House Flips

Updates 3.8.21 :: Lake House + IF:Gathering

March 8, 2021 by Michelle Filed Under: Faith, House Flips Leave a Comment

It really does thrill my soul to be able to sit down and write you a letter today.

That’s honestly how I look at these blog posts – it’s me sharing my thoughts with you, my friend.

It’s been almost a week since I posted, or wrote to you and I wanted to give an update on a few things from my last post:
1. The #lakehousereno is almost fully complete! I cannot believe we are so close to the finish line {finally!!}. We are planning to spend the night there this week to be sure all the things work accordingly ? Because I would hate for our first guests to have a realization that we were unaware of…and our first official guests are staying THIS WEEKEND!! ?
Here’s a photo of the shelves from Pottery Barn I installed in the kitchen this morning!

Also…the house got painted last week so here’s a shot of the back from yesterday…Emory was fishing in the pool ?

2. IF:Gathering was incredible. Truly. My vocabulary is so limited, I cannot even express to you how wonderful it was.

First of all, let me just say that the women at our church are just delightful. I had the honor, or privilege, of working alongside fourteen of the most selfless women, whose desire above all things was to glorify the Lord and see his daughters praise Him. I’m pretty sure we hit both of those items during the weekend. I want to share a few takeaways with you from IF:

your trauma shaped you, it didn’t make you
the scars we bear are there to show we made it through
sometimes our shame is the biggest target God will use to heal us
don’t waste your pain and suffering
fire is where your faith is transformed
when you know WHO you serve, it changes everything
Jesus isn’t just a belief to me, He is breath to me
real Christians are the faithful followers
confess your sins and forgive as much as you walk, sleep, eat and pray
it is not safer in the shallow; Jesus will always be able to hold you when life hits you
courageous love should catch somebody by surprise
your impact on people isn’t dependent on your position
the darker things get, the brighter the light shines
history – God has the whole thing rigged
do Jesus, boo

That last one is probably my favorite. It came from Christine Cain and she was saying, essentially, we shouldn’t be saying, “you do you” but rather, “do Jesus, boo.” She had the whole audience giggling with that one.

All in all, it was an incredible weekend. I have every desire to go back and watch all the sessions over again and I have 17 breakouts to view!

This week is a busy one – as I’m sure it is for you as well. I hope to write again very soon, so until next time…

C&C At Home, Talking Kitchens :: Unit 1

February 16, 2021 by Michelle Filed Under: Decorating/Remodeling, House Flips 2 Comments

Alrighty it’s Camellias & Copper At Home day and today we’re going to start our discussion on kitchens! I entitled this post as Unit 1 because with each aspect of a kitchen, there is a lot to discuss, and I envision many posts on kitchens alone.

When Andrew and I are renovating a house, we almost always have to do something to the kitchen. Whether a full gut job or something as simple as painting cabinets and perhaps ordering new drawers and doors {yes, it’s a thing!}.

We do an initial walk-thru and discuss major things like, does a wall need to be moved or removed and do the appliances/plumbing stay where they currently are. I’m a big fan of open spaces with kitchens because as a mom of three kids, it’s imperative that I can not only hear them but see them – especially when one is screaming… y’all, it’s for real over here.

I understand that yes, there are times when it would be really nice when you could close off the kitchen so all your guests don’t see your mess or mound of dishes to be cleaned, but I think there’s more grace in 2021 being extended to messy homes than maybe in the 50’s. Do you agree?

In this post I’m going to share with you three kitchens we have renovated in the last year. With each kitchen I’m only going to talk about the space itself – you’ll see a before then an after photo, where I’ll tell you more about the actual space and why we did what we did.
As always, please post any questions or thoughts you may have!

Kitchen #1 :: Glenwood :: Before:

Things you may or may not see from this photo:
*this room is essentially a square
*the only counter space you see is in this photo
*to the left of where this photo was taken, was a doorway and a dining room/eating area on the other side
*to the right, behind where I was standing, was a pantry area
*to the right of the fridge {next to the range} was a doorway leading to a desk area and the back of the house
*not a ton of brightness
*misuse of space to the left of the range – there’s a large gap that isn’t being utilized

Now…here’s the after:

The biggest thing for this space was utilization of the square footage we had. It was really a large space and I wanted to make the most of it, while also opening it up to the rest of the living area.

