Ahhhh, Magnolia House, we meet again. [lengthy, tense look ensues between two camrades-in-arms]
If you’re just arriving, catch up on the purchase and headache that was the Magnolia House HERE.
I can’t say we’ll ever be friends, but we respect the fight in one another. Perhaps we are more alike than I ever thought possible- both stubborn and determined. She’s my little Jungle Book wilderness child, all wild-eyed fury and fight, but I managed to strong-arm her into a bathtub and shine her up then dress her in shiny new clothes. This is her big debut into society, so please be kind to her, and- for the love of all that is good and holy- speak in soft, soothing tones; she’s twitchy and nervous and unpredictable. (Translation: I AM TERRIFIED OF HER AND WHAT SHE MIGHT DO TO ME.)
But first, let’s recall some things. Like the budget.
The budget on this house was microscopic. Like an atom’s electron orbital or the Moon Landing, did it even really exist? Because I couldn’t see it. I originally had big dreams for the house- like opening up the kitchen to the living room, and painting the exterior brick- but all of that went out the window when I unexpectedly had to replace the roof and and lots of the plumbing. Initially I was told that I would need to replace the roof decking ($$$$$$) with the roof, but further inspection and a more trustworthy roofer majestically informed me that this was not the case. It would be a regular ‘ole roofing job. Not where I wanted to spend that money, but it was a necessity. There went my kitchen remodel, but at least since I wasn’t replacing the decking I could afford paint to transform the existing kitchen cabinets.
I also was originally told that the furnace was non-functioning and would need to be replaced. Further investigation also showed this to be untrue. The furnace needed some tender loving care and gentle caresses and sweet nothings whispered into its ear, but I am happy to report that after a full servicing she is in complete and excellent working condition and is as trustworthy as Bessie the work horse.
So, we weren’t in as dire of straits as I believed from the beginning. That first week was a dark cloud, but week two promised a new day and the sun came out a little. Just a little. The budget was still very very very tight.
I’d also like to mention that I made the decision to stage the house upon completion. Research shows that buyers respond more positively to staged homes- developing an emotional connection and allowing them to more easily picture their own things arranged in the home. I either borrowed items from our own home (I probably will not be awarded mother of the year as I recall my sons’ blood curdling screams as I hauled off their beloved Lego table and chairs in order to style a playroom. Cringe.), or I purchased inexpensive, neutral furniture and decor items that I could use in the staging of future flips. I checked into a home staging furniture rental company, but for the same price that I could rent furniture I could alternatively purchase a few staple items that I could use over and over again in the future. The choice for me was simple.
The Exterior
The exterior before was okay. It really wasn’t too offensive or glaringly in need of updates. My obvious targets were the closed off entryway (that would be demolished and made into a small front porch), the red trim (not a fan), and the row of boxwood hedges that dated the property like a timestamp from 1970. The garage door on the left had also obviously been bumped by a car presumed to have been placed in park, when in reality the driver left it shifted in drive upon exit (it’s cool, we’ve all done it). It would need to be replaced, though it’s not obvious from this picture.
The exterior was freshened up dramatically with some dark gray trim. I chose a cooler, darker trim color to neutralize the orangey red tones in the brick (although the editing in this particular image makes the brick look very orange, but in person it is not). The garage door was replaced and painted. I built my signature Custom Courtney Shutters (can that be a thing yet? I’ve built them for two houses. That makes it a thing, right?). I had most of the boxwood shrub removed to make the front more open and welcoming instead of shrouded in mystery and gloom. To reiterate, the budget was tight, so I had the two end sections of shrub left and trimmed into a tree shape for height, and my landscaper NO JOKE filled in the rest of the bed with free things that he salvaged from other jobs. He felt sorry for me and my teeny tiny baby budget and dubbed this job “The Frankenstein of Landscaping” (internally I bowed my head The Middle’s Brick Heck style and whispered, “Frankenstein was the doctor“). He gave the bed a good mulching and also donated a rock border, and suddenly the front landscaping looked a million times better. His help and donations were so appreciated. The exterior certainly would not have turned out as well as it did without his pity.
The little front porch is much more welcoming than the double front door situation that felt so closed off and strange. Have you ever gone trick-or-treating at a house that has that set up? You feel so uncertain and torn- do we enter the first door to get to the doorbell or just knock here at this outer door? I feel like I’m walking into their house if I go in the first door, but will anyone hear us if we knock on this outer door? HOW DO I GET TO THE CANDY!?!?!
My painter, Negib, and I again had a heated argument over my choice of front door color, but this sunny yellow won out when I purchased it and delivered it to his hands and said “this is the paint, Negib. You lose.” A dirty look was thrown my way, the door was painted, and alas, Dr. Negib, front-door-paint-ologist, sat back and ate all the crow. He said “You were maybe right. It does brighten up the dark gray entry. It’s kind of cute.” My typing of his statement is purely pride related; its documentation was necessary.
WELCOME IN
I have no before shots of the entry (I started flipping houses before I ever had a blog in mind, so trust me when I say that my documentation process has since evolved and is improving dramatically), but the new front door, hardware, fresh paint, lighting, and floors are in stark contrast to its old life of shame.
THE LIVING ROOM
The doorways and window pass-throughs in the living room facing into the dining room (the left -most doorway in the shot below leads to the hallway to the bedrooms) were 45’d off at the corners, creating this dated we’re-just-not-ready-to-be-full-blown-arches commitment phobia vibe.
The pass through windows were removed altogether when I widened the entire dining room opening from window edge to window edge. Instant improvement and modernization in one fell swoop. The opening was trimmed out making it look polished and intentional.
Can we talk about how good this fireplace update turned out? Negib won this round. I originally wanted to paint all of the brick and the built-ins white. Negib was enraged. He said no. He may have even gone full blown Gandalf and yelled, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS.” I’m not sure, but it was something similarly frightening, and I felt compelled to listen. He then said (more calmly) “we will do the built ins and mantel in Gauntlet Gray.” I was not previously familiar with Gauntlet Gray, a Sherwin Williams color, and truthfully it could have been Passionfruit Purple and I would have relented on this one, his determination was so fierce. Courtney 2, Negib 1.
The asymmetry of the fireplace bothered me UNTIL I realized that the spot was intentionally made to be asymmetrical for the placement of a BLANKET LADDER. The architectural geniuses of the 1970’s predicted blanket ladders 50 years before their time. Brilliant. I also kept the existing fireplace surround and painted it with high heat matte black spray paint.
