Flip house #5 is complete! This is our fifth time doing this and we are still learning so much. If you aren’t learning, you aren’t growing, right?! Not only did we learn about new projects and things like that, but we found out how to navigate a flip during a global pandemic. PHEW! What an experience! It was a journey for sure, but one we wouldn’t trade for a minute. As with every flip, I want to share the final photos of flip house #5 and talk about what we did and what we learned along the way.
To see the house on the day we bought it, head to the post HERE.
I should give a little back story to what this flip adventure looked like from the beginning. As soon as we bought the house, our long-time renter moved out of our duplex and we had to completely make over his unit. We thought we would have a couple of weeks to get that done before we closed on the flip house, but we decided to close early on the flip because we could save the seller some money.
It all worked out, but having two places to work on, while still working full time jobs (sharing the same office space and computer at times), navigating a global pandemic, homeschooling kids and trying to buy supplies for said projects with everything the way it was, proved to be a little stressful at times. I was trying to find positives the entire time and they started to show up. School was being done at home so I wasn’t having to stop to take or pick up kids during the day. All of their sports were cancelled, so that freed up a lot of time. Matt was working from home on some days, so he was able to be here and handle to kids school is they needed something (especially in math and science 🙂 ).
I think the biggest positive was that we did have so many projects going on so our minds were focused on those and not everything else going on.
It was good to be focused on the projects and not COVID-19. I am someone who stays busy in stressful times. I get my best cleaning done when I am stressed out or can’t control a situation. For me, I couldn’t have asked for a better time to be knee-deep in projects. There were many adjustments we had to make throughout the projects that looked different than we knew, but I now can look back on it and be thankful for it.
We bought the house from a guy who didn’t want to own a home anymore.
He is moving to Florida this summer and really didn’t want the responsibility of owning a home. He did do some great things to the house, but there were some work he left undone and just the overall cleaning and feel of the house needed some love. That is exactly how we like to buy them. We want a house with good bones that we can come in breathe new life into.
The pandemic made working with contractors a little different. Some of them weren’t doing any house calls and some would come in if no one was in the house. Some were so busy, they couldn’t get us scheduled and others weren’t taking any new jobs at all. That was a little difficult to manage, but again, it all worked out in the end. We totally understood all angles and just needed to figure out how to navigate this new way of getting work done while keeping everyone safe.
As soon as we bought the flip, we knew that we weren’t going to be able to give it our full attention until we finished the duplex. So, we spent all of our time on the duplex work for the first couple of weeks of owning the flip. That bothered me because I wanted to start on it right away, so I figured why not get the floor guy in the house to get all the floors done while we work on the duplex. That worked out amazing!
We went in a tore up all the carpet and the tack strips in the living room so the floor guy to start working.
Getting the floors redone is a process that takes some time. We were getting almost all the floors done on the main level, so we knew it might take even longer. It made me feel great knowing that something was getting done at the flip while we had to focus on the duplex.
This was another project that we had to clean out before we could really work on it. The seller left a lot of things in the house. We did order a dumpster for the garbage and had the junk guys come twice for a couple of other loads, but we were able to put a lot of it on the curb for free because it was things that people could use.
Once the duplex was done, we were ready to focus on the flip. The first order of business was to clean and paint. We started painting in the basement because the floors weren’t finished. We were able to get all the painting done in the basement while the floors were being finished. Once the floors were done, I hired someone to come in and clean the kitchen, including the cabinets. Once that was done, we hit the ground running upstairs.
The amount of natural light this house gets is my favorite thing about it.
I had no idea it had all the natural light when we first bought it. The dark walls, dingy carpet and heavy furniture sucked up all the light.
After we got the floors done, the house looked so much better. I removed the wallpaper in the living room and we started painting everything. A fresh coat of paint works wonders!!!
We gave the fireplace and mantel a good cleaning and a makeover. It made it a much better focal point in the front living room.
The arches are another favorite feature of mine.
The purple bedroom has come a long way. The floors in this room were the worst in the house.
They turned out great.
We painted, added trim around the window and hung the new door.
The second bedroom was finished when we bought the house, so we just cleaned it up a bit and closed the door while we worked on the rest of the house.
