The Flip

As it is my morning routine to fix a hot cup of something indulgent and then sit at the computer and look at houses for sale, I stumbled upon a little foreclosed apartment right around the corner from our house. I took in the sights of this little place; the surprisingly low asking price, the cute little patio, the way you could really open up the place if you knocked out that one wall.

I showed it to Brett. "We could flip this. It just needs paint and an updated kitchen." I kept the demolition bit to myself for the moment. Brett's eyes glittered with intrigue. 

I called Dad. "Hey Dad, there's this place around the corner..." While Brett and I were still working through the very adulty idea of an unnecessary real estate purchase for the sake of making a profit, Dad called back. "I've set up a showing at 11:00. Meet you there."

Well, I guess we'll just go look at it. 

Brett's and Dad's excitement built as they wandered through. "You're right. Just a little work would have this place looking great!" That's when I mentioned my solution for the awful kitchen. "So I was thinking, if we took out this wall, we could make this whole side into an island."

As is common with both of these precious men, the initial knee-jerk reaction is that of denial, or often in Dad's case, the exclamation of "it can't be done!" But mere seconds later, they began working out the logistics, and piling their ideas on top of each others. "I think y'all should put in an offer," Dad said, "I think it's a good investment." Brett and I looked at each other. "Want me to draw up the papers?" Dad asked, as though it's a simple as buying groceries.

After talk of contracts, finances, interest rates, and a remodel cost analysis, our low-ball offer was accepted. Something like four days later, we were the proud new owners of yet another fixer-upper. 

Now, I grew up on the fringes of the Chris Union School of Renovations. He had a roller my hands at six years old, repainting a townhouse over on Crosscreek Drive. I have absorbed a surprisingly large amount of knowledge simply from listening to him bark at contractors on the other end of the phone. I know that you need to move quickly. Every day you spend working on it adds up to another month of interest payments. Dad likes to stack the contractors on top of each other, but in this case, Brett and I were mostly going to do it ourselves. I know that you will have annoying surprises along the way and that "you have to spend money to make money, baby!" 

Now, I've also been living with Brett 'the sloth' Eisenhauer. As the one with superior knowledge on this undertaking, I barked at him on day two that we weren't going to be treating this like the projects at our house. "We've got to move fast. We can't go piddle around for an hour or two each day and then come home to read. We have to treat this like a job..." and blah blah nag nag to which Brett responded graciously, and then I woke up sick the next morning and was in bed for ten days while Brett did all the work. "What was that about wasting time," he'd ask me at the end of his highly productive days.

Dad came in initially to help do some electrical work and to let us run our plans by him to make sure we weren't way off. After helping knock down the kitchen wall (men can't resist demolition), Popples politely left his little birds to renovate the nest. Off we went. Quite quickly I realized that my superior knowledge on the logistics and paperwork of this undertaking was much less important than Brett's superior knowledge on how structures, appliances, and plumbing works. Turns out he doesn't really need help from anyone with less upper body strength than he has. 

I'm the brains, but he's the brainy brawn.

So I started painting. I went into it real cocky too - on account of wielding a roller since the first grade. "I can paint this whole place in a week tops!" I declared with pride. I have since determined that there is likely a little pocket of hell where you paint an entire room white but come back the next day and can still see the purple wall through your new paint. Again and again, day after day, like that guy carrying water around in a holey jug. At least Sisyphus gets to be outside.
Painting took about four weeks but I became enraged about it somewhere around day three. "I can't do it anymore, Brett! It's like painting with milk!" 

That's when dutiful Mama stepped to help trim out the rooms. It helped as much mentally as it did literally. Also, we got to chit chat and yammer like we used to at my flower setups. 

Meanwhile Brett hit assorted snags, we took odd detours, we'd purchase things in the wrong size or finish., We found out too late the refrigerator we bought sticks out too far, but we should have tried putting it in sooner because you can't return it after 48 hours, so we had to buy a second refrigerator and find somewhere to store the first one. We've learned lots of little things about such undertakings and while I think it's an exhausting way to make a living, Brett is enlivened by it all. His problem solving brain gets to run wild and I've had a hard time getting him out of work-mode at the end of the day. "Are you thinking about PEX fittings?" I'll ask him while we eat dinner in silence. We've both been falling asleep pretty early.

