Flipping Houses-A Happy Ending

I'm going to try to finish up my Flipping Houses saga.

 Click here if you missed the Part 1 and Part 2.

Thanks for staying with me thus far...

This is the Office "Before".  

The office was located right off of the great room. 

 There were french doors leading into the room.  

It was kind of an odd placement but a good sized room.  Again, we have dated paint,

 too much furniture and worn carpet.

A fresh coat of paint and new carpet worked well to bring it up to snuff.  I painted the walls a neutral color and added a pop of green on the back wall.  I don't normally do this when staging a home but I thought that in this case it added a more modern flavor to the overall color palette.  I also thought that painting all of the walls green would be too much.

 As you walk upstairs you land in this huge loft area.  The previous owners had it set up as a computer/homework area.  It really was a nice space that overlooks the Great Room below.  

We painted the space SW Latte and added minimal furniture to show how the room might be used.  I placed a rug in the middle of the area because without it it just became a sea of tan.  You have to remember that most folks today look on the Internet before they ever go out looking with Realtor. 

 Boring doesn't sell.  

 I think I was still in the arranging stage when I snapped these photos.  Now that I see these photos after a few years I have to laugh.  I remember now that we were just getting ready to list the house and I ran around taking pictures to see how all of the rooms looked. 

Cameras don't lie!!!  

There were four bedrooms upstairs.  Two "girly" bedrooms with a Jack and Jill bath, a boys bedroom with his own bath and the Master Suite. 

This is one of the girl's rooms.  The wallpaper border looks innocent enough but let me tell you it took THREE of us most of a day to take off that nightmare.  We deemed this room the "Olympic" room because the wallpaper had girls playing sports and gymnastics.  We like to name things in our family.  

We painted the walls SW Ivoire and freshened up the trim with Basic White.  New carpet and neutral bedding.  You can see where my dogs would jump on each bed as I went from room to room taking pictures.  I would shoo them off long enough to snap the photo.  

 The other girl's room we deemed....What else but the Balloon Room.  Shockingly pink and cluttered.  

This is actually not a twin bed but bed frame with two box springs on it.  Sometimes you have to improvise in Staging.  When we had to move out of our house they brought over a "house" kit with enough furniture for all of us to survive.  That is where the end table and funky lamp came from.  I tried not to bring my whole house over knowing that we would eventually be moving back into it.  And a lot of the stuff was either ruined or hard to get to because of the construction.  And again you see the puppy imprint!  

 This is the Jack and Jill bath.  They had taped off rectangles and painted them pink and purple.  OK, just paint over it right?  Heck NO!!! Every one of those lines showed thru because of the paint build up.  We had to sand it down to the drywall almost.  My son and I worked hard in this room.  Actually, EVERY one of my kids worked their tails off!  Every weekend was spent working and no one ever complained.  My middle son would come home from college on the weekends and bring his friends just to help.  People were afraid to come over because as soon as you walked in I handed you a paint brush...

We replaced the faucets, painted and tiled the bathroom floor. And although you can't see it in this picture as we hadn't put them on yet, we replaced the hardware too.

This is the same tile that we put on the fireplace surround.  We got a great deal for $10.00 a box.  

The Boy's room was Dark Blue and Gold.  

Really Gold!  

Three coats of primer before we could paint the walls SW Biscuit.  My sis drove down from Minnesota to help me paint this room one weekend.  I'm not kidding when I say it was a family affair!  I like to use white bedding when I can for Staging.  It seems really calming and you can add accents like I did here.  

 Bathroom Before.

And After

The Master Suite Before.  

There was a nice sitting area with a fireplace and a spot to put your TV.  

And After.

  We painted SW Hopsack and used the same color below and above the molding in the reading nook.  

The tile was nice and with just the one large chair you could imagine the potential.  

It hard to see here but this was the bathtub in this alcove.  They had painted a dark hunter green.  More primer on the horizon.  What you don't see (and neither did we) is a stained glass applique behind the blinds.  It took me three weeks of living there to notice it.  It was horrendous!    I had to use a hairdryer and a razor blade knife to get it off.  

 It was a large bathroom.  Just dated with old brass light fixtures and hardware.  

Much better!  It doesn't take much to bring things into this decade.  

And Last but not least, the backyard deck.  Don't forget you have to stage the outside too!  This deck needed repair but we decided to leave it as is and negotiate on the price if needed.

But the trick is not to invite scrutiny.

  When you look at the deck now you wouldn't suspect that it was neglected.  

So, to sum it up, we took a house that had been neglected and "lived in" and got it ready for sale by 

• Painting EVERY room
• Replacing the carpet throughout the home
• refinishing the hardwood floors and staining them darker
• Retiling the Fireplace
• adding granite countertops
• replacing the faucet and sink in the kitchen
• Tiling the kitchen backsplash
• Staining the kitchen cupboards darker (my painters did me a huge favor here)
• replacing the stove and dishwasher
• Replacing ALL of the lighting fixtures with updated ones
• replacing the faucets in the upstairs kids bathrooms
• New front door hardware

Repairs that HAD to be made:

• Replacing a large window in the Great Room
•  Work on the Furnace/AC (they had never serviced it)
• stretching the basement carpet

 We did all of that work for less than $20,000.  When you think about the Big Ticket items like Granite, carpet and resanding the floors, that's not bad.  

Here is the GOOD news. 

 We Sold the house on the FIRST day 

it was Listed!!!!!!!!

And it sold for more than any house in that area had sold for in the past year!!!!!  We actually MADE money if you can believe it.  It was the best feeling to have all of that lifted off of our shoulders and to look back and see the hard work that we had done.  We sold it just in time to move back into our house.  A very happy ending!  Would I flip a house again?  You betcha!  It's what I love to do!  Although Mr. Beaux is not as enthusiastic as I am on the subject.  Don't worry he'll see it my way soon. *wink*  

Thanks for accompanying me down memory lane...

Until Next Time,

Beaux R'eves

XO Cindy

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