House #3: Designed to Sell?

Last summer, my father-in-law, husband, and I bought a cute house in bad need of a little TLC, with the hopes of fixing it up and making it someone's new home.

We had a good (and occasionally challenging) time fixing up this house, and it was fun to have a little bigger budget than Billy and I had on the houses we've fixed up and actually lived in. This meant we were able to put in replacement windows, gut the kitchen, and have someone else paint the house (we started painting but quickly turned that over to a few local handymen :)).

Here are some before, during, and after pics of various parts of the house...

Front of house before...looks ok but upon closer inspection, needs a new roof, new exterior doors, and more!

All done!! New doors, windows, roof, and more!!

Rear of House Before

Rear of House During (we were in the process of ripping out the laminate wood floors)

Rear of House After!

Backyard Before

Backyard After

We had the yard fenced in and replaced the old shed. Love the big backyard!! Jefferson loved it too, as he got to go play while we were at the house :)

Living/Dining Room Before

Floors looked ok but had some pretty noticeable imperfections, so we decided to go with carpet to freshen up the room. Also wanted to brighten up the space with a slightly lighter paint color on the walls.

Living/Dining Room During

Painting is almost done! New front door was installed, as the old one had broken glass and wasn't' going to hold up.

Living/Dining Room After

We chose Lowe's Seaside Retreat Light Khaki for the walls to brighten the space, paired with a light brown wall-to-wall carpet.

Kitchen Before

This definitely needed a little updating, plus I felt bad about trying to sell this house when the kitchen had basically no counterspace and very little cabinet space. So, after many meetings with the folks at Lowe's, we settled on a kitchen design to give the buyers a much more workable kitchen!

Kitchen During

Post-gutting!! We did keep the ceramic kitchen floor that was in surprisingly good condition.

Kitchen After

Closeup of wainscotting backsplash

We chose Lowe's Seaside Retreat Dockside Haze to give the kitchen a soothing yet cheery feel, and it complements the white cabinets and Mystic Moonlight laminate countertops very nicely!

Bath Before

Love the black and white tile...not so much the broken pedestal sink and the fact that the previous owner painted over the pink tile (which was, at this point, peeling off in several spots).

Bath During

Attempt to scrape what turned out to be several coats of nasty, probably lead-based paint off the walls.

Bath After

We used Dockside Haze for this room as well, which I love with the black and white tile. Also, replaced the pedestal sink with a new vanity for extra storage and reluctantly had the tiles all painted white (it should hold up well, but we like for things to be done right the first time - which should have been to remove the tiles or keep the previous pink tile without painting over it).

Master Bedroom Before

Dark brown color just made this room seem smaller when it's actually a decent sized room. Plus, the carpet full of unidentified stains had to go!

Master Bedroom During

We chose Lowe's Seaside Retreat Seagull Gray color for all three bedrooms. The lighter color immediately opened the room up and also made the modern, higher quality fan/light fixture stand out more!

Master Bedroom After

Painting is done and carpet installed - looks like a totally new room!! Jefferson's a fan of the new look!

Back Bedroom Before

One word...scary!

Back Bedroom After

Because the door was an unusual size (20" instead of the standard 24" or 32"), we would have had to get a custom door cut for this space. Not worth it in a house we planned to flip, so instead, I used this white curtain panel from Walmart...easy fix for under $20!!


Just for fun...

Window Before (4 out of the 11 windows looked like this, plus the glass in the exterior doors)

So that's it for our third (but most extensive) renovation project. And, with the real estate market taking a turn for the worse soon after our purchase, it turns out this wasn't the best time to buy an investment property (at least one to fix up and sell), so we decided to rent the house out after going several months without any bites. Now we at least have some income on the property and can hopefully find a buyer once the market turns!