As we wrapped up the project, it became a family affair again. Dad had to come troubleshoot a real plumbing conundrum and Mom clocked-in touching up doorways with the milk paint while I tiled the kitchen backsplash and Brett installed vanities, mirrors, fans, and light-fixtures. 

We kept everything white and bland (bleh!) so that it will appeal to the masses, and now we're getting the place ready to be listed and shown. What a ruckus. 

Brett wants me to find us another to flip.

For years now I have started my mornings peeking inside peoples' houses purely for thrill of it. What wild decor decisions did they make? The multi-million dollar homes for sale Downtown are usually garish and tacky, and I enjoy cackling at the pompousness of their owners. On the other end, I really love the small, old, dusty places. I redo them in my mind and make them bright, airy places with a new lease on life.  

There is something to having pulled the trigger on this little apartment flip. It suddenly all feels very possible and not that crazy, so now I find myself at my computer in the mornings, hot cup of something in one hand, scrolling through the listings with the other, while a mild sense of urgency and competition builds as I make my way to the end of the hot sheet.

While He Was Out

Enough complaining about the burden of love. 

With my beloved roadblock out of the way, I tackled a handful of house projects. Brett has lots of opinions on things - as most people do - but while he may feel strongly about about say, the color we paint the hallway, he doesn't feel strongly enough to ever put thought into it. So I may say, "Hey, I think I want to paint the hallway a sunny yellow or a broody blue," and he'll respond with, "Hmm... ok. Well, that's something we could talk about." and then I'll say, "Oh yeah? Don't want me to just do it? Be done with it? Change it if you don't like it?" To which he'll respond, "I just think we need to consider all the options." I've already done that, of course, so I'll say, "Ok, why don't you get on Pinterest and look at paint colors you like?" And then he'll grunt. 

I'll ask him a few times to do this and he never will, because he doesn't really care. He just wants some say - I get it. But meanwhile, weeks and months later, I'm left trying to determine how betrayed he'll feel if I just go ahead and do it. 

That was a real example up there, so no, I  haven't painted the hallway (and Brett probably hasn't remembered that conversation). But, while we was out, I had 4 projects to complete (none of which would result in feelings of betrayal): paint all the trim in the house, fix the ceiling in the main room, sand and paint a drywall patch in the bathroom, and pizzazzy up the patio. 

The painting went as expected, so I'll spare you a play-by-play. Dad hooked me up with two guys that could come fix the ceiling. Their names were James and Ricky. James was the head honcho, but anytime I poked my head in, James was sitting on a bucket playing on his phone while Ricky did all the work. They had to do a bunch of sanding while they were working so I emptied out the main room as best I could and then draped the place in plastic. 

James and Ricky helped with the renovations when we first moved in here, so they were interested to see the finished product. While they worked, I sat in my little office, typing away at my computer, occasionally answering phone calls, and being what would appear to be, a busy, working person. And I know they saw me, because sometimes they would poke their heads into the office to ask me questions, and it wasn't like I had cartoons playing on multiple monitors. 

One morning, Ricky asked, "What does your husband do?"
"He's a structural engineer," I responded. And then Ricky nodded his head and looked all around and out the window, taking in all the prettiness I suppose. James grunted his approval. I waited for Ricky to ask what I do for work, but he didn't. Instead he asked, "How many kids y'all have?"

"None," and I smiled.
"Y'all ain't got no kids!" James exclaimed from his bucket.
"Why not?" Ricky asked, a sense of urgency in his voice.

If ever there was audience who wouldn't understand a young woman's reason not to reproduce, it would be two men in their 60's who have spent a lifetime doing back-breaking labor. They did their part - I should do mine. So I simply said, "I've never wanted any." That is true, but the real answer would involve touching on philosophy, psycology, and a whole host of somewhat progressive concepts. They would never hear me out.