(My rug is too small for this space and that’s all I can see when I look at this picture. THE BUDGET WAS SMALL, GUYS, JUST LIKE MY RUG. It’s a metaphor.)
The jutting step into the back bonus/office/play room was demo’d so that the passage between the two rooms looks more natural and intentional. A new ceiling fan and the addition of LED canned lighting finished the space off.
THE DINING ROOM
The dining room is the perfect, sweetest little dining room. I really, really love how it turned out. It’s my favorite room in this house. I love how simple it is, right off the kitchen and living. I swapped out the ceiling fan for a simple, matte black chandelier. I staged the house with our own personal dining room table. (Back story: we are currently building a home, and in the interim we are living in a rent house. This was the dining table in our rent house, and I carried it out, past my gape-jawed family who probably, definitely think that I am nuts. As this table is still, at present, in the Magnolia House, we are dining on an outdoor patio table that we cleaned and moved indoors.) The chairs are from Marshall’s, and the beautiful Amazing Grace sheet-music print is from Kirkland’s. I’m in love with it and want to marry it.
THE KITCHEN
As I said before, I had originally planned to take out the wall between the kitchen and living room and create a peninsula-bar between the two. But: budget. [eyeroll. shakes fist in the air at budget.] So instead it was a very budget friendly remodel for this kitchen.
Everything was so monotone in the kitchen before. It looked like a tree threw up. So much wood. (resist “that’s what she said” joke and move on. you’re a mature blogger now.) That was close. Moving on, the dropped down ceiling light situation HAD TO GO. I feel as strongly about this as I do bedathrooms (not a typo, see Flip House #1 post for my tirade on this architectural injustice). It was demolished, and canned lights were put in place of the fluorescents that were lurking under the decorative ceiling feature.
The rest of the kitchen was updated with fresh cabinet and trim paint (Sherwin Williams Alabaster), matte black hinges, and matte black pulls. I chose simple white 3×6 subway tile with charcoal gray grout for the backsplash. Darker grout adds a bit of a retro vibe in this small little kitchen, and I dig it. The space also got stainless steel appliances, a matte back faucet, and new granite countertops to complete the look. I hung a bamboo shade in the kitchen window to add some warmth to the all-white room.
THE HALLWAY
MASTER BEDROOM AND BATH
Ah, the bedathroom. My arch nemesis. Good to see you old friend. Prepare to die.
AND DIE IT DID! Another bedathroom bites the dust. (bedathroom: n. 1) a room containing both a bedroom and a bathroom all in one unseparated space 2) the absolute worst home design decision on the entire planet since time began to exist 3) a room that makes the angels cry). Good riddance. You shan’t be missed.
My staging in this room hurts my eyeballs (hello air mattress sitting visibly on frame) but the budget was gone, dead, and buried at this point, and as I madly pulled things out of the garage of our rent house that we weren’t currently using just to GET IT STAGED I took a breath and said to myself, “that’ll do, pig.”
I had the opening between the bedroom and bathroom framed in just enough to accommodate a 36″ door which I stained and had installed on a sliding barn door track. I like how the stain on the door compliments the stained bathroom vanity, which we’re about to meet.
We planked the back walls in shiplap which was painted Sherwin Williams Alabaster, and I chose this stained double sink vanity from Lowe’s to replace the old single sink vanity. I love how the wood warms up the space. The floor tile is the simple, vintagey white hex and diamond pattern that I love so dearly set with charcoal grout.
I had the door between the shower/toilet area and the vanity removed and opened up slightly. This is a controversial choice as many would prefer to have the option of a locking toilet area separate from the vanity area for obvious reasons, but I like master baths to feel a bit more spacious, open and spa-like. There was nothing glamorous or spa-like about the original, choppy room-within-a-room configuration.
I chose matte black faucets and lights above the sinks. The cage lights match the cage lights on the ceiling fan in the bedroom which I think is a little extra touch. I broke up the brown/black/white with these brushed nickel anti-fog mirrors from Home Depot. I like the slightly mod rounded corners. I installed a privacy bamboo shade in the window over the toilet to compliment the wood tones in the vanity and sliding barn door.
HALL BATH
I had planned to save the existing vanity and just replace the countertop, but my plumber removed the vanity and left the countertop floating in midair. It was actually hilarious, and, before I cried my eyes out realizing how this would affect my budget, I actually laughed out loud when I saw it. Needless to say, I removed the floating, faux-marble, yellow counter top (with integrated sink!) (and they all said “ooooh, ahhhh”) and replaced the vanity for an inexpensive, simple one from a local builder’s store (Builder’s Supply). I had a simple black granite countertop installed and used a vessel sink that I had leftover from a previous project (FREE!). I had the fur down over the vanity removed, and installed shiplap from the countertop to the ceiling.
I used the same simple white hex and diamond tile from the master bath, and I still love it. Can’t stop, won’t stop loving this tile. It’s just so simple and clean and timeless to me.
I installed this large, round brass mirror from Hobby Lobby over the sink, and had the electrician splice the single light into two vanity lights to go on either side of the mirror. I chose black and brass lights and I love how they look! I used a matte black faucet along with matching black pulls and hinges. Maybe this room is tied with the dining room on my love level after all. Maybe I will ALSO marry this room.
I again installed a bamboo privacy shade over the toilet to add warmth to the space.
BEDROOMS 2 AND 3
The updates in these rooms were simple and straightforward: wall and trim paint, new carpet, new ceiling fans, new door hardware. I kept the staging simple- just enough to allow buyers to envision their lives and furniture in these rooms. I also stole all of this furniture from my own home (hello to my son’s Jenny Lind crib that my hubby painted green!) I don’t have girls so, I taking full advantage of this opportunity to finally get to decorate a little girl’s room, I purchased a quilt and side table from Target and some small accessories from Hobby Lobby. My home-staging-birthed daughter is very well behaved, but with a sharp, clever wit. She also does ballet and loves science and Rapunzel.
THE SUNROOM
(view looking from living room into sunroom)
Everyone wave hello to my boys’ lego table and chairs! I painted the table legs white few years ago, and if you flip the table top over the underside is a green lego grid that the boys play at for hours. Now picture my kids howling as I carried it past them. You should be ashamed of yourselves! (I’m trying to blame-shift, hoping it worked)
The heat and air from the rest of this house sufficiently reaches the sunroom, but I left the in-wall heat and AC unit in place just in case future owners ever wanted the option for more.
