Flip House

Shortly after the flood, we purchased a property near our home. Actually, the back yard of this house runs up against the back of ours. The owners received a settlement and wanted out of the house. It was an opportunity that we couldn't pass up. So, as if we didn't have enough to do with our own home, we are now also working on what we call the "flip house". It is a cute little house, or at least it will be. At about 1200 square feet and three bedrooms when completed, it will be a nice home. We gutted the whole thing. The first few pictures are of what it looked like when we bought it.

Original front of the house.

The first picture is looking from the front entrance to the rear entrance. Second is the gutted kitchen. Third picture is the living room, complete with faux brick, love it!

Brad looking out from the living room. And the rear of the house.

Brad says the house was cobbled up worse than ours was. He has spent and incredible amount of time just trying to get the floors in, replacing floor joists, gutting the house, reinforcing all the floors and redoing what was previously done so poorly. Now that most of the floors are in, he has started framing up the house. We completely redesigned the floor plan to make it more open, moving the stairs, rearranging the bedrooms and opening up the kitchen, dining and living room areas.

While we have been working on this house, we have been looking for things for our new home as well and we have come across some great deals for this house. Basically, we are working on a very small budget so everything that we can do to help with that, we are doing.

Brad has a knack for finding these awesome deals. Our favorite store is the Lowe's in Ames. I have made some trips there just to get things for this house and ours. I never knew I would get so excited about bathroom fixtures.

Choosing to do this house means that we will be able to have the house that we want for ourselves. All the profit will roll into the other house when we sell this house. At times it seems like this might not have been the best idea, after all, Brad spends most nights over there and the whole weekend. This leaves me as a single parent most of the times and I know it's not going to get better anytime soon. I wish I could help with the house more, but having all these kiddos running around is a full time job!

(I wrote the previous in February but never posted. This is where we are at now.)

This is the house before we were finished with the garage doors or the siding. No landscaping yet either.

Finally, all the outside is done, even the lighting and landscaping. The mound of dirt has been moved into the garage to fill up that spot in the basement. Need to take a new pic to post that shows the difference.

From the backyard. We actually changed the porches to match and fenced in the backyard. More pics to come on that one too. Side view on the right.

So, where are we at now? We passed our first electric inspection so that part is all done now. We are getting ready to start the plumbing and then by late next week or shortly thereafter we should be onto the drywall. From there, I think it will go pretty quickly. I will be able to help a lot more and then I predict a lot of long days and late nights. As soon as we are done with the flip house, we will start on ours and yes, I can not wait for that! More pics and details to come as we get this thing finished!