Clark: Week 7

If you’re new to my weekly progress posts, Clark is my first ever flip house (named for the street that he’s on).  Check out my previous posts here. This week was a bit of a roller coaster.  I worked a lot on the bathroom, so there was a slow build to the high of grouting and completing the floor on Wednesday, then a swift decline yesterday when I decided to try and get the pedestal sink in working, draining order to no avail.  I think it might have a venting issue, but the toilet and shower had no draining issues.  If there IS a clog, my snake/auger wasn't finding it.  Lesson learned: save a day of wasted progress and frustration, call a plumber.

But, the project as a whole is still chugging away.  I feel my giant To Do list is FINALLY getting shorter.

The kitchen now has appliances!  Pretty new stainless steel appliances!

I'm kicking myself a little for not getting a larger cabinet for above the fridge, but I have a plan.  I had some left-over trim that I didn't have installed on the cabinets, so I'll be installing a piece above the fridge to bridge the gap there a bit.

In the interest of showing you the reality of a flip, you can see the disaster that still is the living room.  It's still the junk pile until I can get the kitchen and bathroom major projects under control.

The countertops were supposed to get templated yesterday but the installers got held up at another install, so hopefully I can get them in early next week.  I can't get to the tile backsplash until the countertops are in.

You may have noticed the backsplash options hanging out on the stove in the previous pic.  My color options are Moss(left) or Milk(right).  I actually had been planning the Moss all along and planned the wall color to match (with a simple white trim line between the green tile and the green walls, I thought that would be a great way to have color in the space but not be overwhelming to potential buyers).  The Milk color I think will blend a little too much with the cabinets,  but of course I'm second guessing.  I have 2 boxes of the Moss that I got when the Tile Shop (which just opened by me) was having a 20% off sale.  $4.64/sf + tax for these lovelies is an amazing price!

I think I'm sold on the Moss, but I need backup.  Won't it look amazing once the gray granite countertops are in?  Won't it??

Even though the hallway didn't have any major work done this week, it's still the area closest to being done.  The one thing that the hallway as well as the entire house got this week was updated light switches!  Nice clean white ones to replace all the yellowed dingy 50+ year old ones.  Such a small fix, but it just makes the whole house feel more up-to-date.

To check every box of my To Do list in this area, I just need to paint and reinstall the switchplates.

As you can see, it's also the current home of the bathroom door.  Now that I've installed new tile and a new marble transition at the door, I need to trim down the bottom of the door.  Not a problem, I just need to muster up the energy to drag the door down the basement stairs and into the garage where the magic woodworking is happening.

And speaking of new tile and transition...

Yet another floor in this house I want to pet.  That's not creepy I hope....  Although I paid to get the shower tile done, this floor was all my blood and sweat (literally) and I'm rather proud of it.  First tile job ever and I think it came out pretty darn good!

In my plumbing frustration yesterday, the bathroom wall also got a few more holes.  No, I didn't punch holes because of my frustration, I opened the holes so I could see where the plumbing lines were running and connected in the wall.  Still didn't help.  Luckily, the lower half of the walls is getting wainscoting (next week), so all these unsightly holes will be covered up without having to patch them (huzzah!).

The bathroom also got it's top-half painted this week.  More color? In a flip house?  I'm a rebel like that.  The way I see it, with the white subway tile shower, the black and white floor, and the white wainscoting that's yet to be installed, a little splash of blue in here will feel serene and add a little warmth.

In addition to the kitchen and bath (which were always the rooms that needed the most love and work), the exterior got some attention too.

It has to get worse before it gets better, though.  In the advent of nice weather, the house painter got started on cleaning and pressure washing all the chipping paint.  I still need to finalize the exterior colors, but hopefully the weather cooperates and we can get the house painted very soon!

The other things that got accomplished this week include:

• Getting another roofing quote (now waiting for them to stop by and see if the roof has 1 layer of shingles or 2 currently- its the difference of $ vs. $$)
• Getting a gutter quote (waiting to pull the trigger until I figure out the roof)
• Ordering a new medicine cabinet
• Fixing the wood transition at the bathroom door (it wasn't quite right the last time I did it)
• Set a date for a new driveway!  April 16th, YAY!!!