In staging this room, I wanted to show that the space could be multipurpose: an office space and a playroom. I would love to cozy up in a big chair and read a book in all this sunlight!
THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE
Throughout the house I had new flooring installed and a fresh coat of paint everyyyyywherrrrre. The walls are Sherwin Willaims paint color matched to Benjamin Moore’s Gray Owl. Gray Owl is the lighter, airier, more reflective cousin of Repose Gray. Its light reflective index causes it to “glow.” Something this window-shy house needed. The trim work and cabinetry (minus the master vanity and Gauntlet Gray fireplace mantel and shelving) is Sherwin Williams Alabaster. All of the baseboards were replaced along with much of the trim. OH! And all of the popcorn ceilings were scraped and textured because I WISH DEATH BY FIERY INFERNO TO ALL POPCORN CEILINGS EVERYWHERE. The end.
CLOSURE
And so, my time with the Magnolia House, my wild Mowgli jungle daughter, had come to an end. I had scrubbed her until her skin was pink and raw while she clawed and scratched and bit and swung at me. I clipped her nails and fashioned her hair into a bow that she promptly ripped out and spat on. We were not always kind to one another. I saw the worst of myself in her: my inability to accept change, my stubbornness, and my pride. I hated her for those things because I dislike them in myself, but in the end I grew to love her and her tenacious spirit, this little house that did want to be tamed. This tenacious woman inside of me who would not give up.
I burned her almost to the ground, but out of the ashes something living remained- something alive and lively. Something determined.
This. House. Was. The. Worst.
We fought. Lawd how we fought. It fought me, I fought back. I went through entire periods of time where I disliked this house very much. Do you hear me, Magnolia House? (name is based solely after its street address, no affiliation to my besties Chip and Jo) I’m looking at you. I DISLIKED YOU VERY MUCH. There were times even that I wanted to hang up my brand new flipping hat and say peace out to this endeavor. Just strike a match and throw it over my shoulder and cut my losses. There were challenges big and small. Nothing- I mean NOTHING- went right or smoothly.
ONLINE AUCTION
The exterior of the house looked fine, cute even, with a big pretty tree in the front yard and all the shiny potential in the world. I saw no issues; no red flags arose to my optimistic and eager (blind) eye.
The windows didn’t offer great visibility inside the house, so I really and truly was going to have to bid on the house with the interior SIGHT UNSEEN if I wanted it.
But I was eager. I had gotten a taste for house flipping and I wanted more. I was hungry. I was fiending. I needed a fix.
So, on my cell phone, at a pho restaurant at lunchtime, with my kids in tow, over bowls of noodle soup and arguments over who touched whom with a chopstick, I bid. And I was promptly outbid. And so, never to be outdone, I bid again and again and again and again, and finally: I won. I was elated. Have you ever won an eBay auction item and your competitive nature comes out and you want to scream at your computer screen “YEAH! IN YOUR FACE! SUCK IT! I WIN!” Come on, that can’t just be me. You’re all big fat liars. Anyway, winning this house was a lot like that, and the victory tasted amazing.
I got it for a good price, and after comparing comps and establishing a fair asking price after repairs and renovations, I felt sure that I could do great things with this house and make a wonderful profit at that. It was going to be easy as pie. I can’t believe everyone doesn’t do this. Babies can flip houses in their sleep. And if they choose not to it’s only because they’re lazy. Lazy, lazy babies.
COME INSIDE WON’T YOU?
Things looked… not the greatest. I couldn’t put my finger on any one thing, but there was a smell, to begin with. (Feces? Human remains? Petrified Broccoli?)
Then I brought in people. And that’s when I really started to frown.People walked through and told me rude things.
Things like “not only does the roof needs to be replaced, but also the entire roof decking.”
Frown.
And, “plumbing leaks. Lots of plumbing leaks and water damage.”
Frown.
And, “see all of those black spots on the ceiling around the vents?”
Yes I see them, duh, but stop looking so closely at them. Someone obviously spilled something on the ceiling. All of the ceilings, and only where the vents are, and paint can cover that. Look away! You’re killing my buzz and I don’t like you.
“The furnace has at one time been on fire.”
Stahhhhhhhhp. Frown.
“Total furnace replacement.”
OMGeeeeeee FROWN. Grimace. Glower. Can my frown get any more down turned? I’m glowering at you now and I hope that it hurts you the way that you’re hurting me.
Dollar sign, dollar sign, dollar sign, all the dollar signs.
All the budget. So many things were WRONG with this house that my entire budget was having to be redirected toward UGLY THINGS. Like furnaces and roofs. I DON’T LIKE THOSE THINGS. I only want to buy pretty things! This isn’t how house flipping is supposed to go. I’ve seen the shows. I paint the things and pick out cute tile and make the things pretty and then I sell the house and become rich and buy myself a diamond grill and some chains and put spinners on my minivan, and that is all, that is the end. This is the way these things go. WHY ARE PEOPLE TRYING TO TELL ME OTHERWISE?
WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE?
Add to the budget issues the fact that I couldn’t get workers to show up. That had all gone so smoothly with my first flip- which I completed in 5.5 weeks from beginning to end. This house, which was considerably smaller, took over 8 weeks to complete. So, basically all of eternity and half of a second eternity. My workers that I had used on my first flip had received a large increase in business and were struggling to keep up with their workload. Growing pains. There were many days where the house just sat with no one working. I would call. I would beg. All to no avail. And multiple times different trades would show up on the same day unexpectedly and they would leave because they were in each other’s way. [Steam comes out of ears]
When I did get workers to show up on the right days they sometimes… messed things up. Critical budget saving things. For example, the plumber ripped out the hall bath vanity that I planned to salvage. That I NEEDED to salvage. I also planned to keep the existing kitchen countertops which weren’t my favorite, by far, but were an inoffensive wood looking laminate that was so dated and out of style that it had come marginally back into style, or at least would be passable for “stylish” when I layered all my other kitchen goodness in there. They were damaged beyond repair when the backsplash was removed by workers. [Eye twitches] And then the plumber busted a line under the kitchen sink and the kitchen flooded AFTER flooring had been laid, so all of the kitchen flooring had to be ripped up and replaced. [Loses all semblance of remaining cool. Flips table, breaks a mirror, punches wall.]