Kitchen #2 :: Hemphill :: Before

I do love the coziness of this space, however here are some things that you may or may not notice:
*the electrical panel is in the kitchen {not uncommon in some older homes}
*the hot water heater is also in the kitchen
*this was a tight galley kitchen closed off on one end
*there was a small kitchen table + chairs in the space
*natural light was slim

Now…here’s the after:

Honestly, this is probably one of my most favorite kitchens so far. One thing I loved about it was having that larger window to contend with, and after trying a few options, we ended up creating a cozy window seat. We completely opened the end of the kitchen that had formerly been closed off to the rest of the home which added so much more light.

Kitchen #3 :: King :: Before

I really just don’t have words for this space. This was a 100+ year old home that had been turned into a duplex and here is the sad state of the downstairs kitchen space. A few things:
*the space was completely underutilized – look at the range just sitting by itself
*there was a doorway on both the left, behind, and right of this photo, making it seem like a galley kitchen, only it was wider than a typical galley
*behind me in this photo there was a very sad ‘pantry’ that I would have been scared to go into at night
*the lighting was very dreary

I’m not sure that you will believe the transformation but,

Now, here’s the after:

I could spend hours telling you about the demo and the amazing men who spent hours upon hours making this kitchen/home what it is today, but I promised to focus solely on the space. I promise this is the same room ? just with fewer walls to enclose it. Again, it’s all about opening it up to the rest of the home. There was something about this very old home that made me want to give grand life back to her…so we opened the space as wide as we could. We utilized as best we could every inch that she had to give. What you don’t see is to the right of this photo there is a “wall of cabinets” – what my contractor affectionately called it. It’s where the refrigerator and the double oven are as well as all the storage one would need to host a fabulous dinner party for all their friends.

I’m a big fan of the flow in any residence. Kitchens are definitely a favorite room to design because it truly is the hub of the home. When it comes to figuring out the kitchen specifically, I envision myself in the space, with kids and friends hovering around the room. Between a Saturday morning eating pancakes as a family to a grand Friday night dinner party.
I ask questions like, where will people sit or stand? Where will the food go? If I’m cooking supper, can I see the kid that is screaming his head off?

It’s a process that requires great consideration of who might live there, because we never know.

I’d love your feedback on the kitchens in this post. What do you like or don’t like? What would you like to see in future C&C at Home? I’m so grateful for all of your comments!

Until next time…

Getting What You Want – Lake House Edition

February 9, 2021 by Michelle Filed Under: Decorating/Remodeling, House Flips Leave a Comment

If you haven’t seen my post on Instagram or our Facebook page from today, you don’t know about the small bit of drama from yesterday. And that little drama has everything to do with today’s entitled post. ?

First of all, I care about details. I am very particular on how I want things to look, especially once I’ve {finally} caught the vision for a room or space.

Such is the case for the master shower at the #lakehousereno project. The original vision was for white 4×12 tile surround – with imperfect edges. When Home Depot delivered all 16 boxes in small pieces I had to pivot there, switching to a 3×12 similar tile I could get at Lowe’s {It took 5+ hours and going to over 6 stores to get all the tile…}. Then I was using a 1 inch hex Carrara marble tile for the shower floor, but when I realized we didn’t have enough I had to pivot once again, to a Carrara penny tile. Wondering if this shower would ever come together – things were taking much longer than they should have – we were told everything was finished over the weekend.

Note, this shower is a really wonky shape due to pipes and cinderblock walls so the more we could hide imperfections the better.

Yesterday morning we showed up at the project, fully prepared to get to work, clean up a few things and assess what still needed to be completed. And as we walked the house with our contractor, let’s just say I got curious and made my way into the master bathroom to check out the ‘finished product’.

Note, the floor hasn’t been grouted yet…

As I stood there staring at what I thought was going to be a beautiful penny tile floor…I sighed somewhat loudly and let my head fall backwards.
I heard Andrew from the bedroom, “Oh…you weren’t supposed to see that yet.”

