Our New/Old House

Ever since we have been writing this blog, and even while we were working on my house, Mom and I have day-dreamed about how much fun it would be to buy a house and flip it.  We never really thought it would happen, but we had fun talking.  Last fall when she was here, we took photos of this house a few blocks away from my house.  It had been on the market the whole summer, and no one bought it.  We joked about it being our fixer-upper.  Houses really don’t move much up here in the winter – especially this winter.  This spring it was still for sale, and I started salivating.  I thought/hoped we could make a ridiculously low offer and buy a house to flip.

The house was part of an estate, and a son and his elderly mother lived in it.  After she died a few years ago, he tried to hold on to it, but he just couldn’t.  His health was failing, and last summer he just made a For Sale sign and put it in his front yard.  He didn’t trust realtors.  The Saturday after I returned from India was a decent one here in Syracuse.  Mr. Spring and I were walking Gracie, and we just decided to knock on his door.  He let us take a look, and I realized that we could probably do a lot of the work ourselves and turn a little profit.  It has a living room, dining room with pocket doors and a built-in hutch, kitchen, small pantry, and half bath on the main floor.  The upstairs has four bedrooms and one bath.  I wanted to run home and call Mom, but she was still in India for another week.  So, through emails we came up with a price, our attorney put it in writing,the man accepted, and last Friday we closed the deal.  The house is ours.

 

 

For starters, we didn’t get an inspection.  We knew from the get-go that it would need a lot of work including a new roof, and it is pretty standard with our family and rehabbing houses that we go through and pretty much fine-tune everything.  In other words, the electrician, plumber, window guy, foundation guy, and  HVAC guy will all be called in to do what needs to be done.  We will also tear up the old and smelly carpet because hardwoods are lurking underneath.  Each room will be repainted, and a few need some patching done.  The kitchen, full bath, and half bath are all gut jobs.

 

 

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Mr. Spring is pretty handy, and we have already decided to use Ikea cabinets in the kitchen and baths.  Mom and I spent way too many hours on Pinterest (while watching basketball) this past week-end trying to nail down the style we want to go with.  We both agreed that we like this look for the kitchen.  Mom has a gray peninsula in her kitchen paired with white cabinets, and it has a traditional look with a twist.  We will keep the gray on the bottom cabinets and switch the top cabinets to white.

 

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The second-floor bathroom has the original floors similar to the ones in the above photo.  We plan to keep them and get an old piece of furniture to hold a salvaged sink.  We like the paneling but will only do it if the budget lets us.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that it is a flip.  Since there are four bedrooms, we are going to turn one into a bath/closet area for the master bedroom.  We are hoping to set aside enough room for a stackable washer and dryer.  It would be so convenient for the new owners to not have to walk to the basement to do laundry.  (And by the way, there is a huge unfinished attic that has so much potential).

 

 

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We like the look of this foyer since it is very similar to the house’s foyer layout.   The gray on the walls would tie in with the gray in the kitchen.  Our goal is to have the rooms flow smoothly together, and we are leaning towards a gray/blue/green pallet.

 

Well, that’s about as far as we have gotten.  We didn’t want to spend too much time on our house project because if you haven’t figured it out by now, this is a total April Fool!!!  Although the first two house photos are from a house we thought would be a great project, it is located in Sharon Springs, NY, and we discovered it last fall when we spent the day there.  We decided then it would be the perfect house for an April Fool post.

 

Cheers!

Shop through April 30 using the Autism Awareness Online Trunk Show link: http://www.stelladot.com/jordanhurd – orders ship right to you!

 

All net proceeds from the purchase of our Autism Awareness Collection will benefit the HollyRod Foundation.