HOLY BUDGET NIGHTMARE.
So, we were indeed in a sad state, myself and this house. The relationship was tumultuous at best.
In a money saving endeavor I bought a wall oven off of Facebook Marketplace and drove all the way to Henryetta, Oklahoma to pick it up after having multiple conversations regarding the precise dimensions of this particular unit. Three hours later I got it back to the house, and the promised dimensions were incorrect, and the oven did not fit. So I had to buy ANOTHER wall oven- bleeding my budget twice. [Eye twitches]
And then there was the unfortunate incident involving a worker backing into a neighbor’s car and fleeing the scene, and the neighbor coming to me threatening deportation of what she very wrongly assumed to be an illegal immigrant worker (full disclosure: I have zero bit of patience for this ignorant and assumptive attitude. I am rolling my eyeballs all the way up to my brain cells as I even recall and type this story out. I think I actually sprained my eye). I investigated and solved the mystery (Call me, First 48!) and lo and behold the culprit was in fact a legal Caucasian male. There was no deportation of innocents, but it was just ONE MORE THING with this monster house. [Eye twitch returns]
At this point was I even going to make a profit on this house when all was said and done, or was my second flip going to be a flop? Out of the ashes (because I wanted to burn the stupid house to the ground) would something new and living and pretty come… or just nah??? I was trying to prove to the world and myself that I could do this, but I was completely defeated.
It has been said that I lack self-confidence. Perhaps this observation should have left me feeling exposed, shaken, and seen. But instead it felt as banal and obvious a noticing as a description of the color of my eyes or hair. My lack of self-confidence is as much a part of me as my love for guacamole.
I have lived most most of my life feeling like the Man Behind the Curtain in Oz. When will I be exposed for the fraud that I am? In Chiropractic school I looked around most days and thought “I am not smart enough to be here; I am not skilled enough to be here.” Most days in practice I spent wondering why any patient would ever take me seriously and listen to my advice. I have worked out at the same gym for the past 8 years, but every day that I enter I think “today is the day that someone points out that I have no business being here.”
This new house flipping endeavor fell happily in line with my comfortable, organized, and well-practiced pattern of self-doubt. “I have no business doing this, and everyone knows that. I got lucky the first time around, but I’m so out of place in this world. I am a joke.”
Every obstacle that this house presented me, big or small, felt like an assignment to climb Everest handcuffed and with a broken foot. Every challenge only served to drive the point home that I was not good enough, that I would not succeed. Each challenge preyed on the ever present host of insecurities and self-doubt that I tote around with me in my little self-doubt backpack. The sum of all of the attacks that this house threw at me felt like a warning: “Get out now. Leave. YOU CANNOT DO THIS, but you already knew that about yourself.”
But here’s the funny thing: where I am lacking in confidence and any real skill, I was ironically “gifted” with determination. It’s an absurd and confusing pairing of personality traits. I can’t give up; I will dig in my heels and I will not give up. In fact, it became the butt of an exasperated, joking one-liner spoken to be my my mom throughout the course of my teenage years. When I would dig in my heels, in a fit of teenage girl angst, and lash out at her with my words, she would answer back, “YOU JUST DON’T KNOW WHEN TO QUIT, DO YOU?” And it’s true: I could challenge the Hulk to an arm wrestling competition, and I would snap my ever loving arm off, Lego-style, trying to win. It’s irrational and, at times, humiliating. Whatever horribly unattainable thing that I begin I cannot walk away from. I am my own personal Mean Girl and will berate myself the entire time, telling myself that this thing will not end well, and that I cannot do this thing, that I am not good enough. I will even ask God to let me give up, BUT FOR SOME REASON I CANNOT AND DO NOT GIVE UP.
But the house did not know this about me. It thought it could best me.
So, like I said- the house and I fought. We went round after round after round. It fought me hard.
But I fought back.
I found coupons. I scraped around for things on sale. I got bids and rebids and price compared and ran numbers, and then I did it all over again. I called workers daily, stayed on top of trades. This house consumed me, but IT WOULD NOT DEFEAT ME.
Eventually, after round and round of punches the house and I came to some sort of mutual agreement that we wouldn’t ever love each other, but we would respect each other.
It took 3,782 years to flip this wretched house, or 8 weeks if you want to get technical- whatever- and it came in at MAX budget, but it was complete. Praise Jesus, it was complete. And it was even pretty cute. She said begrudgingly and with a mountain of a chip on her shoulder.
Stay tuned later this week for the afters on the Magnolia Flip. We’ve earned them, dammit.
Read about how I came to purchase my parents’ house here.
If you’re already up to speed then let’s roll up our sleeves and get to the good stuff!
EXTERIOR
The exterior really just needed a tiny bit of cosmetic work. We gave the house a good power washing, and that shined things up dramatically. My painters painted the trim around the big bay window a medium to dark gray. This update alone brought the house up into this decade. Take off those bell bottoms and stay a while, why don’t you. Girl, you look good in those skinny jeans.
I built and stained shutters for the house out of cedar. I DID THAT! My original plan was to have these beautiful cedar accents on the shutters and also to wrap the porch column with cedar to make a cedar post. It was going to look so cool. A little masculine. Very now. Very modern. Very cool. But when I went to hang the shutters on the windows the cedar color blended right in with the brick. It was completely camouflaged. SWAT teams, listen up: cedar colored uniforms when you enter ranch style homes built in the 60’s, kay? UNDETECTABLE YOU WILL BE. You’re welcome.
(Full disclosure: this is a shot of me building shutters for a different house because I don’t have one from this house)
I was so sad.
So I decided to rethink my plans and paint the shutters a dark brown (Sherwin Williams French Roast) so that they would pop against the brick color, and it worked. So, ever adaptable me- look at me being so cool and rolling with the punches- I had my painters paint the front porch column French Roast to match. Ah, much better.
