It’s happening y’all. DanO, my in-laws and I are going to renovate a house in Maplewood, Minnesota.

As we get deeper into this, I plan to post about our progress (or lack thereof?) on here each Friday. So welcome to the first edition of Flipping Friday! As long as I manage to stay out of the fetal position, I am hopeful that this will become a thing around here. In my biggest, shiniest dreams, DanO may even guest post on Fridays from time to time about the flip. You know, in his free time.
Or maybe we will just be napping instead. I can’t be sure.
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Right now, the house is a 1950’s rambler with an unattached garage that was at some point attached to the house. Later on in the house’s life, said garage was quasi-converted from a garage into living space. It’s a little ad-hoc.
The floor plan looks like this:

(Ugly bedroom is a technical term.)
The listing called it a 4 bedroom house, but really, the bedroom that used to be the garage still very much feels like a garage (carpet and carpet pad over concrete doesn’t really scream cozy). And plus? There’s no garage. So.
We have big plans. Big Plans. Ever since walking into the house, we knew it needed more space and it needed the garage back, so we are taking it up a level. Literally.
The new ground-floor plan as of right now (because let’s be honest, until the 2x4s are up, the walls could be changed) is this:

And the second story will contain a master suite, another bathroom, and two additional bedrooms. Ah like so:

It only took us 11 bajillion hours of various architecture software, tracing paper, and brainstorming to find something that had good flow and all of the elements we wanted to include. We will submit these plans to the city today (since we finally own the property!! Woo!) and who knows, we could be swinging sledge hammers by nightfall.
So exciting, and quite the project! Can’t wait to read more about the whole thing.
Can’t wait to see more – the new floor plans look awesome. I’ve always wanted to flip a house!
This is really cool! I haven’t visited your blog in awhile, but I’m all over Flipping Friday. I think the new plan looks great. Will that be an office/den on the first floor (the mysteriously unlabeled room) or a fourth bedroom? Or a playroom? We have a room like that on our house (which we bought after it was flipped), and it has this great closet in it. The closet means it was listed as a bedroom, but we use it as a playroom now and plan to use it as a homework/study room for the kids when they get bigger. Can’t wait to see the updates as they come!
cutest little turqoise house. i want it.
The plans look amazing…almost makes me wish I could live…except I don’t think I would ever get used to the cold from living in Cali…but it’d be great having you as my landlord :)
Seriously, I know it’ll be a ton of work, but you guys have a wonderful plan, I think :)
What fun! I love floor plans! Looking forward to following along!
Great redesign and use of space! Kudos.
You are so brave! I’ll be praying everything goes smooth!!!
Exciting! It will be fun to see the progress we make in pictures. You are so good at that. Thanks!
So when Dan and I eventually move up there, you’ll flip a house for us to buy, right?
It looks like it’ll be amazing!! I don’t know how you guys do it! Have fun. :)
So jealous! We renovated our first house after renters destroyed it, and it was a blast! Stressful, time- and money-consuming, and exhausting, but I loved {almost} every minute of it and would love to do it again someday. Good luck and enjoy your new venture!
Wow Allison! My hat is off to you. Renovations are FOR REAL! If your marriage can survive that, ya’ll are meant for life!
Haha I don’t even know how to respond to the intensity that is y’all. Except to say, should you start filming and see if you can get your own show on HGTV? Feel like this should qualify.
This is EXCITIN’!
understanding my confusion!!! I missed this post somehow!!! ACK! LOVE LOVE LOVE!