"What about your husband? I bet he wants kids?" 
I smiled but just shook my head. They looked at me in silent confusion for a moment.
"She's just not ready," James told Ricky. Ricky turned around to look at his friend and nodded in consideration. 
"How old are you?" Ricky asked.
"Thirty four." 

Then Ricky grimaced, flexing his neck muscles and exposing his bottom teeth in the universal sign for 'uh oh.'
"She's just not ready," James repeated. "She will." Ricky nodded again, comforting himself. 

"Yeah, she will," he repeated after James, "She will. She's not ready."

I waited for them to ask me what I would do instead ... like a career or life goals or hopes for myself, but they didn't.

"Who gone take care of you when you're old?"

They continued to heckle me about it for a few minutes, proud of themselves for each having four kids and suggesting that even if I adopted one, I'd be better off. I went back to my office tickled, only slightly offended, but mostly wondering what James and Ricky's lives have been like so far. And the lives of their wives, for that matter.

When they left that afternoon, I prepped the patio; sealed up and leveled out big cracks in the concrete pad and put down a coat of light gray concrete paint as the base layer. I ran out of paint right at the end, leaving a little 2x5 foot patch unpainted. I'd have to go back to the hardware store for more. I'd do it tomorrow.

Ricky came back the next day to finish the job without James. Again, he stuck his head in my office, no doubt noticing my multiple screens of USDA protocols and legal petitions on food distribution, and asked if he could borrow a bucket. I took him out back to the garage and on the way back in, he saw the unpainted patch of patio and noticed that it all looked different than yesterday. He pointed at it and looked at me, quizzically. "I ran out of paint," I told him. 

"You did this?"

"Yeah," I said cheerfully, "I'm going to paint something on it."

"Why?"

"Just trying to make it look nicer. It a dirty old cracked slab but I don't want to repave it." Ricky thought about this a long time before nodding his head and saying, "Well that's good. I guess it gives you something to do." 

Then he turned and went back inside.

I had to keep from laughing out loud. His lack of expectations of me is unprecedented. I've never met anyone who regarded me as a vessel for domesticity so openly. So singularly. Ricky finished up work on the ceiling and packed up his truck. I asked him what he was going to do with his weekend and we spent a good half hour talking ... only about him of course. I waiting for him to ask anything about me, but he didn't.

He's known around his town for his grillin'. He cooks for crowds almost every weekend and has people traveling to his neighborhood to taste his food.

"You should start a restaurant, Ricky," I told him, "Or least hire some folks to help you so you can take on all these jobs you have to turn down."

"I want to, but I don't know... I can't find any reliable help," he told me. He went on to show me several pictures of roasted animals - fully intact. "Here's a whole hog I did last weekend." I looked at the charred, blistered skin on what looked to be an adolescent pig, an image that normally perturbs me, but I had to keep from laughing. He swiped to the next, "Here's a turkey and a half dozen chickens." He swiped again. "And see here. Twenty-four beef cheeks," he declared proudly.

Ricky managed to hit all the highlights. His outdated patriarchal views, offensive lack of curiosity about the human he spent three days with (me), and now he's showing me the live animals he buys and roasts -  animals I spend hours each day earning tiny rights for. Ricky had no idea just how big he was fumbling for this particular audience.

I found him hopelessly endearing.

"Ricky, if people are paying for the food, they need to be paying for your time too," I told him. "You're staying up all night smoking these meals. Those are working hours."

Ricky looked bashful.

"Don't sell yourself short, Ricky!"

The last bit I'll tell you about is the patio. I wanted to paint a checkered floor on it. Now, I challenge you to do a googling about this because people frequently put in checkered floors - they are charming and whimsical - but, some people fail at it and they don't even know it. How can you fail at something as simple as lining up squares? Well I'll tell you. They line them up parallel to the surrounding walls. No! This is wrong. It will only look right, if you place your squares on a diagonal. Here, I'll show you.