A new front door was a must. Not only was the current one not working for my eyeballs, but it also sat 2 inches off the ground and an audible breeze whistled its way into the house on blustery days, and we couldn’t have that. In came this adorable door and this adorable blue green paint which my painter told me was ugly. *Shhh, Negib, you talk too much.*
And LOOOOOOOK at how cute it came out!!!!! I’m in love with this entry. We don’t even need to go inside. Just sit here beside me and admire it. Let’s pretend it’s Fall and grab some coffee (is it too early for wine in this fantasy?) and just sit here on the stoop and ogle this cute door while we sip in silence. While we’re here, look at that doorbell. Really check out that sexy devil. I watched a seven minute YouTube tutorial on rewiring doorbells, and I took it apart and rewired it myself and then I gave myself ALL THE PATS ON THE BACK for being so handy. Please don’t mistake this for a humble brag- it’s a good old fashioned open brag. I basically figured out the cure for cancer.
Alright, let’s go inside. Wipe your feet.
ENTRY AND STUDY
The entryway was brought way up to date with a new light fixture and by removing the built-in that really only served to obstruct traffic and to, once a year, host the Halloween candy bowl. The once titled “formal living room” underwent a legal name change and emerged as “The Study” (doesn’t it sound so mature and sophisticated now? The room equivalent of going from Matt to Matthew after completing law school) and had those heavy accent posts removed to match the upgraded name. The space leftover from the post removal was sheetrocked in and double sliding barn doors were installed on a track. I love the big bay window in this room. I love this room altogether. It’s so big and bright. Maybe the new owners will let me rent it as office space to blog. *Siri, make a note to remind me to stop by and ask the new owners about this. NO, Siri, it actually WON’T be weird. You’re weird. Eyeroll.*
LIVING ROOM
Moving into the living room, check this change out! Lots and lots of change happened in here! As planned, I removed the big sliding doors to the right of the fireplace that led into the sunroom but were no longer in use. I had the pass through wall that divided the living and dining spaced removed so that the space opened up and seemed much larger and much more welcoming. A support beam was added to take on the load of the bigger opening. I removed the half wall of wainscoting and had the walls retextured and painted a light gray (Sherwin Williams Repose Gray), and all of the trim was painted white (Sherwin Williams Snowbound). I had the fireplace painted the same white also, though a specialized masonry grade paint was used, and I replaced the mantel for a more current, very lightly distressed cedar mantel.
Kevin and I hung shiplap on both sides of the fireplace, and it somehow all turned out straight and even and good looking despite this being our first time to delve in the ‘lap. I had crown molding hung at the ceiling and the vaulted tray ceiling painted a darker gray for emphasis at the suggestion of my painter (I mildly wish I wouldn’t have listened to this advice and would have painted it a lighter color). The finishing touch was a modern farmhouse style ceiling fan.
SUNROOM
Passing through the now large and airy opening from the living room into the sunroom you are greeted with all the sunlight on the planet. Plants could photosynthesize like maniacs in here. I had trim added around the windows to make them look pretty and proper. These windows are no longer ladies of the night- they have been reformed. They are now proper, fancy ladies. I had the ceiling planked, and to be honest, I’m a little disappointed with how it turned out. Due to a miscommunication on my part (completely my fault), the planks were hung the opposite direction from which I had precisely measured and accounted for and so there had to be a trim piece added over the seam, thus killing the look, in my opinion. Sigh. It’s still a large improvement from before though. And that plank work sure is eye candy.
I unfortunatley didn’t get an after shot of the pretty exposed brick wall. I wanted to keep the original, natural brick color and avoid painting it, but there was a large round hole (WHY?!) that ruined those plans. I had a brick mason come out to professionally patch the hole, but it looked pretty horrible and made the white paint job inevitable. I still love you though, brick wall. We cool.
KITCHEN AND DINING
In the kitchen I kept the half wall of wainscoting, and just painted it white along with all of the trim and cabinetry (Sherwin Williams Snowbound). I removed all of the wallpaper and border and had the walls textured. I chose white 3×6 subway tile with a 1/8” charcoal gray grout line for the backsplash.
I took a risk and ordered these very inexpensive cabinet pulls from Amazon after sweating through the hundreds of reviews on them online, and I am so glad I did! I think they look amazing and the quality is insane for the price. I will use them again and again in future houses.
I worked with the existing granite countertops because they were in great condition. I added this cute caged light over the sink and it’s one of my favorite fixtures in the house. I replaced the dishwasher and ultimately the stove. I tried hard to salvage that stove but I just couldn’t get it cleaned up and looking decent, and it was killing my vibe. I wasn’t going to let it bring down this kitchen remodel. You’re only as weak as your weakest link, right, kitchen? See yourself to the door, greasy stove. Take your cornbread crumbs with you.
I love this built in desk in the kitchen and decided to keep it, both for aesthetic and sentimental reasons. I used to sit here for hours when I was a kid playing secretary and teacher. I was a very important and busy, well-respected secretary slash teacher.
The big bay window in the dining room is begging for a pretty round table so I added a lantern style chandelier that would look cute over many family dinners served here.
LAUNDRY/MUDROOM
This was my mom’s sewing room. I’m actually tearing up a little reflecting and preparing to write this paragraph. My mom would spend hours in here. This was her happy place. When I think of her this is where I picture her- here in this room, creating something or repairing a hole in something for someone she loved. We had the best Halloween costumes on the planet because they were homemade, here in this room.
My mom is still alive, but she has advanced Alzheimer’s disease, and she doesn’t recognize me much any more. It’s a heartbreaking disease because her body is still here, but she is not. It’s a strange thing to mourn for someone whose body is still on this Earth. But I mourn because she doesn’t call me Courty anymore, and because her face doesn’t light up with recognition when she sees me, and mostly because she doesn’t get to be a Nana to my kids when being a Nana was her favorite thing on this Earth. I don’t get to tell her about my joys and my losses. Or maybe in fact I could, because her hugs are still just as warm and rich and full and she still smells the same- like the perfect mix of Beautiful by Estee Lauder with just the tiniest hint of Aquanet hairspray somewhere in the background. But maybe I’m just afraid to try, because when she looks at me politely like I’m just another woman chatting with her about my life it breaks me into a million pieces. I miss her so, so terribly. I hope that she would be proud of the work I put into this house.
I poured extra love into this room for her, her favorite room.
