Our "little" flip it house....

  We are renovators through and through!  We have tackled many projects in our own home, built our gift store and BnB business up from the ground,  and have also done a "flip it " house.  Now trust me, things do not go as smoothly as the shows on tv, but we did survive our first flip!  Hope you enjoy the pictures ...

Our little diamond in the rough!  Mrs Dong was the owner of this house when we bought it from her.  She was a little oriental lady that had lived in the house for atleast 50 years!!  and as you will see from the before pictures, not a thing had been changed in it!!   Her husband was a tailor in town, and the front window was his little sewing room.   Mrs. Dong moved from small town living to the big city (Vancouver area)  where her only daughter lived.  I often think about her and wonder how she adjusted to the big change.  Her life in Hanna was so simple and quiet....

These are terrible before pictures, but atleast you can get an idea of what we were up against!  The kitchen was so small, half of the doors didn't even close as you can see by this picture!  We knew that we would be tearing down some walls and opening up the whole main floor ... in fact. we barely had the keys in our hands and Darrell and Ben had the kitchen wall knocked down!  The wall with the phone on it was the first to come down.

The cute little white chairs in the above and below pictures stayed with the house.  They have some potential for a cute "cottage look".

The living room and a bedroom were on the other side of the kitchen wall.

Here is the kitchen with the wall removed.  With the original floor plan, the fridge and stove were just kinda sitting out in the middle of no mans land and the space was very cramped.

We hauled away atleast 5 grain truck loads of junk and garbage!

Kaleb helping out with the floors.  This was one dirty job!  

 Ben helping clear out the upstairs.  There was cardboard for insulation!  This house dated back to the early 30's

Someone left some coloring behind?!  

We did our fair share of eating pizza, A&W, and Subway!

The bedroom wall was next to come out.  The doorway in this picture went out into the front porch area.

The exposed stairwell that was behind the bedroom wall.  The bathroom could be entered from the kitchen and then there was a doorway in the bathroom that lead you to the stairwell!

The chimney caused the kitchen to be very cramped and also went through to the upstairs leaving a very awkward space upstairs too.

The main floor completely opened up.  You have to remember this is one small house!

A new front door!  

We had a young couple that stopped in a few times while we were renovating that really wanted to rent the house from us.  Of course, we really wanted to sell it!  As it turned out, they did rent it from us for a number of months and then they moved back to SK.  The rest of the pictures are with the furnishings they had and actually, the little house showed pretty good.  It wasn't on the market for very long and we saw a "SOLD " sign on our first (maybe last) flip it house!!  It was alot of work...new windows, siding, drywall, floors, cupboards, electrical, plumbing.....but it was rewarding to see the transformation.   I wonder what Mrs. Dong would have thought  :)

Here comes the AFTER...

We closed in the original kitchen window that was over the kitchen sink.  This allowed us a full wall to put the appliances on.  An island for the sink and dishwasher give the kitchen a nice cozy feel.  Ikea cabinets fit the bill.

The living room area is where the small bedroom used to be.  We made the doorway bigger going into the front porch area.

You can see in the picture below how removing the chimney and closing off the bathroom door that was there,  allowed us to have a longer wall to work with, we put a storage area under the stairwell.

 The upstairs was a little hard to work with because of the low ceilings, but it was a definate improvement!

Since the basement in this old house was a little scary..we decided to put the laundry appliances upstairs.

Here is another Before:

and After:

Before:

After:

New siding, windows and front porch finished off the outside.

There you have it!  Our little flip!  

I am also linking this to :

Frugal Friday

Show and Tell Friday

My Simple Home Life

Metamorphosis Monday

A Marvelous Mess