He walked in and I said, “I hate this. This isn’t what I wanted.at.all. Where is the penny tile? Why is there 12×24 marble slab IN the shower floor???”

There have been liberties taken with some small design elements by the guy tiling the floor. Most of them I’ve been okay with, but this was something I couldn’t live with and would not compromise on.
I get it that some of you may look at this and say it’s beautiful or what is my problem, but here’s the thing.
I don’t like it. I have to live with it and it’s not what I wanted. I wanted penny tile and the last time I saw this shower floor there was penny tile laid out just how I wanted it. The other thing is, as you look at that photo above, the drain isn’t centered and it shows up more imperfectly because of the added marble slab. If it was all penny tile, as I wanted, it would be less noticeable.

I’m not entirely sure what happened, but long story short, we asked him to take out what he had done; I purchased more penny tile {praise the Lord, it was still in stock} and it will be redone the way I want it, hopefully today. I will say that there are a few things that we are taking concession on at this point with the lake house because of our time crunch, but something like this has to be redone.

Here’s my deal. If you’re paying for something to be done a certain way, don’t settle. It’s your money – hard earned and carefully spent. If you don’t like it, if it doesn’t fit or doesn’t work – you’re paying for it, so ask for it to be made right.
You may be thinking you’re not good at that…well, I’m not either. Unless I’m in a mood of directness which I guess I was in yesterday. ? But as I would encourage myself, I encourage you to get what you want, and ultimately what you are paying for.

I hope you enjoyed my soapbox.
Until next time {and hopefully less dramatic}…

Camellias & Copper – And Our Houses

February 3, 2021 by Michelle Filed Under: Decorating/Remodeling, House Flips, Work 2 Comments

Happy Hump day, friends! I am so excited to start sharing some of our renovation projects with y’all! For whatever reason I’ve mostly kept that part of my life {our family business} separate from Camellias and Copper, but with some exciting projects on the horizon, I wanted to begin sharing a few things here – because I think you will enjoy them! Don’t worry, I’ll continue posting about having my legs waxed and the crazy things the kids are up to – this is going to be in addition to all of that.

Today I’m going to start with a house that we are working on in a sweet, “older” neighborhood. One where, if you went for a walk, most of the folks you would see would be grandparents. And don’t get me wrong, I live in one of these “older” neighborhoods myself and I love it immensely. Give me hardwood floors, big old trees, camellias and front porch stories all day long. We are hoping that this little area will start adding in some new and young families as well, and even that one will purchase this renovated house once it’s complete.

The house we bought, just a few weeks ago, is next door to a precious couple, Bruce and Betsy. They are an older, retired duo and I got to spend about 45 minutes chatting with them outside one day last week – when it wasn’t raining. {It has rained SO much lately!} This sweet couple told us how happy they were that someone had finally come to pick up all the stuff that had been left from an estate sale {y’all…it was so bad}. I posted a couple of videos on our Instagram page about the trash haul…I personally haven’t seen that much stuff in a house, under a house or behind a house in a very long time. It.was.bad.
Ms. Betsy told me that the big red box we had there at that time was either the 11th or 12th one that had been there… I felt so bad for her, that these sweet neighbors had lived next to something that brought on many feelings of displeasure and frustration. They couldn’t do anything about it and the people that could, weren’t willing to.

As ‘flippers’, our intention is to bring value to the home, the neighbors around the house and the immediate community. We clean up the derelict as Ms. Betsy called it, and make it better than it was. We want the people who buy our renovated properties to drive up and be overjoyed with first impressions and then for that excitement to build with each step into the house.
I don’t do ‘cookie cutter’ – each house is unique in my mind. It’s going to be a special family, person or couple that will purchase it, and though I don’t ever know the end buyer, I try to always put myself in their shoes. ‘How would I use this room, this space, etc.?’ and how can we utilize the space in the most efficient manner.

I’m super excited to share with y’all how we do this. What some of the processes we go thru before we purchase a property, my thought processes when it comes to tearing down walls, figuring out layouts, colors, finishes, etc.

It’s gonna be fun.

In the meantime, enjoy these “before” pictures of the house next to Bruce and Betsy, that we are close to finishing. I can’t wait to show y’all the reveal in a few weeks!