On that note, I wanted to pay tribute to my family and our original home somehow, and I was able to do that in this room. I found the original front door to the house in the garage, buried deep under some scrap wood (because my parents threw NOTHING away. Thank you for that, said I, when I had to clean the entire house out and prepare it for Estate Sale. Thanks again for keeping my baby teeth. I sure do treasure them). The door, replaced years ago by the current front door, was missing a diamond glass pane, but I was able to get that easily repaired by a local glass company for under $50, and after cleaning it up and restaining it I had Negib hang it from a barn door track so that you can close off the door to the laundry room when you don’t want to hear the dryer reminding you that you’re about to have to fold nine loads of towels. I looooove how this turned out. Not only is it cool looking, but it’s also a little wink to my family. I see you, Doyles. A part of us will always be here in the house that built us.
HALL BATH
The first stop down the hallway is the hall bath. Easily my favorite “after” in this whole house. I loooooove how this room turned out! I had my guys raise the dropped down ceiling up to normal human height and also remove the fur down over the vanity. The room got all dressed up with shiplap and it couldn’t look any better on her!!!
Look how pretty she looks now! I die.
I had planned to save and paint the existing vanity, but it fell apart when the counterop was being removed, and I’m so glad it did because I found this beautiful vanity with the attached marble couterop on major discount (at Builder’s Warehouse, if you’re local!). It was already painted this moody gray color and I love how it, along with the black granite, contrast against the all white walls and white floor tile and white subway tiled shower. I added the black vintage pharmacy mirrors and the farmhouse inspired vanity lights above to complete the look. The final touch were some cute chalkboard towel hooks that I found at Target. Be still my heart.
GUEST BEDROOMS
The three guest bedrooms are down the hallway a little. They didn’t need much to update them. They received paint, new closet doors, door hardware, baseboards, carpet, and ceiling fans. Le voila.
MASTER BEDROOM
We addressed this in my last post, but again I say WHY DID THIS FLOOPLAN EXIST? I won’t beat a dead horse here, but I just need you to know how I feel about this. Sinks do not belong in bedrooms. This is not a Super 8 motel. The end. Period. Amen forever.
And so the bathroom was made into a real deal bathroom and separated from the bedroom. Glory be, hallelujah.
I had a pocket door placed here to conserve space but to accommodate for privacy. I removed the bathroom vanity and was able to fit two smaller vanities side by side after having a plumber split the line to house two sinks. I had the fur downs removed above the vanity and also in the shower. I chose white 3×6 subway tile with charcoal colored grout for the surround, and I love how it all turned out. This master bedroom and bath gets the award for most improved.
UPSTAIRS BONUS ROOM
After much debate I elected not to have the bonus room included in the square footage of this home. But why? More square footage is always better! Not always though. Gather round, my children, let me tell you why it was not better in this case.
This house already exceeded the average home size in the neighborhood by 400-600 square feet. The upstairs bonus room was well over 700 square feet. If I were to have added that into the measured square footage 1) I would have out-priced my neighborhood 2) the home would have to sell for a greatly reduced price per square foot, thus lowering comps and property values in the neighborhood. I fancy myself the Santa Clause of property values, not the Grinch. I giveth, I don’t taketh away.
So, the homeowners have a nice, huge bonus room upstairs where they can send their kids up to play. Because I wasn’t including this room in the square footage I put the bare minimum into it: paint and carpet only. It truly is just free bonus space for the home owners to do what they choose with.
THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE
Throughout the house all of the popcorn ceilings were scraped and textured, because that crap is gross. If I have one mission in this life it is to eradicate all the popcorn ceilings from this planet. DEATH WILL FIND YOU.
Wood look tile floors were added in all of the main areas and hallways (This floor tile from Lowe’s is so affordable and of GREAT quality. It looks much more expensive than it was!).
All of the walls and ceilings were painted Repose Gray by Sherwin Williams, and all of the trim and cabinetry was painted SW Snowbound.
When the house was complete I sat back and breathed a sigh of relief. So much had changed in me throughout the course of this project. From beginning to end, the remodel took a total of six weeks, but in many ways I felt like I had lived 6 lifetimes in that span. So much of me had changed and healed, and I had discovered a passion that I didn’t know existed. I felt good about what I had done, but I felt nervous and shy about bringing my family here to see the end product. I had an overwhelming need to make them proud of the changes I had made in our family home before I passed it on to the next family. I felt like the home spoke for us.
I visited Paris when I was eighteen, and I was surprised to see that at a metro stop outside of the Palace Versailles people had graffiti-ed their names all over the walls. It was a beautiful, messy hodge podge of cultures of people crying out “I WAS HERE. SEE ME. REMEMBER ME.” They needed the world to know that they had been here, to be seen and to be remembered at a place that meant something to them. They knew that others would come after them, and that, as long as these walls were standing, they would forever have an imprint that would be seen. The wrapping of my childhood home felt much like that. Our family was here. For over forty years our family loved here and we nursed our hurts here and we grew together and we made a legacy, and now it was time for us to go. It was someone else’s turn to build a life here, but we were here.
Here she is.
My family home. The home that I lived in from birth until age 19 when I moved out to be closer to my college campus, and of course the home that I returned to every weekend and holiday to visit my mom.
Built in 1968, it is your typical traditional ranch style home which is the most common architectural style for our region, and my parents were the original owners.
The Sunroom
The house, when built, was around 1600 sq ft, but my dad enclosed the porch and routed HVAC to it creating, by definition, a sunroom- although we just referred to this room as “the back room,” and in my lifetime it was used as our family computer room.
After the sunroom enclosure the square footage was brought up to 2050 sq ft. I’ve always loved the exposed brick wall back here and the bank of windows along the back wall that poured natural sunlight into the room. It was absolutely brimming with potential.
THE “BONUS ROOM”
But my dad didn’t stop there. The man couldn’t sit still. When I was in 5th or 6th grade he decided that our home’s ample attic space was a missed opportunity for a second story. So he transformed our single story home into a two story with his DIY addition of a 600 sq ft heated and cooled “bonus room,” before those were even a thing. I can remember this transformation happening and not thinking anything of it, wasn’t it perfectly normal for parents to add a story onto their homes…?
Check out those stairs.
This was all before HGTV and Pinterest and, gasp- the internet even, so he did all of this out of his own brain.
The upstairs was my domain. A clubhouse of sorts. That “stage” (which is raised to accommodate for the vaulting of the living room ceiling below) is where my band practiced. It’s true- if you thought I looked familiar all this time it’s because I was the rhythm guitarist- and for a stint the bass guitarist- in the wildly famous all girl band Aquarius, which was later renamed That Great Band after learning with palpable heartbreak that there was already a band called The Age of Aquarius. The band broke up in mid-high school citing artistic differences as the reason for our demise.