            Classic and Soothing                                                                Alice in Wonderland - Funhouse floor 

It's all about the diagonal! (Tile size and contrast are also important considerations.) So, herein lies my problem - how do you draw out the lines for a painted checkered floor if you can't just mark every 24 inches and draw a line? I spent half a day tracing a square stencil (a roughly-the-right-size square painting I pulled off the wall) at an awkward diagonal on the concrete floor. I knew some engineer type could probably tell me a simple mathematical way to draw the lines, but the only one I know was in Japan. Google didn't help either. So I'd plop down my square, butt a loosely-straight board up against it and then drag my pencil as far as I could. The farther I got from my original square the more splayed and rectangular the sections became. Also, I took a step back and decided the square size was too small. But only barely. Should I start over with a bigger stencil? I've already invested so many hours and it was so hard to keep the lines straight.

I called Mom. 

It took a lot of hemming and hawing before she agreed that they probably are too small. "But I'll help you re-do it!"

Mom and I spent the next day trying to draw out the lines. It was no easier the second time around but it was significantly more amusing. We giggled and schemed and messed up and laughed, and when we'd step back, our squares were splaying out and becoming rectangular.

"Well wait a minute. How did that happen?"

"Hmm.. let's start again from over here."

"Ok."

We'd redraw the line, feeling great about it this time ... and then it wouldn't line up with the ending point.

"Well wait a minute. How's that?"

We'd carefully line up our wonky board, double check that the starting point and the finishing point were accounted for and then we'd start in the middle and each trace the board in a different direction. None of it ever really lined up properly and we were dumbfounded every time. Sometimes one of us would catch the other messing up in real time and then we would chastise and laugh at them, and one time I realized mom and I were both drawing the same line in the same direction - my pencil dutifully following behind hers. 

"Go the other way!"

We finally finished drawing them, stepped back, and agreed ... they're too big.

But we weren't starting over, so we starting painting. We had to make educated guesses on which of the many scribbled and scratched-out lines we intended for us to use as THE line, so painting proved to be challenging too. None of the corners meet up, the grey paint dried blue, and we were both astonishingly achy from three days spent working on a cement floor, but we got it done... if you don't look too close.

In Favor of Chickens

Ever so slowly, I've been helping build a little team of Charleston folks that will advocate for better conditions for farm animals. How niche. We host protests, table at festivals, harass corporations that still use caged-eggs in their supply chains, and also we have "humane happy hours." 

People usually giggle when I tell them about this but we've won every campaign we've set our sights on. We spent the whole summer heckling Hardees' parent company (CKE Restaurants) and they held out for what seemed like ages before they finally buckled last month. We had protests, petitions, email campaigns. We leave bad reviews and comments. We find the board members and put the guilt trip on 'em. We leave manager letters at our local franchises and say, "send it on up!" 

For three years now, it's worked every time. Now that CKE buckled, we've turned our cannons towards a cookie chain. 

This might seem annoying to you, but that's the whole point. We just wear 'em down - and even if you aren't an animal-loving vegetarian, I think you can admit that taking the hens out of cages is the least we could do. We're not asking companies to stop serving meat or eggs. We're asking them to do it less cruelly. 

Did you know caged hens live their entire lives in a space equal to an iPad screen? Most people don't know that. Also, they never go outside or see the sun. (Yes, even the Free Range ones you paid extra for.) The hens can't make nests for their eggs. forage for bugs, have dirt baths, or do any of the things they would naturally be doing. That's a life of torment - even for a chicken brain.

So here we are, kicking corporate butts in favor of chickens.

 

We Did It

We bought a little dump on the water. Here we are standing on our new dock. 

This photo is deceptive in two ways. I know it looks like we're standing on a portion of a spacious wooden pier but that's the whole dock there in the picture. Maybe there's another 9 inches or so. Also, the place is on James Island, not in Florida like those tropical blues are suggesting. I don't know what that blue filter is about.

