This being our first “official” flip, we are expecting to learn so many things and maybe make some mistakes along the way. But, we are still attempting to have a plan and order to how we renovate this house.
We have owned it for 3 weeks now, and have almost completed the demo. I know that sounds so long for demo, but this house came with a TON of junk left in it. Not as much as our hoarder house, and mainly garbage, but still that takes time to haul out. Also, these last three weeks have been some of the craziest we’ve had in years. Both of us have come down with the flu, Jake had work travel, we had several Easter-related church obligations, a funeral, our full-time jobs, and this house. So it has taken longer than anticipated…
Ideally we would have had contractors coming to quote everything within the first week of buying. But due to above-stated craziness, we are just getting all the final quotes in this week. Here is the scope of work for our next 4 weeks:
- Plumbers – in the master bathroom: move toilet, rough in for a double vanity, move tub supply/drain for freestanding bath
- Electrician – add can lights and pendants to the kitchen, and an additional sconce and outlet in the master bath (for the double vanity)
- Drywallers – replace the bottom 4ft of drywall in the basement
- Us – prep for the painters, build a closest into the 4th bedroom, remove wallpaper, start the kid’s bath
- Painters – paint all ceiling, walls, trim and doors
- Windows – replace all windows
I feel like we’ve already learned a mammoth amount of information, and I feel pretty excited to know that the learning curve will continue. It’s so fun to be learning new things!
Demo Overview
Man, I do not love the demo process. It’s fun for like 2 hours, and after that it gets old to me real fast. The first weekend was spent entirely on emptying the junk from the house. The basement and garage were very full, and the other rooms had a decent amount of garbage to clear as well.
Then we focused on ripping out the kitchen and bathrooms. I am constantly impressed at how adept Jake is at this kind of stuff. Like, I know that as a kid he used to help a flipper demo over summer break. But still, he is a true wizard of demolition! I think once you understand how things are installed, it’s easier to remove them.
I actually helped smash out the tile in the bathrooms. I totally felt like a boss, until Jake came in and did double what I had accomplished in half the time. Like I said, he is amazing at this stuff. Next, we removed all the carpeting upstairs and the flooring on the main floor. Although the first floor was partially covered in engineered wood, it was not salvageable so we are going to replace it all with new stuff.
Finally, this week we have been ripping out drywall in the basement. There had been previous water damage, so we feel like the best move is to completely replace the affected drywall. That was a rough night, but in one evening we removed the bottom 4 feet of drywall from the whole basement.
In total so far, we’ve filled two 30 yard dumpsters. But, the sad news is we will likely need a third to finish removing everything. There is a whole shed full of junk in the backyard and lots of rotted wood from an old deck that we need to dispose of. They cost $450, so we were really hoping not to have to get a third, but we have accepted it at this point.
Getting Contractor Quotes
So, a major part of my contribution in the last few weeks has been calling dozens of contractors to get pricing on windows, painting, plumbing and electric. I seriously can’t stress enough the importance of getting multiple quotes. And sometimes 3 isn’t even enough!
We decided we are going to get the painting hired out. This is for several reasons: first Jake hates painting, secondly it would take us a ridiculously long time to paint the whole house (with doors and trim) and the longer we hold this house the more it costs. Finally, they are going to be able to spray everything, so it will just be the best use of our time and money to have professionals do it.
We had 5 painters come out and quote us for the whole house and 3 of them came in at the $7,000 range… We started to worry because we had only budgeted 4 grand. The fourth painter quoted $5,800 and we were so relieved and about to sign with him! But, we had one last guy scheduled to quote the work and we waited for his quote… he came back at $3,200. Can you believe that variance?? And the last guy has a great online presence with lots of positive reviews, so clearly we are going with him.
Overall, we are planning to hire out the following things: windows, painting, electric, plumbing, drywall, carpet installation, and HVAC/furnace replacement. And the rest of the work that we will do ourselves is mainly flooring, and kitchen and bath installation.
It’s exciting to realize we will soon start the rebuilding phase, which I much prefer to demo. 🙂 Also, I’m drafting a post to share with you soon on all the design choices for the Fanchon Flip!!