Next week I'm hoping to pull the trigger on all the big ticket exterior items and get those going.  Slowly, but surely this place is getting done.  I don't want to jinx myself, but it looks we're on target to have Clark back on the market by the end of the month.

Clark: Week 6

If you’re new to this series, Clark is my flip house (named for the street that he’s on).  Check out my previous progress posts here. Yesterday, the skies parted, the sun shone down, birds were chirping, and I did the biggest happy dance that Clark's ever seen.

If you follow me on facebook or instagram, you saw a few teasers of the kitchen cabinets being installed at long last!

Before we start looking at complete kitchen, I need to express how utterly ridiculous this whole process was.  This saga's not short, so bear with me.

I purchased the cabinets on March 1st.  March 1st!  Yesterday was march 28th!  That was my first mistake, I guess- IKEA was having a kitchen sale.  I didn't get the discounts, though, because the total wasn't high enough, so I just had to deal with the hoards of other people trying to get kitchens installed as well.  I know IKEA cabinets are designed to be able to be installed yourself, but in the interest of time, getting them installed was the way to go (or so I thought).  The install problems happened as soon as I bought the cabinets: IKEA wasn't able to schedule it in their computer due to some glitch, so I had to call the installer directly.  Ugh.  After almost a week, I talked to the local installer, Frank.  Oh Frank, you are not my friend.  Frank was infuriating.  All I wanted to know is WHEN you could install my kitchen.  If I had been told 3 weeks ago that it would take 3 weeks, I would have looked elsewhere for install- BUT he wouldn't tell me WHEN!  Instead I had to call him almost daily (since he wouldn't ever call back when he promised).  First he told me last week, Thurs & Fri, then this week Thurs & Fri, and then when I called to confirm each time, I got pushed back.  Luckily I had found another company and received a quote the first time my install got pushed back.  When I talked to Frank on Tuesday and was told I had gotten pushed to Monday (supposedly) and that was the absolute last straw.  I called the other company (Kitchen Works Installations in Brookline MA) they came to the rescue!  They were able to come and install my kitchen with only a day's notice and in half the time they quoted!!  AND for the same $ as IKEA's installers with a fraction of the headache.  I'm a little excited.  I have nothing but good things to say about them, so THANKS!!!  I would recommend them to anyone.  AND as a bonus, I got to call and "break up" with Frank.  I was very courteous, but it was so satisfactory.  So if you're thinking of getting an IKEA kitchen installed in the Boston area, save yourself the time and don't go through IKEA.

But now Clark has an amazing kitchen!!! (in my humble opinion)

Appliances are coming Monday, the countertops are going to be templated hopefully in the next few days and the backsplash tile has been ordered!  It's about time!!!

I scrambled to get the walls painted before the cabinets went up, but I love the color- a very light minty green.  I know this is a flip house and the colors need to be neutral, but it can't be sterile.  The mint will blend very nicely with the light green penny tiles (ordered for 20% off- woot!).  I bought out all the knobs at the Lowe's by Clark, so I need to stop by another to get the last 6.

Somehow, checking this one (albeit large) thing off my to-do list makes the whole house seem more complete.

While the guys were in the kitchen working their magic yesterday, I locked myself in the bathroom and got to work.  The ceiling got painted (2 coats)

and I cut and started laying down the backerboard to prep for the floor tile.  I have one more large piece to adhere down (it's in the pic, just not attached to the floor) before I can get tiling.

The toilet and sink are now hanging out on plastic in the living room.  I think this is an up and coming design trend- plumbing fixtures as art.  Don't you think?  The sink will be reused and the toilet replaced and donated, but this is motivation to move fast on the floors- driving to Dunkin's every time nature calls will get old real fast.

Aside from the leaps and bounds in the kitchen this week and the prep in the bathroom, I also got around to finishing some areas of the hardwood floors.

I laid floor in the closets,

installed quarter-round to hide the expansion gap,

and finished the transitions into the bedrooms.

Other things I got to check off my list this week include:

• hiring a house painter (yay!)
• installing a closet bar into the kitchen closet (since we eliminated the coat closet in the living room to expand the kitchen)
• painting the kitchen closet
• repairing the wall board in the bathroom at the tile corner
• dry-fit the bathroom floor tile to start planning out the install
• having the plumber repair a leaking pipe and faulty venting in the bathroom (the tub drain shouldn't gurgle every time you flush the toilet)

There are many other things in the works, too.  I've been seeing this project come together in my head for so long, it's so nice to start seeing it REALLY come together in reality!

