It's Official. We're Flipping... Again.

Many of you may already know that Dustin, his parents, and I had flipped a house back in 2010. For those of you who didn't know that, now you do! In early spring 2010, we found a great deal on a foreclosed house in Emmaus. We bought it, we flipped it and we sold it in 2 days. It was a great experience; one that provided extensive and repetitive opportunities for learning. What I learned - We should flip again, but we should not flip in 2011. Dustin and I had a busy 2011 and we had anticipated that from the beginning. We sold our house, I graduated and was on a job hunt. Flipping a house just simply did not fit in to the time schedule. So, Dustin, being the amazing husband he is, very graciously agreed to not flip in 2011. 2012 rung in and on January 3rd, Dustin, his parents and I were looking at a new house and planning to make an offer. My man keeps his promises but without an extra second more! (His motivation and determination are 2 of a million reasons why I married him).

Sarah Stauffer (our phenomenal Realtor/Broker), orchestrated another sale for us. After some typical foreclosure obstacles, we settled yesterday.

Here's the new house.

It's a twin on a little street in Emmaus.

After crunching some numbers, we decided that instead of flipping it, we will likely renovate it and plan to keep it as a rental property.

As I had mentioned, we settled last night. Fortunately, Wes, Sarah's husband and owner of Wesley Works, was able to get before pictures. Though I was able to get to the house less than 24 hours after settlement, demo had already started... not to my surprise.

Demolition with Dustin and his dad looks like this.

And this.

The theme: Dustin destroys, Papa John cringes then Papa John cleans.

Now, let's take a tour.

Here is the downstairs. The whole downstairs. The view is from the front door through to the back of the house where the kitchen was and will be again.

And from the "kitchen" looking to the front of the house.

See those stairs? Let's walk down them.

Here is a tiny basement. We plan to put a toilet, washer and dryer straight ahead. The basement was not set up for a toilet. You know how you fix that? You dig a hole.

Yes, Dustin dug a hole... in the concrete.... a few hours after settlement.

Look up.

Yes, those are cob webs above you. Pretty gross, huh? Do you want to leave the basement? Okay, let's go back to the main floor and walk up to the 2nd floor.

At the top of the stairs, you look into a small room in the back of the house.

Pretty, isn't it? Now, turn around.

Do you know what room you're looking at? We're not sure either. It's an open space in the middle of the 2nd floor. It will be functional by the time we're done with it. Now, walk into that space and turn to your right.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, this bathroom absolutely takes the cake for the most creative, elegant, spacious bathroom we've come across thus far (insert sarcasm). As you can imagine, we plan to completely gut this bathroom and change the layout to create just a little more room.

Turn to your left and walk into the beautiful pink room in front of you.

I told you it was beautiful.

Finally, if you go outside, the driveway is jammed with 2 dump trailers full of demo and the remains of the shed.

And that completes the tour.

This is our 3rd house renovation. Crazy, right? My favorite part of the beginning of the renovation is learning about the house. How was it made? Who lived in it? It is impossible to knock down walls in an old house and not find something. So far, this is what we've found:

Walls filled with concrete.

Framing made out of logs with the sides shaved to make a straight edge.

And, a family's imprints.

We're very excited for this new project. We hope it goes smoothly, on time and on budget (does it ever?).

No matter how it goes, I will document the journey. Be sure to follow along.