And So The Flip Begins...

I officially signed for the house on August 4.  But with my work schedule, I had to wait to officially begin working on the house until today!  In order to get some sort of game plan for completing the "flip," I made up a spreadsheet covering all of the items that need to be fixed (at least that I could see now).  I actually made up the list before purchase, and after looking over the four-page list, I said, "Hey, I can do this."

I divided it up into Interior and Exterior, and I decided that I wanted to get most of the Exterior items done before winter...just a couple of months away!  So to the outside we go!  Frankly, I had several items to choose from, but one of the first that just needed to be done was the fence.  When I purchased the home, the privacy fence was in sorry shape.  In the front of the house, the fence had actually been removed and set aside and leaned up against another portion of the fence!  In the back, the fence was falling apart and leaning towards the ground, propped up by a supporting board.  To the east, the fence had been overgrown with trees, and to the west, a forest had overtaken the fence.

The fence as seen from the street.  A panel is missing (and is laying there on the right against the fence), and a post is broken.

 

The fence to the south...about ready to collapse.  Two fence posts are broken.

Needless to say, the fence needed some tender love.

Dad and I started out by working on the east portion.  For whatever reason, the previous owner had built a small fence between him and his neighbor (not six-foot tall).  I chastised the man in my mind initially, asking, "Now why in the world would he build a small fence if there was already a tall fence up"?!  Well, the more I think about it, the more it probably happened the OTHER way.  The previous owner of this house probably built up a small fence to still enjoy his neighbor next to him.  And then THAT neighbor wanted a privacy fence and decided to build a tall one.  So now all of a sudden, we have two fences right next to each other of different heights.  And with no way of mowing in between the fences because they are so close, the weeds and trees started coming up.  It was a mess!



The fence to the east.  Notice the large overgrowth BETWEEN the low and high fence!  You can't get to it!

Ah, the unknowns of a foreclosure!!!

Because we could take advantage of the neighbor's taller fence, I decided to just rip out this section of the fence completely (this would prove to be a very time-consuming decision!).  It just made sense.  In order to keep the weeds down, one simply could not have two fences that close to each other.

So we ripped off the old fence and started at the weeds and trees.  The trees were so untouched behind there that we had to use a chainsaw!  But the good news with "demolition" is that you see instant progress.  Every time a section of fence was removed or a tree was taken out, you could see the plan coming together.

The mess behind the short fence.

Years of untouched overgrowth (of course it was untouched...it was unreachable!).

The trees removed from between the fences.

What we didn't foresee was the quality of build of the fence.  After removing the fence panels, we learned that we had posts buried DEEP in concrete.  I am guessing the fence is at least 20 years old, and one of the reasons why is certainly the posts!  We could not get them to budge.

After cleaning up the east side of the fence, we moved to the north which is the portion you can see from the street.  I had a goal of enclosing the yard back in (that's the purpose of a fence after all), and this was our final piece!

Dad and I had to dig out two old fence posts that had broke under the ground.  And that was work.  The concrete footings were 2 1/2 feet below the ground, so we had to dig down to them, then work at prying them out.  I mean, that was WORK!!!  We were soaked in sweat.

Tackling the front of the fence to the north.

These old posts were set DEEP!!!

Putting the old sections back up after replacing the support post.

But the hard work paid off.  We were able to get the old rotten posts out, the new ones in, set in concrete and a fence and gate back up!  What a productive day!  Dad asked if I was ok with how the old fence looked, and I actually said I like the look of the old fence here because it matches the rest of the fence.  Having installed a brand-new fence here would simply make the rest of the yard look like IT didn't match!

One of the two new posts set in concrete.

The original fence is back up!

One fence side down, one fence side up.  And a checkmark next to one of the project boxes.  One step at a time...

On a happy and slightly exciting note, I moved in my FIRST piece of furniture to the new house today!  Mom had let me know about a table and chairs for sale for $50 (my type of price!), and tonight we moved it inside to get out of the way of some garage wall painting about to start.  If I do say so myself, I think it looks mighty nice in there!

The first piece of furniture!

NOW the house is getting the idea that it might be getting whipped in shape to become a home...