Red painted cabinets, lots of dust, holes in the sheetrock, broken windows, and yes, a hornet’s nest. What have we gotten ourselves into?
Days 1 and 2 of __?__ in getting the rental property ready for renters are complete! Will and I worked for about 10 hours yesterday. Will of course wanted to attack the yard first. He mowed and edged the yard and trimmed back the willow tree that was overtaking the side yard. I am sad to see the willow tree go, because it was whimsical and offered a lot of shade over the kitchen and living room windows, but it was not a healthy tree. I made the first 2 of __?__ trips to Home Depot(s) to purchase the kitchen cabinets – white satin for the rent house and natural hickory for our place. Did I mention we’re updating our own kitchen too? Because, why not!? I selected granite counter tops for both houses – a neat black/grey/white/speckled color that is going to look great with both finishes.
Then, the fun part: demolition. Well, removal really, but demolition sounds cooler. We removed the old red painted cabinets and stick-on vinyl flooring and OSB particle board to reveal some nice wood floors. I still don’t understand why people cover those up ever! For a split second, we considered keeping the wood floors but there is a layer of super groovy vinyl tile (yes, more vinyl tile) super glued onto them. Gross. We picked out some grey porcelain tile instead. “Demo” day was a blast and we are very tired.
Day 2 consisted of 2 more trips to the Home Depot to pick up the hickory cabinets for our house and the floor prep materials for the new tile that’s going in the rent house kitchen. I also purchased 5 gallons of antique white paint to cover all the walls in the rent house. For those with rent house experience – do you let your tenants paint the walls? What rules do you set for that?
We had a great hvac company come out and get the air conditioning working for about 5% of what another company had quoted us – huge win! We highly recommend working with Buddy over at A/C Responders. Great customer service – I made my appointment online yesterday (which was Labor Day) for 8 AM this morning and he not only called to confirm but he showed up on time… and did great quality work! The rent house was a chilly 64 degrees when I got home from work today.
We also got the hot water heater taken care of and the sink disconnected so we can finish yanking out the cabinets. A big shout out to Danny at DanCo Plumbing, who is a childhood friend of Will’s, for always helping us out with our plumbing needs!
As of today, we are on-budget and on-target for completion date, but we watch a lot of HGTV so we know better than to get our hopes up too high. Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting project.
In the middle of all the sweat and excitement, I almost forgot to mention… we find out the gender of Baby Myrick on Thursday! What do you predict… boy or girl?
Mama Myrick's Musings 
I think it will be ….. a baby!
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