After Brett's brief and ill-fated romance with that one house Downtown, I was apprehensive about showing him my latest find - because it was quite unattractive, not any bigger than our current home, and has about a fifth of the garage space. Also, it needed a major overhaul, or perhaps simply just needed to be set on fire. But that up there, that water, that made it worth it. 

It didn't take much to convince him so we called Dad, set up a showing, and then came home and redrew the floor plan on our white board.

Here's what we bought.

A'int she a beauty?

The place was built in '59 and seems to have not been touched since. The previous owner asked us to come meet her at the house so she could show us how it works. The short of it is that the previous owner never threw anything away, never weeded a garden, wasn't keen on updates, and doesn't believe in central heating and air. She showed us how she turned the gas on at the breaker when she wanted to cook something. "And then just flip it back off when you're done." She gave us a whole tour of this ilk and she believed we were going to continue living there just as she had. "Here's how you clean the pump when the water pressure goes low... that's why I kept this toothbrush." 

"Now the oven is from the 1960's but it still works- just remember that it's 50 degrees too hot."

But all that is worth this:

Now back to business. We're knocking out the center wall, vaulting the ceilings, and moving the kitchen into the dining room. I knew those three things the moment I set foot into the house but it took a minute to convince Brett and contractor Dad. But I knew I was right - I just had to wait for the men folk to think it was their idea.

Contractor Dad who works at the speed of light, was ready to rip out sheetrock on the day we closed. I was too. But not Brett. Brett wanted to have a full plan in place before we did anything. That's not how contractor Dad works. The first two weeks was a rough takeoff. We finally convinced Brett to just peek, just have a wee little peek at what's behind the sheetrock, and before we knew it, Brett was kicking through walls and swinging a hammer with gusto. 

This was the status as of last week. 

Since these photos, we have ripped out the ceiling in the main room and the floor in the kitchen. I really did myself a favor by marrying a structural engineer. He's been designing our vaulted ceiling which, given the roofline, has been especially tricky to retrofit. Dad hasn't vaulted a ceiling before so he and Brett have been working together on the plan and Dad has suddenly realized how willy-nilly he's been taking out and putting in beams this whole time. "I didn't know it worked like that!"

Meanwhile the previous owner keeps coming up with excuses to come over to see what we're doing. We'd been keeping her at bay until she finally got mad and informed me via email that she was coming over to pick flowers from the yard. (But those are my flowers now!) Then she saw the bit of construction and became "distraught." Later that night I received and angry email from her about how spoiled I am. So that was nice. (Not sure why I'm the only one being targeted... what is it with crazy old women hating me?)

Now she is only emailing Brett who she says is much nicer and more reliable than I am. 

Bit of weeding needed in the front.

View from the front porch.

But she can't keep me down. We love the new neighborhood (it's the last one on James Island before it turns in to Folly Beach territory), the yard full of fruit trees (grapes, figs, persimmons, pomegranates, and pecans), and the big plans I have for inside. 

Now I'll admit there was a period of bickering between Brett and I when he realized I'd already redesigned the whole house without him. And I didn't mean to do it without him - it's just that it all seemed so obvious. So then I had to wait around awhile until, again, he realized I was right. We're on the same page about most things, so don't go worrying about us. I just have way more time to think about it than he does so sometimes he gets left in the dust. But in my defense, his nickname in high school was "The Sloth" so...

We have ordered windows, kitchen cabinets, and designed a master bath and closet to take over one of the bedrooms. When we started this project, Brett and I knew we could do a "Reasonable Renovation" and make the place perfectly nice and livable or we could do what he's been calling "The Buxom Blowout" renovation which is making the house what we really want it to be. It cost money to make a place nice, you know. And sometimes you have to do what's best for the house. For example, we don't prefer open-concept houses, but this house needs light and space, so were sure we got that right, even though there won't be any room for funky artwork or hiding from unwanted guests. At the moment, we're going with structurally buxom, decoratively reasonable.

But once the invoices pile up, I bet everything will change.