The last few weeks have been a flurry of excitement. Lots of developments, both good and bad. We’ve made a ton of forward progress on the actual renovations, but had some serious setbacks with permitting and technicalities, and a bridge collapse. We now have a few rooms in the house that are almost “complete” now, and it’s really exciting to see it start looking like a real house again!
Highlights:
-laundry room floor tiled
-hall bath shower tiled
-master bath tub installed and floor tiled
-lots of interior and exterior painting
-all windows and siding installed
-kitchen cabinets and flooring installed
Notable Mishaps:
-OUR DRIVEWAY COLLAPSED. The bridge over the creek collapsed after a heavy truck went over it. Thankfully no one was hurt and the truck made it out fine, but it was super scary, a massive hassle (because we have to park on the far side and haul all the materials across the bridge on foot) but mostly a MASSIVE expense if we can’t get our insurance to cover it. We’ve submitted a claim, but our estimates to have it fixed have been in the $15-25k range. Ouch!
-The building inspector stopped by. Not a mishap in and of itself, because we planned on having the work inspected and permitted. The office informed us that because we owned the unit in an llc, we could not do ANY of the work ourselves. We had to hire a general contractor and not even lift a paintbrush. (Which was funny since three quarters of the work is done already). To remedy this, we just went straight to our attorney’s office and had him transfer the deed from our llc into our personal name. The second bomb they dropped on us was that if we did any work ourselves, we weren’t able to sell the property within a year. They even made us sign an affidavit that says we would not list the property for sale within a year of finishing the work. From the beginning we weren’t sure if we wanted to flip this property or rent it, but the longer we were here and the more money we spent, we had decided we wanted to sell. Obviously this changed the plan significantly. Not the end of the world, but a bit frustrating that we had the decision taken away it.
Goals for Next Week:
– Paint exterior of the house
-Finish tile in master bath
– Figure our bridge
-Hire someone to re do our HVAC system
-plumbing!!