then comes a house

After finding out that the title of this blog was creating some confusion as to Phil's and my intention with our house, I consulted the source of all knowledge (Google) to find out just why. I ran into this little definition:

flipping: v.tr. practice of buying an asset and quickly reselling it for profit

And, ta-da! There lies the reason! I'm at fault for my poor researching habits (aka laziness). I guess I wasn't so clever after all.

To answer the question: No Phil and I are not, by definition, flipping the house. We plan on moving in and living there for 1-25 or 50 years. Just kidding, we just actually don't know how long we'll be there for.

So now I am faced with the task (can I say burden?) of naming this little blog once again. I (we) have decided to call our little blog:

then comes a house

"Why?" you may wonder. To answer THIS question, I will leave you with proof of our first-grade-level kind of humor:

Phil and Esther,
sitting in a tree,
k-i-s-s-i-n-g
first comes love,
then comes a house,
then comes marriage,
then comes a baby in a golden carriage!

And just in case this inspires yet another question about a baby in Phil's and my baby carriage, I'd like to point out that the "then" in this little children's verse implies the unknown future of which we are not yet aware. A baby in a baby carriage will undeniably call for its own blog post when the time comes.

Congrats, John!... not so congrats house.

Congratulations to Phil's brother John who graduated high school this weekend! We are so proud of you. Yet this also explains why there was no work done on the house in the past few days. We'll pick back up in the coming week.

Oh and by the way: the plumbing failed inspection. Wah-wah-wahhhhh. But the needed repairs are little and already being done. The second inspection has been scheduled once again for early this week. Let's pray, pray, pray!

Progress thus far...

We have been making pretty steady progress on the house lately and I have pictures to prove it!

Garbage Removal

My dad is a truck driver and was able to borrow this humon-go (!) dumpster from the company he works for. They use these dumpsters for demolition jobs. We saved ourselves a pretty penny for the rental fee and are only going to have to pay for the disposal charges. We cannot be more thankful for this! It is so great to have these things available to us. We also cannot forget to be grateful for the great friends and family that we can count on. Our friends Mike Giegerich, John Harmon, Phil's brother Andrew, and our brother-in-law Steve came to help us on Saturday 1/10 even amidst the snow storm. Mike, John, and Andrew were able to get all of our garbage into the dumpster including tile, plaster, toilets, pipes, etc. It did not seem like an easy task since I can only imagine how much all of it weighed and we cannot sufficiently express our gratitude.

MORE Wallpaper Removal

Meanwhile, Steve helped me get some more wallpaper down in the master bedroom. Doing wallpaper removal is like dying a slow death, or at least like living in a temporary purgatory. Its dreadful! On the bright side, we got to have some good conversations. This picture is of the area that we worked on. The wallpaper up there is really stuck on! If it wasn't of cacti, cowboys, and Indians I would really consider keeping it to avoid all of this work. We still have some more to take down but as Phil put it "Removing wallpaper in our house is so depressing that we can't have our friends and family do it for us anymore." So now its up to Phil and I to get it down so... I'm taking suggestions on how to incorporate a caricature desert scene into classy bedroom decor.

Bathroom #1

This is the exact light I envisioned in this bathroom. Phil got it without me even showing him what I was thinking about.

Now that I think about it, I notice that it's pretty dark in there. Perhaps we'll have to upgrade the wattage on the lightbulb.

While Steve helped me and the guys worked on filling the dumpster, Phil was able to work in the downstairs bathroom. It is really coming together. Phil has primed the walls and the ceilings are going to be done eventually (we're counting on my Pops for this-- he used to work for a painting company and I hear he is super fast at painting ceilings and windows so we're going to put him up for a test). Our friend Greg Allen put in our light on Wednesday and it looks great! Thanks, Greg!

Indoor Painting

On Wednesday and Thursday Phil was able to take an hour or two in the morning before work to paint a couple of our walls. I walked into the house and felt pure joy at seeing the difference that a coat of (WHITE!) primer paint can make. It is really obvious in the second picture. I still smile when I see it! Just close your eyes for a minute and envision what all of our walls are going to look like eventually.

Now, don't you agree that we might not be in over our heads.

Attempts at a plumbing inspection!

The inspection of the plumbing was scheduled for yesterday, but due to icy steps it was postponed until today, or so we thought! Ends up there was a miscommunication between the muni workers and my beloved. The inspector did not have it on his schedule. What a bummer!! Tomorrow is our next attempt at this. When it is done we can start putting our kitchen's walls up and we can start rebuilding our master bathroom!!

A couple that ... goes to the bathroom together... stays together.

Isn't that how the saying goes?

You can tell we were delirious by the end of the day. It must be all of the fumes we ingested.

We've concluded that moving in together before the wedding is out of the question.

