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.