Beaux R'eves: Home Renovation

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

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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Evolution of Style

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Flipping Houses- A Before and After Story

Warning! This story can get complicated at times so I hope you can follow along...

As many of you know I am an Interior Designer and a Home Stager. But what you may not know about me is that I was once part of a Builder/Designer team. My partner and I built many high end homes in the Kansas area. We had a great time designing and building fabulous homes until the home market crashed...

Not to worry though, we did OK, but we had to get creative.

On one occasion we had a home for sale in a great Subdivision that sat and sat and sat, unsold.

We finally got an offer from a couple that wanted to purchase the home but didn't want to go through the trouble of selling their home.

We ended up taking their home in trade and they paid the difference

on the "New" home.

Still with me?

It wasn't a "Bad" home, just a little neglected and dated.

So are you ready for the rest of this complicated story?

It gets better!

We "inherited" this house in December and thought "well, we can just get in and turn it around and get it on the market quickly".

On New Years Day my older boys drove home from our vacation house in Colorado

to find OUR home totally FLOODED with water everywhere!!!

It was a total disaster! (that's a whole other post)

We had to move out while they renovated our home.

Where did we move to?

Why the "inherited" house of course!

We spent every day either remodeling what we called the "rehab" house

or over at our house overseeing the renovation.

It was a tough 6 months but in the end a very happy story.

Let me share the Before and After Pictures with you and tell my story room by room.

This was the Living Room or Music Room as you enter the home.

It was painted a Navy Blue with old carpet and dated furniture.

The whole house's color story was kind of dated Jewel tones.

Here is the After.

I'm sure this furniture looks familiar. (it survived the flood)

We painted the trim Basic White and the walls SW Cocoa.

I staged it as a sitting room and kept the look minimal for resale purposes.

This is the Dining Room.

You can see that they were in the process of moving when we took these pictures.

Red walls, dated drapes with pom-poms, brass light fixture.

And After.

Doesn't this look so fresh and new?

We painted the walls a light teal blue, replaced the carpet, took down the drapes and added these silk green drapes from Tuesday Morning, and I redid the Chandelier.

Before

After I sprayed the Brass with an oil rubbed bronze spray paint I then aged it with some Old Masters paint that I had around.

I changed out the shades with some shades I found with cute fringe

at a discount store in my area.

What a great inexpensive change.

This is the Before of the Great Room.

This room sits in the middle of the house and is the first thing you see from the front door.

It was pretty lackluster and boring.

But, it had great windows and a nice raised fireplace.

In this picture you can see the front door.

The dining room is there with all the boxes and the Music room or sitting room is to the right.

And, here is the After.

Again lots of paint and new carpet.

Mr. Beaux retiled the fireplace with tiles that we bought at a discount warehouse

and we painted the fireplace surround.

The color on the walls is SW Latte.

It looks greenish in this picture but it's not really.

Another view.

You can see into the Kitchen and Hearth room.

There is my wine cabinet.

And another view.

You see the stairs leading up to the second floor.

I got this sectional for a steal of $700.00 and the best part was that it would fit through any doorway with the legs off.

I had plans to put it in my son's Bonus room after we sold the house.