HGTV and The Flip House

One of the big things going on this summer has been The Flip House. I've always wanted to flip a house...ever since I started watching HGTV, that is. Back when I had cable I watched this show called Flip or Flop, (they almost always make a ton of money though, go figure) about a husband and wife who buy foreclosed or underpriced houses in California, have their contractor fix them up, then sell them a couple months later for a big profit. The wife's role seems to consist of dropping their child off with the babysitter, walking around the disgusting house they just bought and going "Ewww," shopping for pretty new flooring and cabinets to put in it, and then looking good for the open house. Sometimes she mops the floor with a Swiffer mop before the open house starts.

I'm sure she is more involved then that, after all it is only a 30 minute tv show, but the point is: I want to be that woman. What she does looks really fun and easy.

Long story short, Austin found a house down the street from my parents that he thought would make a great flip house. (Little did I know about his devious master plan...more on that in a later post.) It has good feng shui, is in a great neighborhood, my parents wanted to go in on it financially with us, and best of all it was a blank slate, totally gutted--a plus after spending a lot of time ripping things out of our charming colonial house. So we bought it and there went my relaxing summer/fall. But I was secretly excited because at last I would get to see what it was like to flip a house!

Not much to look at. Pretty bad actually.

 

 

Front entry

Looking into kitchen from entry. Note walls.

Fireplace and ceiling hole.

 

So the story is, the old-timer guy living here died and some relatives(?) moved in and let a huge leak in the middle of the flat roof develop. The whole house got water in it. The man's son took over the property and put a new roof on, ripped out everything, I mean everything except the fireplace, and ripped off and open pretty much every wall to check for mold. Then I think he ran out of money and it went into foreclosure. That's where we came in.

The kitchen and other side of the fireplace

Garage

Master Bathroom

Basement

 

 

I have a lot more "before" pictures but without walls or fixtures it's really hard to tell what the room is...all the pictures kind of look alike.

Next up will be "during" pictures and a report on if flipping is everything I dreamed it would be.