5 Perks of Flipping your House

I hope I haven't been too negative about the house flipping lifestyle we've recently taken on. Every time I complain, I hear this little voice saying, "You chose this, Kate." But, as all the middle schoolers say on Instagram--TBH, it's harder than I thought it would be. Lately though, I've noticed there are some major positives.

1. Living in a remodel makes you feel like royalty.

Since the kitchen is gone, and many walls are missing, we are relegated to the second floor. I call our quarters the upstairs apartment--just like Will and Kate's place at Kensington. Though my research shows that Apartment 1A at Kensington palace has six times the number of rooms we do, including three kitchens. That's not a complaint, just an observation. I'm happy for them. Really. Our upstairs apartment has plenty of space including a bathroom and two bedrooms--one that currently holds the title of sitting room as well as two chairs. There is also an oversized closet that serves as my office, and a balcony referred to as the sun terrace (that until last week served as the holding ground for an old sink, tub, and toilet).

2. You don't have to wash any dishes when you don't have a kitchen.

Really, that should say you can't wash any dishes, because I do have some dirty dishes, but no sink large enough to wash them. The other night some friends had us over for dinner, and in lieu of a hostess gift, I brought my dirty dishes and washed them in their sink.  But for the most part, we've become a plastic utensil, paper plate, crock pot liner family. Colorado is about to kick us out for so much waste, but maybe they'll let it slide since we're recycling.

3.  Washing dishes in the shower is fun!

When you do need to wash the ladle that served the crock pot stew and the knife that cut open the avocado and the mixing bowl you bravely used to make cookies without a kitchen, you can turn on your multitasking skills, and wash yourself and your dishes at the same time. It's kind of like having bath toys again, but made of glass.

4. You don't have to clean up when guests come over.

When you talk about your house renovations as much as we do--ie when someone asks how you are, and you say, "Pretty good, it's great to have a bathroom again,"--you set the expectations pretty low for your guests. Completion of our downstairs bathroom seemed like a great time to host a game night. The only detail we forgot was to put the door back on. Our brave friends were not daunted and used the bathroom anyway (after we all promised to stay in the living room).

5. The sweet old ladies in the neighborhood feel sorry for you.

So they bring you pies. They tell you the house looks really good though all they can see is the gaping hole where the front entrance used to be. They even help with your chores. The other day I was mortified to discover our 68 year old neighbor trimming our grass with a weedwacker. This was after the lady on the other side of the street pulled our trashcans off the curb.

My very favorite part of flipping our house, though, is that I get to do it with this guy. Last night he hooked up a dusty stove in an unfinished kitchen without electricity, and made me scrambled eggs for dinner because he knew I'd been craving them since our kitchen disappeared. TBH, he's pretty awesome.

A Eulogy for my Kitchen

Don't it always seem to go

that you don't know what you've got 

till it's gone? 

Pave paradise, 

put up a parking lot.

Jackie and I made up a dance to that Amy Grant song one summer. It's a good thing the fifth grade talent show had come and gone, or that dance may have been memorialized on videotape. And while I still remember some of the dance moves (the ticking clock with our arms was my personal favorite), today it's the lyrics that are really speaking to me. Because it's true, that we don't know what we've got till it's gone. And today, standing in the room that used to be my kitchen, it's never been more true. So if I may, here is what I would say to my old kitchen if I still had the chance:

Dear Kitchen,

First of all, I'm sorry I used you to try and get on a TV show.  You weren't really the most desperate kitchen in America. In reality, you were probably only the twenty-third most desperate kitchen. But despite your flaws, you did have some merit.

Most importantly, you had a sink. A sink that at times drained into a bucket that needed to be emptied into the backyard every seven minutes, but a sink nonetheless. I'm sorry for the disgusted face I wore each time I washed dishes--which was quite often during those two months without a dishwasher. It wasn't you, it was me. And I'm sorry for all the mean things I said each time I turned on the disposer and it spewed chicken fat and moldy blueberries back out at me. I know you were doing the best you could with what you had.

