project plans Archives - Flip This Rental

December 17, 2015June 17, 2017

Winter Projects

Seeing as it is already winter and I have a break and new semester coming up I figure I should create a list of winter projects to accomplish before spring. I also think hope I’m going to have a lot of exterior work to do when the weather gets nice, and I don’t want to be stuck inside.

First things first: kitchen backsplash. The walls are prepped and the hole is filled. I’m going home and should be starting the tile tonight! As a refresher here is what the layout will look like except not so tall.

Winter Projects

I would also like to replace the carpet in the kitchen with the same plank vinyl we used in the bathroom. The catch with this is we are going to tell our landlords we’ll only do it if we can paint the cabinets white, which I also want to complete before spring. The only way it would backfire is if they say no to both. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised by that at this point. Just imagine this floor:

Winter Projects

In this kitchen:

Winter Projects

Also imagine the new spray painted countertops, ceramic backsplash, and white cabinets. I know, it’s a stretch.

I am currently in the process of scraping the peeling paint out of the old cabinets and repainting the insides. This takes forever but I’m at least hoping to have the upper cabinets done by spring. Here is a crisply painted cabinet innard for your viewing pleasure:

Winter Projects

Another project I’ve had on my mind is ripping the carpet off the entry way landing and replacing it with vinyl. If the stairs have good wood underneath I might stain them instead. Think something like this:

There is a huge run in our carpet outside of the bathroom and I would like to get the carpet stretched so that problem is fixed. Chris’s dad installs flooring and I think we could convince him to fix it for us. You can see the run in the picture below. I think it’s worse now than it was then. (This is from when I cleaned my carpet)

Winter Projects

Maybe this one is adding too many to the pile but I would love to build shelves the whole height of our small entry closet. Currently it has one shelf and that’s really not doing us any good. At the least I want to add in a couple more shelves. This is the hot mess I’m dealing with currently:

Winter Projects

I had Chris send me that picture so sorry for the quality and also sorry for the fall wreath that’s still hanging out. whoops… I should probably take that down.

Honestly the amount of major projects left in the apartment is becoming minimal. Chris and I are getting a little more serious about looking at buying the place, especially since I will be living there full time starting in May. Our expenses will be smaller and we’ll have extra money to invest. So far it seems like a good idea but we need to look into the details.

I can just imagine the hilarity of showing you the before pictures of the upstairs. It’s a million times worse than what we started with in our unit. Although I think I might like the layout better.

What are your plans for the winter?

See You Around!

Lauren <3

September 28, 2015June 16, 2017

Living Room Tour

I’m one of those people who likes to rearrange. Furniture, decor, organization, anything. When I get a new piece of furniture I rearrange to make it fit right in with everything else. When the seasons change I add different decorations. Sometimes I just get bored with the arrangement of a room, so I switch it up. My living room is probably the most versatile room to move around the furniture. After cleaning the carpets I figured it was time for a change in the living room.

Flip This Rental | Living Room Tour

Above is how the living room was set up beforehand. I liked the couch set up because it made a more social space for when we had company. We could comfortably chat with each other or watch television. On the other hand I felt like the set up made our living room feel much smaller than it actually is.

Here is a panorama of the new living room set up.

A closer up of the couch set up.

Here’s the fireplace and T.V. You will notice a T.V to the left and the wall mount behind the T.V. on the fireplace. The wall mount T.V. is waiting to be repaired, so the T.V. we are currently using is from the bedroom. I’d like to rearrange the fireplace once the T.V. is fixed so it looks more even. The left side looks really cluttered because of books and DVD’s, whereas on the right the PlayStation and internet router almost blend in.

For now I put my trunk table underneath this painting. I could put it on the other end of the couch as an end table, but for now I think putting it here shows off it’s charm a little more. When we decorated the living room I didn’t even realize it, but the colors in our throw pillows and blanket go perfectly with the blues and browns in the painting.

I have two of these penny vases that I DIY’d over on our movie cases. Typically I put them on the fireplace, but right now that space is taken up. I got two almost identical vases at goodwill, (they were the same shape just a different shade of green and one was slightly heavier) and I spray painted them black and hot glued pennies to them. Such an easy decor item and you can hardly tell they’re pennies from far away!

Another simple update to the living room was changing out the plain white rods and nasty curtains for nice oil rubbed bronze rods and long curtain panels. We left the original hardware and kept the old curtains so we can put them back when we move out.

Project Plans

My goal for winter break is to repaint all the window trim. As you can tell in these photos the paint is peeling (just like the rest of the trim in the house was), and it is yellowy underneath. The biggest reason the window trim started majorly peeling was we used plastic over the windows throughout the winter to seal the heat in. When we pulled the plastic off in the spring the paint peeled with it. On the windows that the locks are broken we also have wood pieces to keep the windows “locked”. All the boards are plain wood and I want to paint them white so they blend in. The next best thing would be replacing all the locks, but that costs money.