Thank God for Moms and Dads :)

Another wall came down in the house... a first floor bathroom wall. There was too much to patch up... so Phil went at it with (what else) a sledge hammer. He spent a while after that trimming the wires so that we could put in sheet rock. My wonderful dad came over on Sunday and assessed the damage. Not too much. Within two hours he had a wall, insulation, and a ceiling up. He's such a quick worker when you give him a project. It looks great too! It was so nice to see a wall going up instead of down. Like a light at the end of the tunnel!

Phil taking down the wall.

After Poppa Arrieta put the wall and ceiling up.

Our moms have also been helping with cleaning the walls. Its been quite a task. We've vowed never to put wallpaper up... for the sake of whomever purchases our home next. We've used some sort of chemical (DIF?) mixed with water to scrub the wall and then wiped them down with water. We're almost done!! Just one more wall to go in the living room and the master bedroom.

Clean wall... now just imagine it with a coat of primer.

Closets

Yes. This is a topic in and of itself. A topic I very, very much like. So our lovely, little house has 10 closets! They are distributed around the house like this...

• One closet by the front door
• One closet in bedroom #1
• One closet in bedroom #2
• One closet in the downstairs hallway
• Three closets in the upstairs hallway (two full length and one half length... possibly for shoes!!)
• One closet in the master bathroom
• Two closets in the master bedroom (his and hers? perhaps. hers and hers is more like it. just kidding)

At the beginning of our house search, our brother-in-law Eugene advised us not to underestimate the worth of storage space. I have to say, there were points when I deliberately ignored Eugene's advise. Particularly, with one house we saw, and seriously considered, I found myself saying "I can live with one closet..." But now that I see what a blessing storage space is, I know what Eugene was talking about. It is one of the best qualities of our house. Plus, more room for new shoes, right Phil?

More projects: The bathrooms

Bathroom #1

We love the fact that we have TWO full bathrooms... but with two full bathrooms, comes a lot of work. The first floor bathroom is being partially re done. This is the process so far. Notice the DISGUSTING toilet... among other disgusting things you may see.

Before...

Currently...

I especially love the pedestal sink, but the not-so-yellow toilet comes in at a close second. Phil got these on Craigslist for $50!... a great buy that saved us a lot of money. We have really looked around for some of the things we need. Toilets and sinks, for example, would have cost us $200-$300... This set also comes with a porcelain mirror.

Bathroom #2Our second bathroom isn't much of a bathroom right now. Its more like boards and pipes. With the help of a lot of our (guy) friends -- Fran Gallic, Paul Scarfone, Frank Guido, Mike Temple, Phil Margetts, our brother-in-law Eugene-- we gutted the bathroom and now it will be entirely redone. It will eventually have a stand-up shower, off-white toilet and an off-white vanity sink.

Projects so far...

In the two and a half months that we have owned our house we have been very slowly been making progress on the many projects that we have to finish by our dream date of May 3... the day I have to move in.

Removing Wallpaper

Removing wallpaper was our number one goal for the first weekend we had the house. Phil and I spent twelve hours one day taking it down from our living room, kitchen, two first floor bedrooms, and part of the kitchen. Some came off very easily, but some of it was stubborn... especially when there was TWO layers packed on. We decided to never do wallpaper in any of our homes... no matter how pretty it'd look.

Kitchen

My dad came over on the first weekend we had the house and knocked the kitchen cabinets off (yes, the ones behind us in the picture above). The stickers had to go too, sadly. I think the men in our lives have enjoyed the manual labor involved... especially the one involving sledge hammers. There was also a wall between the tiny kitchen and the tiny dining room. Phil (with a sledge hammer) knocked it out so now we have an eat in kitchen.

Our friends have been awesome throughout this entire thing. We are SO lucky to have such great people in our lives!! Phil and our friend Mike took down the kitchen plaster walls one Saturday and our friend Tim, a plumber waiting for his license, was so great and did all of our plumbing on nights and weekends with some help.

Flipping 429

The name of this blog very simply (and I like to think cleverly) states the project which Philip and I have recently undertaken: we are flipping the cutest little house which we own as of last October (the 24th to be exact).

Flipping 429 Brook Court has been quite the ambitious project for Phil and me. It has been the biggest project either one of us has ever been a part of and it is taking place during a very busy time in both of our lives: with Phil's two jobs, my school (now a thing of the past), my job, and our wedding in the planning, among other normal "life things" of course.

Yet despite the constant search for time to do more work, the seemingly endless writing of checks and requesting of estimates, and the filthy work days (of which there have been far too few), Phil and I are so happy to have a little house to call our own and where we can start our lives together.

When you see the pictures of the (lack thereof) walls, holes in the ceiling, paint scraping and wall paper removing, you may, very understandibly so, conclude that Phil and I are lunatics for claiming that this is a very happiness-filled season in our lives. But we'd like to share this with you all just the same.

We hope that in a few months, you, like us, will rejoice in witnessing our finished product.