I'm sorry for refusing to let any of my plates and cups touch the insides of your cupboards. It must have hurt a little when I lined them with newspaper, even after Mom had scrubbed them out with clorox wipes. It really was nice to have a place to put plates and cups and bowls and salad spinners and strainers, and all the food that doesn't go into the fridge.

I'm sorry I took your laminate countertops for granted. What I would do for some counter space now...

I'm sorry I didn't work harder to get rid of the ants. After dealing with roaches, mice, and squirrels in the kitchens of my past, they seemed pretty harmless, only showing up when we left crumbs on the counter. But it probably made you feel disrespected...like I didn't really take you seriously.

I really am so grateful for how you helped me. During those months without an oven, you showed me that my toaster oven had no limits as far as it's ability to bake cookies, or cornbread. If it weren't for you, I never would have bought a carbon monoxide and natural gas detector so that you couldn't kill us in our sleep. And after we got the stove to work, you were where I experimented with my new favorite dish--sweet potato hash with scrambled eggs.

You served us well. And now it's too late to thank you.

Regretfully,

Kate

Demo Day:

My temporary kitchen:

A big thank you to these strong men who helped us tear the kitchen out!

Coming soon: Tips on cooking without a kitchen.

Subway Tile Bathroom Reveal

The first time I laid eyes on this bathroom, back in October, the toilet seat was up and it had not been flushed. I was simultaneously disgusted and delighted. The former, for obvious reasons, and the later because it meant that other potential buyers had probably seen it in the same unfavorable condition, thereby filling them with a strong distaste for this home. Our goal was to find a house that looked worse than it was, and the epitome of that is found in an unflushed toilet. Because it doesn't get much grosser than that, and it also doesn't get much easier to fix--you just flush it, problem solved.

And this bathroom really did look worse than it was. Functionally, it was fine. But cosmetically, it was suffering from dark wood paneling that made the space look even smaller than it was, yellowed linoleum flooring, and a red heat lamp that really creeped the joint out.

It was like your Uncle, who was very cool in the 1970s, with his long hair and bellbottoms, but in the last 30 years, he's really let himself go, and it's starting to show. It's time for a haircut and some new pants.

But the good news is that it's not too late for your Uncle. And it wasn't too late for this bathroom either. It just needed some updates, a good cleaning...a haircut and some new pants.

Our original plan was to paint the wood paneling, but it was just too gross to keep.

So out it came.

Then we had hopes of exposing a brick wall, but it turns out the wall used to be a bigger window, and didn't look very pretty.

So we decided we'd just cover the entire thing in subway tile.

I was confused when a friend of mine mentioned how expensive subway tile was. It seemed reasonable to me at 22 cents a tile.

Then I realized that the expensive part of subway tile is the labor. 

Subway tiles are less than a quarter of the size of most regular tiles.

So it takes more than four times as long to finish.

The tiles inched up the walls like vines. Very slow growing vines.

And those little plastic spacers were constantly leaping to the ground like they had a death wish. And no matter how many times I pressed them back between the tiles, as soon as I looked away, they jumped. It was like handing a toddler his spoon again and again and again as he drops it on purpose because it's the most fun game he's ever played. 

We were trapped in that bathroom for hours...each day. 

I can't even guess how many Netflicks shows I consumed.

And then, just when I thought we were finished...

The grout.

Luckily, some back-up arrived from Branson, Missouri just in time. 

(Thanks, Cody!)

And then, finally, Jordan stuck the toilet and sink back in. 

This time, with a new pedestal, faucet, and lid, respectively. 

He framed the window, added a shower base and head, tiled the floor, installed a light and a (non-red) heat lamp, and built some shelves and a beautiful bench that makes me feel like I'm at the spa. 

(All this while enrolled almost full time in grad school counseling classes.)

And then it was finished! 

So  it is finally my pleasure to present...our subway tile guest bathroom:

It's kind of cool that Jordan has been taking counseling classes as he goes about remodeling our house. The transformation of a bathroom is a lot more like the transformation of a person than it may seem. It takes lots of hard work, and more time than you'd like to invest. It doesn't happen overnight. (Or in two weeks like you originally planned.) It's a process. 

But people, like bathrooms, can change. 

Even your hippie Uncle. 

From this...

To this...

And this...

To this...

Restoration Remodeling in action!