I want to paint the ceiling trim too as I noticed it is quite nasty in comparison to the baseboard trim that I repainted (you can really notice it in the third picture from the top). I also need to go back and sand down some spackle spots that the boyfriend forgot to sand before we painted. There are also some spots that look a little streaky that we will go over again.

A few other small projects include cleaning the electrical outlet covers, sprucing up the fireplace mantle, and hiding the cable cord and internet routers.

Which set up did you like better: up close and social, or the wide open spaces?

See You Around!

Lauren <3

P.S. If you missed the bathroom tour – check it out here

September 15, 2015June 16, 2017

Bathroom Tour and Project Plans

I am slowly working on creating a home tour which will include before and after pictures of my house as well as explanations of what I plan to do to the house in the future. This page will be “living” so to speak and will constantly be changing as the house changes. Throughout this process I will try to post reveals of rooms that have had a significant amount of change to them along the way.

Today I am going to share my bathroom with you! The bathroom is one of my favorite rooms in the house because at a glance it looks crisp and clean. On the other hand there are still some issues with the bathroom that need to be worked out.

Here is the view of the bathroom before you walk in. I know what your first impression is: mmmm carpet in the bathroom! Yes, it is horrifying and it should be gone soon! Chris and I have flooring to replace the carpet. We just need the gusto to get it done and a few more supplies. Read more about that here if you so choose (and haven’t done so already) 🙂

The main things that changed in the bathroom since we’ve lived here are painting the walls and getting rid of the old sink. Those projects were pre-blog days, and sadly I don’t have before pictures of the sink. However, I did find a picture of the walls while we were in the process of painting!

Holy ew, right?! I don’t think the walls were painted a light yellow because the rest of the house was painted plain white. The color of the walls basically blended in with the plastic on the shower, and now it is a stark contrast as you’ll notice in the photos further down.

The sink was about from the wall on the left to halfway through where the plastic drawers are now. It was retro like my kitchen counters, and the shelf inside the cabinet was rotting out. We lost the storage in the bathroom (which wasn’t useful because of the rot) but we gained a lot more space in the tiny bathroom. I would like to add some shelving to the bathroom above the toilet to gain some of the storage back. We bought the pedestal sink unused at a thrift store for $60 which the landlord reimbursed us for.

In this angle you can see the mirror which has a small medicine cabinet as well as the light above it.

I actually like the light and I think it looks vintage (in a cool way), but it needs a good cleaning and the hardware needs a coat of spray paint.

Oil rubbed bronze anyone? 😀 I spray painted the vent in flat black because it was rusty and nasty looking. The little sea horse is from TJ Maxx – gotta love that place <3 I want to add a hook below the sea horse for a hand towel

Here are what I call the toilet accessories. The q tip holder is a reused candle jar, and the jar with cotton balls is an old spaghetti sauce jar that I painted with chalkboard paint and added a ribbon. The candle is called coastal woods by Mainstays and it smells fantastic by the way 😉

Now for the not so pretty parts. The tub surround is made of plastic sheets and they are stained yellowy. They may have even come in an off white tan ish color, but either way it doesn’t look good. I have been able to get it cleaner using a homemade shower cleaner that uses vinegar, but it’s not anywhere near my standards. The caulking was also done very sloppily and is coming off in some spots around the tub.

Because there isn’t a fan in the bathroom moisture has caused some damage. The paint is peeling and cracking on the window as well as the ceiling. The ceiling is textured and I would love to get rid of it. I would like to add frosted contact paper to half of the window, and take the curtain down. This way there is always natural light coming in, but no one can see into the shower. It would also be epic to add a bathroom fan, but who knows how much that would cost or if the landlord would pay for it.

Here you can see the staining and messy caulk. You can also see a chip in the tub’s finish, and there are a few more in other spots of the tub. Funny story – there is a chipped spot in the back of the tub on the bottom and for the longest time whenever I would be getting in the shower and already had taken my glasses off I would think it was a spider. I had to put my glasses back on and double check it wasn’t a spider. Silly me. I would love to refinish the tub with a rustoleum kit as well as tiling the tub surround. Tiling the tub is probably a long shot though…

I don’t know how this happens but the surround pulled away from the caulk instead of the caulk coming apart. Either way I can’t imagine that’s very good for the wall behind the plastic sheeting.

Well, there’s my bathroom for you! It’s not as glamorous as I would like, but the projects we’ve done so far haven’t cost much money and the decorations were all relatively cheap as well. Once we put the new floor in then I will be much happier with it. The shower is really rough, but at least that can be hidden with a shower curtain.

What do you think of the space? I would love to hear ideas on creative storage solutions! Are you excited to see more room tours and the Home Tour Page?

Thanks for stopping by!

Lauren <3