September 25, 2017

Property #1 – Rehab Update 4

It’s been 5 or 6 weeks since we’ve posted a renovation update on our first investment property. Every week I start to write one, but I don’t think we’ve made enough progress to release a full update. And that’s because a lot of the work lately hasn’t been “photo worthy” I guess you could say. Lot’s of plumbing, electric, dealing with permits, and small projects that don’t make the best “before and after” Instagram posts.

But with every update, as soon I start writing, I realize a lot more work has been done than I thought.

Which has been really calming considering we are so far behind schedule.

Check out previous updates if you haven’t already. Update # 1, Update #2, Update #3.

Weeks 12 through 17. Let’s dive in.

Unit 1

Living Room / Sun Room

Interior painting has begun!

Since our floors are a more natural yellowish color, we felt we couldn’t go with the popular gray shades you see all over Pinterest such as Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams. So we went with a “greigh” (mix between a gray and a beige) called Realist Beige by Sherwin Williams.

I gotta say. I don’t love it.

At some times of the day, the color looks great, but others, it seems to almost have a pink putty shade. By the time I noticed this, half the house was painted so I convinced myself it’s fine. Needless to say, I won’t be using this color again.

Dining Room

Painting continued into the dining room. The only other big change is that we boxed in a gas line that had to run from the basement up to the second floor. More on that later.

Kitchen

Warning. Total newbie move here.

We had sheet rocked a wall in the kitchen, only to have our plumber open it back up again. He found old galvanized water lines running to the second floor and needed to replace them with pex.

This is another item added to the long list of lessons learned. Finish all plumbing and electric BEFORE closing walls back up. Duly noted.

Our electrician got fancy and added recessed lighting to the drop ceiling. At first, I thought this was going to be an overkill but the LED lights look awesome and really change the feel of the room.

Bedroom 1

This room originally had huge sliding mirror closet doors that we wanted to replace. But we ran into a few problems. The original doors weren’t a standard size and we couldn’t find matching replacements. Custom doors were super expensive so that was a no-go. We bounced around some ideas such as building “barn door” style doors by hand. I’ve made a few head boards in my day and thought it to be a cheaper and attractive option.

But before The Troop and I agreed on a decision, I came by the house after work one day to find that he and his dad built in the closet opening to fit standard sized doors.

Problem solved!

Bedroom 2

Not much to report.

The Troops dad ripped down the existing walls inside the closets because they were disgusting, and prepped them to be sheet rocked. We will also be updating the wood doors with 6-panel replacements.

Bathroom

No updates

Overall Unit

Remember how this house used to have radiant heat? We sure do because all of the radiators left holes in the hardwoods. The Troop did a great job of filling in all the holes with hand carved hardwood floors and stained them to match.

Unit 2

Unit 2 has taken a short back seat to the first floor unit. Mainly because we’re waiting on inspections so we can close everything back up and put it all back together. That’s when the real fun begins!

But progress has still been made.

Kitchen

All new water, waste and gas lines were run from the basement. Hence the demoing of the wall in the kitchen downstairs in unit 1 as well as the gas line that we boxed-in in the dining room.

Again, such an amateur move, but now we know better for next time.

Our electrician updated some knob and tube wiring, relocated outlets, and ran power for the appliances.

And now we’re waiting for inspections this week.

Living Room & Bedroom

The bedroom is still acting as a storage unit holding our assembled kitchen cabinets, appliances, and other random items until needed.

While not a lot has happened, we did update the windows in the entire unit (8 total) with Anderson 50 series windows replacements. They are SO much easier to open, look sharp, and are definitely much more energy-efficient.

But my favorite part about these replacements is that we found some awesome pulleys and counter weights in the openings from the old windows.

These will come in handy for some DIY projects down the line.

Bathroom

Everything we’re not keeping is gone and again. We’ll begin tiling soon!

Exterior

The front doors have been an endless discussion between The Troop and I. With some sanding, fresh paint, and other small fixes, I thought we could save the original wood doors. And eventually, I had The Troop on board with this plan.

Until he went to purchase new storm doors. The original wood dorms are a funky size. About 6 inches shorter than an average door and not square at all. Like everything else in this house, getting custom sized storm doors wasn’t an option so The Troop and his dad built out the door frames, installed new Feather River fiberglass doors as well as new storm doors.