After purchasing the home but before getting started, I brought in two different home inspectors to inspect all of my dad’s handy work, and I was terrified. None of this extreme change was done to code, and I was certain that the entire upstairs would need to be ripped out and the ceiling patched up like it never existed. This would have broken my heart as I felt it would have deleted some relic of my dad’s legacy.
Against all of my expectations, when I brought in two sets of home inspectors they both said a version of “I WANT to hate this. Everything in me wants to say that this is bad and wrong and needs to be ripped out, but I actually kind of love it and have serious respect for your dad for doing all of this himself.”
The stairs, though steep, were all uniform in distance, head clearance was to code, joists were all present and accounted for. In that moment I felt an overwhelming surge of pride for my dad, and I had an intense desire and newfound motivation to make him proud of me in return by doing this renovation justice.
But all tenderness aside, there was some dated and ugly stuff in this house, guys. I mean.
ENTRY/FORMAL LIVING
Those posts “defining” the formal living room had to go. In fact the formal living had to go altogether. Nobody does formal anymore. “Please, won’t you come and sit in my well defined parlour and drink some tea. Let’s first, though, walk past the perfectly good couch and loveseat in my first living room to get there. Ah, yes, that’s much better. I’m exhausted from that walk and in great need of this tea.”
Yeah those dark, ugly, dated, and unnecessary posts had to GO. This room would become a study with a set of two sliding barn doors to give privacy if desired.
LIVING ROOM
The living room lacks any natural light as it has no windows of its own. To remedy that I would remove what was originally the sliding door to the patio, now an unused and cumbersome door to The Sunroom (I had of course taken to calling “the backroom” “The Sunroom” because it was about to become classy, so it might as well start acting the part.) This would become a large opening and would let in plenty of natural light. I also would paint all of the trim and the fireplace white to brighten it up majorly. Also, can we get some shiplap up in here? Mama needs some ‘lap. Out would go the bookcase to the left of the fireplace, in would go some shiplap in its place- picking back up on the other side of the fireplace.
What was the point of that pass through window to the kitchen with a doorway to just *walk* into the kitchen right next to it? That had to come out to open up the living room to the dining and kitchen. However, that wall was a load bearing wall, and a beam would need to be added to ensure that the house didn’t cave in. That would be sad.
KITCHEN
The kitchen just needed your typical cosmetic updates. Ivy wallpaper, you’ve seen your last days. Goodbye to you and your matching fruit border friend.
My mom had new granite countertops installed a few years ago before her memory really went downhill, and while they weren’t my personal first choice in color I knew that I could design around them and make them look intentional, saving beaucoups of money that desperately needed to be spent elsewhere.
LAUNDRY ROOM
The laundry room is HUGE, which was unheard of for a home of this era. It doubled as my mom’s sewing room, and I knew it would make a fantastic mudroom with all of that space and being right off of the garage. It had to have built in mud cubbies. I vividly pictured a young family coming home from school and hanging up their backpacks on little hooks in this room while kicking off their shoes and filling their mom in on their school day. MUD CUBBIES OR BUST.
HALL BATH
The hall bath had seen better days.
Can I start by saying that the ceiling in this hall bathroom dropped down to SEVEN FEET? Seven. For no reason. No other room in the house had a ceiling this low. The vanity counter was also weirdly low like it was custom made for preschool children to wash up their hands after finger painting and before snack time. What say we go ahead and make this room normal human sized?
Oh, and let’s 86 the mauve wall paint and matching mauve floor, the flower wall paper border, and while we’re at it the mildewed tile tub surround. That cast iron bath tub was quality though. It would stay. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.
MASTER BEDROOM AND BATH
Bless its heart.
WHY IS THIS FLOOR PLAN A THING? I need you to fully understand and feel my distaste. My brow is furrowed. Why would anyone ever think “You know what would be great? Having a sink IN the bedroom, 5 feet away from the bed where the wife is sleeping when the husband wakes up and brushes his teeth every morning and then uses his electric razor to shave his face. The noise will wake up the sleeping wife an hour before her alarm is set to go off and it will be fantastic. They will live happily ever after.” I AM FROWNING AT YOU, 1960’S ARCHITECT.
This would have to be fixed. And all God’s people said “let us give this blessed husband and wife a real deal bathroom with walls and doors and everything, Amen.” And so a wall would be built, separating the bedroom from the bathroom so that it would actually BE a bathroom, and a pocket door would be added to conserve space. Additionally the door between the vanity area and the shower would be opened up slightly to create the feeling of more space. Oh, and it would need a major attractiveness boost, obvi. All the things would need to come out of there and be replaced with new pretty things.
BEDROOMS 2-4
(I’m missing a picture of the fourth bedroom.)
The remaining 3 bedrooms were a good size- nice and spacious, with no real issues other than just needing paint and carpet and fixtures replaced. They would have their dated folding closet doors replaced for real hinged opening doors.
THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE
Throughout the house all of the floors would come up and be replaced with wood-look tile with the exception of the bedrooms (which would be carpeted) and the bathrooms (which would be tiled). The walls would all be painted a light, neutral gray, and all of the trim and cabinets in the house would be modernized with a fresh white paint. Much of the trim was damaged and would be replaced (all of the baseboards would wind up needing to be replaced) and a bedroom door that had an unpatchable hole and would also need to be replaced.
All of the light fixtures throughout the house would be replaced with stylish, modern looking ones, and all cabinet and door hardware would be replaced- hinges and pulls.
Additionally, the entire electrical panel for the house and much of the plumbing would need to be redone. This was not an expense that I budgeted for and this made me VERY SAD. The electrician said it was one of the worst electrical jobs he’s ever done. And my budget replied: “ouch.”
The exterior wasn’t bad. It just needed a few paint color tweaks and a good power washing as the garage doors and siding were both relatively new. And it of course needed landscaping, shutters and a new, adorable front door. And I had already decided that the front door had to be a minty blue-green.
I felt optimistic as I embarked on my journey. I had a reason to get up out of bed every day and put on clothes and leave my house. I had a purpose- something that was waiting on me. A commitment that was depending on me to see it through. I had an outlet to channel my sadness and heartbreak over the loss of the baby. I poured my confusion and frustration and anger into demolishing wood paneling and ripping wallpaper from walls. Sometimes tears of anger poured out of me as I ripped and tugged and freed the walls from their ivy patterned prison.
