Disaster to Desirably Decent – Another Home Renovation

As I stated in my previous articles, I have done a few home renovations that I will share with everyone. In this article, I share with you one of my very first home renovations. This is before I knew about Chip and Joanna of Fixer Upper and Drew and Jonathan of The Property Brothers , so this is not one of my best renovations. Nevertheless, it is decent enough to be in high demand from renters, buyers, and investors.

By the way, love Chip and Joanna and The Property Brothers! These shows are two of the few TV shows I watch, other than The Big Bang Theory (freakin’ hilarious). I know…what a nerd, right? Well, I am proud to be called a nerd, because nerds are smart-asses! 

Here’s a sneak peak of a before and after photo so you don’t have the urge to scroll down and look at all the photos before you read the entire article . Or have you scrolled down already???

Now, let’s get to the list. Below is a list of things I did to this home, mainly the interior:

• Replaced and repainted the exterior wood sidings
• Replaced and stained the fence
• Polished the floor
• Repainted the entire house with an eggshell gray tone color (approximately 3000 sq ft)
• Removed the awful flower wallpaper in the kitchen, dining room, and guest restroom
• Replaced sheet rock in the kitchen ceiling as it was going to collapse at any moment
• Replaced tile on kitchen counter top
• Stained the kitchen cabinets
• Replaced garbage disposal, dishwasher, refrigerator, stove, and microwave
• Patched up holes and add sheet rock in garage
• Re-did the fireplace
• Added two more bedrooms and a game room to the second floor
• Added a sink to one of the new bedrooms
• Installed laminate on second floor (no carpet at all in the house!)
• Replaced the tile in one of the full baths
• Fixed and replaced all electrical outlets
• Installed smoke detectors (total of 10)
• Installed metal hand rail for stairs
• Replaced all ceiling fans (total of 8)

Exhaustive list, huh?

Here are the rest of the before and after photos:

What do you think? Not too bad?

I buy most of the materials from Lowes. There are times I buy appliances at second hand stores or on Craig’s List. Oftentimes, you can find nearly new appliances in excellent conditions for much cheaper than buying at Home Depot.

In the future, if I plan to sell this property, I would do a complete renovation of this home and make it more modern looking. These are what I have in mind (not sure that all can/will be done but doesn’t hurt to plan ahead):

• Add another full bath to increase the value of the house
• Repaint the wood siding to a shade of gray
• Paint the exterior brick to a light gray or white
• Redo the kitchen (maybe even a new layout of the kitchen)
• Replace or repaint cabinets and add modern hardware
• Open up the stairs so that it’s a completely open concept once you enter the home from the front door. Who doesn’t love an open concept! The house is going to look ginormous!
• Beautify the fireplace. Fireplace is quite important as it is the focal point of the formal family room, especially when you have an open concept
• Repaint the interior to another shade of gray. Can’t you tell that I love gray?
• Re-model the full bathrooms and add modern fixtures
• Replace flooring with a nicer, darker laminate
• Add some recess lighting
• Give some curb appeal to the front of the house with some metal rails, wood column (love the look of wood), add some landscape.
• I don’t need to replace the roof as it was replaced in 12/2016
• The exterior AC unit was also replaced, in 2/2017

For now, as this property is currently a rental and occupied, I don’t plan to spend too much money to renovate it just yet. I might do some little renovations here and there that I listed above when tenants move out to get good rental income flowing in.

So there you go! Not too bad. Hope you enjoyed the article. Any comments/feedback is appreciated. Have a good one.

Disclaimer: All content is the opinion of the author. No investments is guaranteed to generate income. Please do your own research before you jump into anything crazy.