomorrow.  That means today I have a day chock full of finishing last touch-ups at Grover, supervising movers as they transfer all the staging furniture over to Millie, and then ripping up an attic floor at Millie so my electrician can re-wire the whole shebang.  Oh what a glamorous life I lead.  Fingers crossed I don't find too many dead things under the attic floor (or living things for that matter). Shifting topics, only slightly... 10 points to anyone who noticed what changed last week over in my menu bar on the left!  (Rss/e-mail readers, click on by the site to check it out)  That's right, there's a new clickable page titled "Flipping."  Last week if you clicked on it, though, you were just told "Coming soon."  Today?

There's now a page for you to check out all my current and past flip houses and click through to see the pretty cool transformations they all went through.  I'd also love to hear from you if there's another way I can make this 'flip index' better.  Project lists/sources per house? Less talky, more pictures?  Let me know!!

In other flip news, I know you are just dying to know more about Millie (amIright?), so let me assure you that I won't make you wait too much longer.  Because the house is so big (in comparison to the other flips) and has wonderful details at every turn, I'll be splitting it into 2 posts.  You'll get a rare Thursday post in addition to my regular Friday post so I can show you as much of the amazingness as possible including all 3 living areas.  THREE!  I barely have one in my own house!  I can't wait to show you the built-inS either.  Yup, plural...there are so many I've lost track... I remember 6 off the top of my head, but there could be more that I'm forgetting.

It'll be a busy week both flipping and here on the blog, so stay tuned for some pretty neat stuff!

Craftsman Curb Appeal Plans

After flipping 3 1000sf mid-century cookie cutter ranches, today, we close on "Millie"

As you can see, Millie is NOT a tiny mid-century ranch.  Instead, Millie is a Craftsman bungalow built in 1902 and is 2.5 times the size of the ranches I've grown so accustomed to flipping.  I just want to spill every last detail about this house, but I'll give you the full tour next week once she's 100% officially ours.  Planning, however, has already begun!

Painting the exterior will be not only necessary, but it will also be the most important factor in adding curb appeal (ok, that and taming the jungle).  This baby needs some contrast!  The house is a sea of gray- even when the sun's out it looks like a cloudy day.  I may keep the base color as a gray (or maybe a gray-green or gray-blue), but alllll that trim is going white along with the porch columns. Here are some of my inspirations:

**as always, please pin responsibly and from the original sources**

The blue plastic shutters also aren't cutting it.  I'm thinking painted or stained wood stutters- wouldn't they look lovely??

I can't wait to dig in and make this house pretty again!!

Craftsman houses 1/2/3

Wood shutters 1/Julie Blanner

Craigslist Treasure Hunting Again

Please accept my apologies for the lack of DIYs this week.  Right now I'm enjoying the calm before the storm.  We close on the newest flip house, "Millie" on Friday and while I'm very excited to be taking on an antique house, I'm kinda scared sh*tless at the same time. I have a feeling I'll be spending quite a bit of time on Craigslist trying to find appropriate pieces for a period craftsman bungalow, but for now, let's just look at a few pretty things currently listed for sale.

How pretty is this little vanity set for $90?  If it wouldn't completely clash in my bedroom, I would seriously consider taking it home.  Don't worry, though, Hubby- it won't fit in with the rest of the furniture so you're safe this time.

I also may or may not have resold the dresser that I bought intending for my future niece.  It was a lovely buffet/dresser, but when I started thinking about a toddler trying to open/close those gigantic drawers that didn't have any kind of track, I decided to go back to the drawing board.  My current thought is this:

Just picture it with the weird handle recesses filled in, painted, and with proper knobs.  It has tons of potential at $100.

Although, if I decided not to do the refinishing myself, this dresser is pretty stunning already, just a bit more than I was hoping to spend on a dresser for said soon-to-be niece at $350:

Returning back to potential beauties at $100.  I'm not enamored with it when the doors are closed...

...but if you removed the doors and left the open shelving on top, I'm pretty charmed by it.

And for some reason I'm always drawn to old banker chairs, library chairs, etc.  Rarely do you find one that looks this nice for $20.  Luckily for my already overstuffed basement, I'm on a self-proclaimed chair buying hiatus.

I'll leave you with one parting bit of eye candy.  WAY WAY WAY above what I would ever spend in reality, but in my dreams, I'll totally be spending the $2395 for this restored antique pulley chandelier.  Would you like to dream with me?

It's easy to be overwhelmed when perusing Craigslist, but if you know what you're looking for, the gems are there.  Happy thrifting!