I can’t believe it’s already been almost two weeks since we bought our fourth flip!  It turns out that time flies when you’re running around like a crazy person.

Did I tell you that Jason skipped town for 5 days right after we bought it?  Those few days flying solo were a little interesting, but a lot of important decisions were made.

Want to see what’s been decided in the span of just 13 short days?  Here’s a peek at the original floor plan to give you a frame of reference:

Here we go!

• We’re switching up the layout a bit – the formal living room is becoming the formal dining room, and the formal dining room is turning into an office.  Capice?
• We’re opening up a really wide opening between the new dining room and the den.

• We’re also taking out most of the wall between the hallway and the new dining room (on the left-hand side of the photo below) – otherwise you walk through the front door and smack dab into a wall.  No bueno.

• We were trying to avoid moving the furnace to the attic, but space constraints in this 1,400 square foot house made it obvious that it has to go.  That is a few thousand dollars that we didn’t anticipate having to spend, but at least we get a new furnace and about 24 extra square feet of space for the master bathroom.

• What master bathroom?  Ah, yes.  We’re turning the 1/2 bath that is currently attached to the master bedroom into a full-fledged master bathroom with a walk-in shower.  Now the house will have 2 legit bathrooms instead of 1.5 baths – good for resale!

See all the layouts we came up with trying to avoid moving the furnace?

• The layouts of both bathrooms are changing, now that we’re making 2 full baths out of 1.5 baths (and gaining extra space for the master bath by moving the furnace).  You can check out the guest bath below.

• The master bedroom is losing one closet to the master bathroom, but gaining another – there’s a closet in the den that backs to the master, so we’re just flipping the doors from the den-side to the master-side.
• We’re closing up the doorway from the hallway to the den – and turning that space into a coat closet (since we’re losing the existing coat closet in the hallway to the guest bathroom).

• There’s a useless space at the end of the kitchen near the back door – we’re going to create a laundry/mud room down there, framing in walls with a pocket door.

• The water heater is getting moved from the kitchen into the attic – which means we have to replace it with a “short boy” electric unit so that it will fit under the low ridge beam in the attic.  But the trade-off there is that the laundry room that we’re creating at the end of the kitchen will be able to have side-by-side washer and dryer instead of stackables.  A win, I think.

• We’re partially opening up the wall between the kitchen and the den – there will be a peninsula for casual dining and extra counter space.
• We’re keeping the kitchen cabinets – but making a few changes.  We had to nix some uppers and lowers to create the laundry room, and we may be reusing them somewhere.  We’re closing up the doorway by the stove so that we will have room for an undercounter microwave.  There will be floating shelves on either side of the range hood above the stove.  The fridge is getting scooted over towards the laundry room to make room for the peninsula.  Oh, and we’re also running a gas line to the stove.  All of this probably doesn’t make sense now, but I’ll fill you in with more details along the way.  :)

• The wood floors throughout the house are getting patched (where walls are taken out) and refinished, and we’re extending the wood into the kitchen.  With such a small space and an open floor plan it just seems to make sense.
• We’re replacing the front door.
• We’re getting new windows!  And we’re switching out the giant picture window in the den for glass sliders that will lead out to the patio.
• Yes, we’re putting in a giant 16×20 foot deck where the addition used to be.  It will have benches and it will be awesome.

Remember that nasty addition?  See ya later!

• Even though 8 foot privacy fences are awesome, they are also expensive.  We’re springing for a 6 foot board on board cedar fence, which should look great.

• The hot tub is getting the boot.
• We’ve also started buying things – like vanities and housing for recessed lights and shower valves.  Are we exciting or what?

Whew!  And to think, we’ve only just begun!