Clark: Week 5

If you're new to this series, Clark is my flip house (named for the street that he's on).  Check out my previous progress posts here.

 

I'll admit, I started this week a little discouraged.  I was making progress, but not the big strides I was hoping to.  Plus more snow here in Massachusetts just made me want to retreat to my couch and hibernate.  Luckily, I re-found my groove yesterday and got to check several things off my extensive To Do List. I did a lot of prep work this week to ready the kitchen for cabinets.  I had high hopes of them getting installed at the end of this week, but IKEA's kitchen installers had other ideas.  I know I can install an IKEA kitchen, but in the interest of time, I'm hiring installers- or at least trying!  I purchased the kitchen March 1 and have been going back and forth and not having my calls returned or being told they'll call me later and maybe hearing from them 3 days later- this has been going on for THREE weeks!  They've finally "put me on the schedule" for next Thursday and Friday, but I'll believe it when I see it.  I'm also shopping around to see who else can install, this is getting ridiculous.  Ok, end rant.

Progress!!!!

This week, a lot of little things happened in the kitchen:

• ceiling has been painted (2.5 coats)
• all trim got painted (2 coats)
• electrical was updated and brought to code.  Now there's even power for the fridge, dishwasher, and new vent hood!  The old vent hole got patched.
• the basement door got trimmed down so it fits with the new floors
• the heating cover also got trimmed down to accommodate the new floors & the whole shebang got painted
• Did you notice the new light?

The new ceiling light in the kitchen (which you may recognize, since it's also in my own living room) will go PERFECTLY with the $5 ReStore fixture that I got.  The ReStore fixture got a few coats of oil rubbed bronze spray paint and a new chain and looks like a million bucks (in my humble opinion).

The heating cover face was a challenge.  I had to use a jigsaw with a metal blade to trim down the bottom- the body of the heating cover is fixed and I floored around it, but that meant that the face sat 3/4" too high when I tried to put it back on.  Once I cut it down, I filed the sharp edges and painted the beast to match the trim.

Why, yes, there is a To Do list on the wall.  Last week I was the crazy person that taped out the kitchen cabinet layout, this week I'm the crazy person that taped a To Do list in each room to help me keep tabs on what needs to happen in each space.

Plus, it would be a lie if I said I didn't get tremendous satisfaction every time I got to put a check mark in one of those boxes.

The hallway also got a lot of love this week since it's open to the kitchen.

I finally decided to work on the floor transitions that I had been putting off.  The 3 bedrooms have nearly complete transitions, so half the hall is starting to look finished!  The other half is on today's agenda.

This picture of the hall is my favorite so far.  I know it's not that exciting, but it shows the most progress!!!  It shows the newly painted ceiling and trim, the new hall light, a FINALLY working doorbell, AND a newly painted linen closet.  The closet painting was just SO satisfying because of where it started.  If "dingy" was a color, that's what the closet was.  Now it's a bright clean white.

I'm really pleased with the light too.  It was a whopping $11 at Lowes and has the vintage flare that this house needs.  (Please disregard  the halo around the light in my instagram pic- I've since touched up the ceiling and it's looking pretty)

The bathroom is the next target.

Since I'm hoping to be working on the floor tile when the kitchen is getting installed next week, I had some bathroom prep work to do.  The wall at the corner guard is in the process of getting patched and the ceiling has been scraped, sanded and patched.  Next week I can get a fresh start and paint the ceiling and even the walls before I start tiling the floor.

Other accomplishments this week include:

• updating all the outlets throughout the house to be grounded (yay!)
• gluing the bathroom door where it was split down the side
• picking out backsplash tile
• picking up 1 more cabinet at IKEA because I modified my original plan by getting a smaller fridge

I can't help but think I'm forgetting something that got done this week, but really, the ceiling and trim painting were the biggies.  I spent most of my week with paint all over my hands because that's what I do apparently.

Hubby and I keep hearing about how HOT the spring real estate market is going to be, so we're getting excited to get this guy back on the market!  Only a few more projects before we can list.  Just a few.