So much happened this week!

We put in an offer on a second duplex! It is another foreclosure and there are five other offers on the table. We had the same situation with The Maple House; we beat out four other offers while still getting the house for a steal. We’ll see how it works out this time. As expected, responses from the bank have been very pokey.

On Sunday, Wade took down the back deck for me! Once we were taking it down, we realized that one of the footings was broken in two and that the lumber against the house that the deck attached to was badly rotted. No wonder it was so rickety! At one point, we had discussed trying to save the deck, but now I’m so glad we didn’t! We plan to add a small railing that will give it the look of a faux balcony and add a glass door for plenty of light. Once we have tenants, we’ll keep the door locked. Progress!

We had our new gutters installed this week! They look great and while the quality of the work was fantastic, they charged me $370 for the gutter tear-off that they had previously said they wouldn’t charge me for. I was livid. I had hoped this local, family-owned business might be my go-to for gutters on any properties we add to our portfolio, but now I think not. I would’ve had no problem paying if they had told me ahead of time and we agreed on a price. But to tell me it’s included in the cost since it’s such a large job, then charge me after the fact? And to charge me nearly 20% of the entire job?! It’s bad business.

I finished tearing out the ceramic tile in the bathroom and started on the horrific task of removing all the thinset concrete. Oh, and I hammered my pinky finger while chiseling out the damn stuff. Each day, when I needed a break from whatever project I was working on, I would go to the bathroom and work on a small section. It’s getting there.

I started working on landscaping the front yard. I cut down our two unruly shrubs at the front of the house and cleaned up two full trash bags of glass and trash that had been thrown behind the bushes against the porch. I started to work on removing the shrub stumps, but it is much more time consuming than I thought. I ended up not getting back to them this week due to rain and other projects. Next week, I’ll finish getting the stumps out!

We hired painters that will be here this weekend to do all our 2+ story painting! I can’t wait!!!

Bryan came back out this week and repaired all our decorative face-boards and molding. He will be back next week to add the final drip edge once the painters have finished. He did seal our sewer holes left from the old gutters. Thanks, Bryan!

I have now caught and dispatched five squirrels from the attic. These poor little guys. They just chose the wrong house. I can’t have them scratching their way back into the house now that everything’s sealed. Hopefully I got all the ones with nests somewhere in the attic.

I found a small steel railing that was similar to what I wanted at Menard’s and installed it this week! I think it looks pretty good. Of course, I would love something more ornate, but those specialty railings run $500-700 and this whole ensemble cost me less than $30. The cost makes me love this railing.

Our back door has a small overhang and the underside is full of nails sticking straight out from the shingles on the opposite site. Seriously, the thing looks like a torture device and I absolutely hate looking at it. We had some left over soffit material and since every porch covering in our house has that material on the ceiling, I figured, why not here? And it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! I’m so proud! I did it all myself!!! Nevermind the overzealous caulking job. In case you can’t tell, it was EVERYWHERE. When this is painted white, I think it will be so nice.

We ordered some house mounted flags and solar lighting for the exterior once it’s sided and it came in! I’m spray-painting the flag hardware black!

While I had some spare time, I decided to lay out our kitchen design using the fridge, since it’s already in the kitchen. We had taped off the dimensions of our layout prior to buying our appliances, but once I had the fridge in place, I hated it. The fridge placement gives the entire kitchen a “closed-off” feeling that I will not abide.

As the invoices have been rolling in and the balance of our bank account has been plummeting this week, Wade and I have been struggling with lots of doubts. Did we make a mistake? What are we doing? What makes us think we’re qualified for this? Are we leveraging ourselves beyond what we can handle? Will we make our money back from this house with everything we’ve put in it? Doing something new is usually scary and this is no exception. I’m excited to be past this time of our lives that’s been so full of transitions, but I also want to enjoy every stage since we’ll never get it back. We’ll just keep doing our best and time will tell.