Just like with every flip we have done, paint was the main character in the work.
This house hadn’t been painted in years and really needed a fresh coat to liven it up.
I was also able to add some great lights I scored at Restore to a couple of areas in the house. I love these light fixtures! We have added one to our house and I am hoping to add a few more.
The bathroom was partially done when we bought the house. We had some work to get done in here, but the biggest difference was when we got it cleaned! I don’t think this bathroom has ever had a really good cleaning. It looked so good after she got it done.
The dining room floors were done as well. The floor guy wanted the house to flow really well and the best way to make sure that happened was if we did all the floors at the same time. The floors looked good in the dining room when we bought the house, but they wouldn’t match perfectly when he got the other floors done, so we decided to get that floor done too.
The dining room was originally a bedroom when it was built. I like to flow it gives to the house now that it is a dining space.
The back family room is amazing! It is a great size and again, lets in a lot of natural light with the windows and the patio door.
The one thing we learned in this space is about the carpet. If you have good carpet in a room, try getting it cleaned before ripping it all out. The carpet in this room is great carpet, but it hadn’t ever been cleaned. We had a local carpet cleaning company come in and see what they could do before we ripped it all out and got new. The cleaning was all it needed! It looked great afterwards. We also painted three of the walls in this room to brighten it up some.
I am so happy with the way the kitchen floor came out! They are the original wood, parquet floors and the flooring guy thought he could bring them back to life. You should check the before photos to see how dark and dingy they were when we bought the house. The look amazing now. I didn’t want to lay a different flooring in the kitchen with all the wood floors in the surrounding rooms, so I am glad this worked out.
The kids really got to do a lot more work in this flip house. They are learning so much throughout each project and they each wanted to do more things in this one. They helped paint the cabinets in the kitchen and put the hardware back on. At one point, they told me to go work on something else while they worked in the kitchen. 🙂
Matt and I really want our kids to be a part of each flip house.
They are learning so much and we know these skills will help them in many different areas throughout their lives. We want them to have a hands-on experience in each flip and learn about every step of the process.
After the floors got done in the kitchen, it was basically paint, new countertops and a window to make it fresh and happy again.
The basement got new paint and carpet. Again, paint and flooring can make a house look totally different.
The amount of storage in this house is dreamy to me. There are closets, rooms and storage areas that I would love to have in our house.
This view in the basement is one of my favorites.
This basement has come a long way. You just had to see past the dungy look and feel to see the potential. It is now a great space for so many things.
The little room in the basement has so much potential. I would turn it into a creative space for kids. It would make a great storage room as well.
The basement bathroom was one of the bigger projects. Our only goal was to keep a toilet and sink in the lower level. It didn’t need to be huge or make a big statement, it just needed to be functional.
It serves the purpose, but it turned out cute too!
Flip house #5 is our favorite house we have done so far. The layout, the neighborhood and the makeover will be hard to beat. We tried to talk my parents into moving into it. They live in a house with a lot of stairs now and the one level floor plan would be better for them. The layout of the house would be exactly what they need too. We even talked about getting the washer and dryer hooked up in the main level for them if we could. They thought about it for a minute, but wanted to stay in their house.
Just like every flip, we learned a lot through this project:
- You can still flip a house during a global pandemic, but things will look different. You will be ordering a lot of supplies online and having to wait a bit longer for things to get done.
- Having two house projects going on at the same time will be stressful, but doable.
- Wait until the project is completely done to show it and hold an “open house” to anyone who has contacted us (prior to making it public) at the same time.
- Finding great people to work with is gold.
- So many people want to see the entire process and it is so much fun to share it as we learn along the way. I may be doing something different when we find our next project.
- I learned a lot more about timing and scheduling things because of the pandemic. Things that we thought would take a day or an afternoon, took a lot longer because we had to wait on supplies to get delivered.
- Matt and I still love the process.
To see the full video tour of the house finished, head to my YouTube channel HERE.
Thanks for coming on this journey with us and taking a look at the final photos of flip house #5. She is a special one and we are so proud of how it turned out.
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I am most excited about the whole learning process, for you and the kids. Great article!
Me too!