Baseline

Let’s start with the baseline.  A couple years ago we decided to buy a house in the Memphis area.  We started our search online, and found a Realtor who was himself a house flipper in a past life.  While looking through MLS we came across a foreclosed house with this picture as the representation:

 

Ummm, what does the, you know, house look like?  These guys need a better realtor.  There was also one more picture that looked pretty much like this

 A backyard and porch area completely covered in leaves.  All I saw was mildew, raccoons, and every Saturday during football season spent raking leaves.  But we decided to give it a shot.  Here’s a sample of what we saw

 

Pretty sweet huh?  Not terrible, but not great either.  The power was off, so it was like 40 degrees in house, and it smelled like animals.  Every room needed something.  But, where others saw a lost cause, we saw potential.  This area had been off our list as most of the houses we saw (in our price range) were outdated.  Meaning, I had to pay full price for the house, and then put another 20-30k bringing it out of the 1970s.  However, this house was at a significant discount of the price of houses in the area.  We got a good house in a great area for a great price, and we could remodel it like we wanted.  And look at that porch!

Sub Text

Last night, we finished painting the laundry room cabinets. As I was inspecting the cabinets on Sunday, making sure brush strokes were minimal, and evaluating the quality of finish from the foam roller, I told Elizabeth “I think one coat of paint will be fine.”  This, of course, meant “I hope you’re ok with one coat of paint, because that’s all you’re going to get.”  You see, I hate painting.  Painting is like watching ballet.  It’s tedious, your eyes start going out of focus, it takes far longer than it really should, music doesn’t make it better, your mind wanders, and all you really get out of it is to see something “pretty”, and depending on the quality of the job the image will continually haunt you.

As you may have realized, I still had another coat to go.  Elizabeth caught my sub-text and raised me: "Another coat will add protection, and help cover the old paint better."  Well done.  Thankfully, only the face needed another coat, including the crown molding that had been painted bronze for some reason.  Now I just need to hang the doors.

Intro

We bought a foreclosure almost 2 years ago, and have been fixing it up since.  This is our fourth such house, but it is by far the most ambitious project we’ve taken on to date.  I’ve been flooding friends and family with before and after pictures over the past 22 months, and I have had quite a few people ask me about my never-ending projects.  So, I’ve decided to put the internet to good use and start posting my projects here.  I’ll post projects in process, as I complete them, and also post completed ones to get everyone caught up with the projects that I’ve completed thus far, and work my way to the current and future ones.  

This format will work better as I can just send a link (or the tech-savvy can set up an RRS feed: *Scott*), and I can put more pictures in – including in process pics, not just before and afters.  In addition, I’ll submit some tips and tricks that I’ve discovered to help any other Weekend (and Week night) Warriors that may have happened onto this site.  

For instance, a few nights ago I was painting the new cabinet doors I built for the laundry room.  While painting Elizabeth asked me about my painting method, “why are you painting that section first?”  To which I replied “I’m not sure.  I paint them all somewhat differently, and I don’t know what the best way is until I’m done.”  Story of my life.  Or Life in Renovation, rather.  Once I’ve figured that out, I’ll put it here so at least I can come back and reference it, if I ever build cabinet doors again, which at this point is highly unlikely. 

The Beginning

This is the beginning.