I spent time in prayer and also ample time talking to my parents in the many hours that I was there alone. I cried to the empty walls and to their memories, and I felt them there- in the place where I grew up, in the living room where my mom rocked me as a baby, under the second story that my dad had built by hand- surrounding me and loving me through it. It was there, in my empty childhood home, in the eleventh hour of my darkness and hurt, that I started to find a glimmer of something. A flicker of something on the other side of that dark place. A reminder that I was valuable, and the promise that something good was coming; something was changing.
Out of the ashes comes something living, something good and light; out of the ashes comes the promise of hope.
****Stay tuned next week, when I reveal what became of my childhood home after her dramatic updates!****
I’m making strange life choices. Someone reign me in.
Two years ago I was a happily practicing chiropractor partnering in a busy clinic with my husband, Kevin, also a chiropractor. I love being a chiropractor. Like, love it to depths of my soul- that kind of love. Helping others fulfills me. Someone asked me once what my dream job was and I immediately answered that I was doing it. They said “yeah, but if you could be ANYTHING.” I said again,” yeah, I’m doing it,” and I meant it. So, why then am I doing weird things with my life?
Buckle up because I’m going to get overly personal right off the bat.
My husband and I struggled with infertility, so having both of our boys was particularly monumental. We underwent years of fertility treatments to conceive both of them. It felt like this made my attachment to them stronger, my time with them felt more fleeting and precious. I went back to work part-time after we had our first son, but I made the decision to stay home full time after we had our second son. I needed this time with my babies. During this time I had everything that I wanted- time at home with my boys and a husband who supported this decision; everything was truly perfect and fantastic.
So why after two years did I begin to feel so itchy? So restless? So left behind by my peers in practice? So jealous of my husband for getting to go out into the world and use all of his brain cells? I was writing out my son’s Valentine’s Day cards one day, and I forgot how to spell the word “friend” and immediately started crying. I text my sister that my brain was dissolving. I said “please send help right now, my brain broke.” She assured me that all mothers’ brains dissolve but eventually regenerate. I wasn’t convinced, and it was at this time that I began my plan to go back into practice.
And then I got pregnant for the third time. By accident. I say by accident because we were definitely, absolutely confirmed to only be able to get pregnant very intentionally. By spending gazillions of dollars and having our babies made in labs. So how on earth did this happen? It was only by some very large and intentional miracle. We were so happy. We were just absolutely over the moon. We always wanted tons of kids and we felt that our miracle had finally arrived. Our guard was completely down and our hearts were completely open and in love with this precious child. I was absolutely convinced that it was a boy, and we began to call him “Tripp,” as he would be- in my convinced mind- our third son. And then, at ten weeks pregnant, I had a miscarriage. Physically, it was a two week long nightmare of a miscarriage that ended in surgery. Emotionally, we were heartbroken and completely devastated. Not only had we lost a baby that we were completely in love with, the loss of this baby also signified the end of babies for our family. The definite and very painful closing of a chapter.
I didn’t return into practice as I had been planning before the pregnancy because my focus in our clinic centers around the care of pregnant moms, babies, and young children. All the things that broke my heart into a million pieces. I just couldn’t even.
And so it was after this miscarriage that I started to feel myself losing myself. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t laughing or smiling; I wasn’t coping. I was very definitely falling into a very bad and dark place.
To add some additional backstory, my mom has Alzheimer’s Disease. My sisters and I moved her into a local assisted living center a year ago, but we left my parents’ house vacant. (My dad died when I was in high school. This is the last depressing fact in this blog, I promise. You’re almost to the good part. Keep reading.) We came to the agreement that it was time to sell the house for my mom because the memory care unit in assisted living is hella expensive, guys. I mean really. So I reached out to a friend who is a realtor and he came and looked at the house. He confirmed what we already knew- that the house wasn’t in great shape and would not pass any inspection even with hardcore bribery and a prayer (my dad was into DIY before that was a thing. Hello entire electrical panel that was rewired *DIY*. Cringe.). Our realtor said that the only person we could get to purchase the home would be an investor, a house flipper. He mentioned that he knew of two who would likely be interested, both women, and he invited them to come out and look at the house. They came and walked through the property with poker faces and inevitably made the same offer to purchase the home. I presented this offer to my family and we agreed to accept and move forward with the selling of our family home.
And then I got in my head.
Kevin and I successfully “long flipped” two homes. Our first two houses we bought and completely renovated with the intent to live in them while remodeling them and then to sell them for a profit. We enjoyed this process immensely. So I started thinking that if one of these two Lady Flippers was going to buy my beloved childhood home and tear it to shreds and make it unrecognizable and do this for a profit, why then couldn’t I? What skill set did they have that I didn’t? And what if they did a crappy job? Why couldn’t I do what they were going to do and have control over the quality of the products going into the renovation so that it could be made into something that my parents would be proud of again? So that our family home could be brought back to life and make a happy home for a family all over again?
So I voiced these things to Kevin. And bless that man, without batting an eye he said, “You can do this. You’ll be great at it.” I love him so.
So, I presented the idea to my family and they agreed to let me purchase the home from my mom for the same price that the other lady flippers had offered, and after closing on the home I began the process of renovating it.
And this blog is the story of how that process came along at exactly the right moment and saved me from my dark place. It’s the beginning of the story of how saving houses- breathing life back into them- breathed life back into me.
The name Ash and Ivy has two meanings. It represents the balance of masculine and feminine design elements that I like to achieve in every home. Ash represents the masculine: as a type of wood it is hard and strong. And there is nothing in this world more beautiful to me than ivy growing on a home: it is charming and mysterious and quaint and soft and feminine. But deeper than that, and on a level far more personal to me, the name signifies the idea that out of the ashes- out of all of the ugly- there emerges something beautiful and living. Taking these older homes found in disrepair and renovating them breathes life back into them again. It rewrites their story. And that’s what this did for me. It breathed life back into me. It rewrote my story. Out of the ashes I found myself again.
I’m excited to share my house flipping journey with you. I can’t say what the future looks like or how long I will continue on this path or when I will go back into practice, but for now this feels just exactly right and is exactly where I want to be. I hope you’ll enjoy following along with me as I go.