Property #1 – Rehab Update 2
It’s been a little while since we posted an update but life has been BUSY. Over the last month or so, besides juggling this rehab and working our full-time jobs, we also went on a week-long vacation with The Troops family, I traveled to North Carolina for business, did some wedding planning, and I came down with a stomach bug that lasted way longer than it should. All the while trying to enjoy the summer with our friends and family. Remind us not to close on a property in the beginning of the summer. It ruins any chance of fun!
We started out pretty strong with the rehab. We were checking off boxes everyday but then we went through a slump where we felt like nothing was getting done. But things have picked up and even while writing this post, I can see we’re making more process than we thought.
So weeks 5 through 9, where we at?
Project Status
The
The original plan for this room was to remove the large closet, throw a new floor on top of the existing linoleum, fix the window and paint. Of course a “quick fix” never turns out to be that easy.
Taking down the closet was quick. But the ceiling where the closet had been wasn’t the same ceiling tiles as the rest of the room. So we went and bought matching ceiling tiles to replace. Of course the existing tiles in the rest of the room have been faded by the sun and so our new ceiling tiles didn’t match.
When I asked if we could just paint them, The Troop and his father laughed. So down came ALL of the ceiling tiles and up went new sheet rock.
Demo’d Sun Room
The pocket door didn’t roll as smoothly as it should so to fix it, we had to open up the wall in which it was held. I painted it a shade of green and we reinstalled it back in. We were able to use the existing hardware but had to saw down some of the wall joists to prevent the door from rubbing. With a little bit of WD40, we had a functioning pocket door. We are so excited about this!
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By opening up that wall, we had to pull up some of the flooring. There went the idea of laying new flooring over the existing floor. And of course once the old flooring was up, the sub floor was uneven and not in the best condition. So we laid a new sub floor.
We went back and forth when deciding what type of flooring to do. Laminate planks, vinyl tiles, ceramic tiles? We ended up choosing durable sheet vinyl from The Home Depot. Neither of us had installed sheet vinyl before but with some reassurance from a Home Depot rep., we decided to give it a go. The floor went down really easily and looked great. We highly recommend.
The Living Room
After taking out the old radiators, we noticed the hardwood floor didn’t extend beneath them. Instead of trying to install matching flooring, we used tongue and groove pine to encase the opening. We think this cleans up the built ins and was an easier solution. We will be painting the wood white to match.
The only other big change in this room is getting rid of that ugly hardwood wall. Still confused by why someone would lay flooring on the wall but that seems to be the trend with this house. We sheet rocked right over the wall and it’s ready for paint.
Dining Room
We ran into the same problem in the Dining room as we did in the living room with the radiator opening. So we installed the same wood to cover the opening and will paint white to match when ready.
Kitchen
We have appliances! That’s really all that’s going on with the kitchen right now as it’s currently being used to store tools.
Bathroom
This is where most of the work has been put in.
We ran new plumbing, roughed in the electric, framed out a recessed shelf for the bath, installed new installation and it’s all ready to be sheet rocked after we have the electric inspected today.
While it’s fun to demo spaces, it gets a little deflating when weeks go by and you can’t visually see a lot of change. So we’re excited that we’re finally at the “putting things back together” phase. Here are the tiles we picked out. I can’t wait to see this bathroom come back to life.
Bedrooms
No real changes with the bedrooms except we removed the wall AC unit. We had to enclose the opening, install new exterior siding and put up paneling to match the wall. The wall will be painted and you’ll never know the difference.
Exterior
We finished painting! This has been the most fun to see come together as it made a HUGE difference in the curb appeal of the house. We added new light fixtures, mailboxes and will eventually get around to repainting the front doors. We also had The Gutter Guys come out and install all new gutters with gutter guards.
Front Porch
We ripped off the old carpeting and had the concrete re-coated for a little face lift. This made a huge difference so we carried it down through the front steps as well.
On the docket for next week
- We’re still not complete with the HVAC installation but its scheduled to be finished by this weekend
- We ordered new custom replacements for a few windows. Those will be installed this weekend.
- Sheet rocking, tiling and installing fixtures in unit 1 bathroom
- Starting demo on unit 2
- Assembling kitchen cabinets for unit 2
The rehab is definitely taking longer than I expected. But I’m assuming it’s a “first timers” mistake. Since it’s an older home, we just keep running into small additional projects. The sun room for example. We only wanted to replace the floor and paint the walls and next thing we know, the whole room is gutted. It’s been a great learning experience and we’re exciting to see it all come together!
