Post 9: A Major Pivot and Update on Property Values!

Greetings, my few readers! It's really been ages since I posted about, or even worked at, the flip house.  There is a good reason for this.

In November 2020, I had the second planned foot surgery, having had the first one a year prior.  It seems that no good deed goes unpunished, and my big toes developed "hallux rigidus" from 25 years of walking at a steep incline on my treadmill every single day. You couldn't tell by looking at my feet that there was a problem (unlike bunions or something), but my big toes were so stiff and sore that every step was agony.  So I lost 12 weeks due to surgery and healing, but now I'm back to 100%!

As I left it, I had been painstakingly scraping wallpaper and patching in all the rooms of the house to restore the beautiful and original plasterwork.  My goal was to save as much of the original house as I could, while still making it a safe and efficient home for the eventual owners.

When working on the kitchen (all documented so far on the blog), we found we had to take all of the original plaster out so we could rewire everything properly.  And we saw (expected) lots of old knob-and-tube wiring and (unexpected) no insulation whatsoever.

In researching knob and tube, I found that it's grandfathered in, so we could have left it in the places where it was still working, But a HUGE limitation is that you cannot add any insulation whatsoever around it - it's a fire hazard.  Not being able to insulate would mean the home would be cold, super expensive to heat, and completely inefficient - three things I wouldn't want in any property.

As Brian (hubs) and I talked more, it just didn't make sense to not do things for modern day sensibilities.  I'm all about architectural preservation whenever possible, but inheriting a cold house with wiring 70+ years old was seriously depressing.

After a long talk, we made the decision to remove all (all) of the beautiful plaster and lathe, rewire the entire house, and insulate.  After this, we would be free to drywall.  The parts we still can save are all the beautiful baseboards and trim moldings (which are being carefully removed and labeled), and the original hardwood floors.  

I'd worked so hard on the dining room, scraping, patching, and painting.  I don't regret it at all, even tearing it all out.  I learned so much and had so much fun.  But now I'm super excited to make the house right, really really right, for the 21st century. Here's what it looks like now:

The only thing between the framing and the outside walls was black stiff paper.  And if you look up, you'll see the original hardwood laid directly on the floor joists, with no subfloor whatsoever.

Over the coming weeks, all of the rooms will be stripped back to look like this.  The footprint will largely remain the same, but we are going to somewhat combine the kitchen and dining room (with a pony wall remaining).  This will give just a little more flexibility for modern appliances.

So now, I want to give a quick update on property values. When I bought the house in December 2019, I paid $42,000 for it. Lots and lots and lots of houses in the neighborhood were priced similarly.  This project was NEVER about making money at all costs - it was about having the joy of restoring something, and the process itself. We planned to put about $25,000 into it and sell it for $120,000 or so.  We based our hypothetical and eventual sale price on the house next door, which had sold for that after a renovation.

Our budget is still on target.  But the house prices in this neighborhood (North Linden) have wildly, and I mean wildly, shot up in the last 13 months. There are literally no homes left for sale in the entire zip code for less than $100,000.  This is the opposite of what I thought would happen in pandemic times.  Houses that have been renovated are now selling for $150,000. 

Of course, I'm not counting any chickens before they are hatched, but we hope to be hatching chickens sometime in June, when we anticipate we can finish up this house.

I just cannot wait to see what happens with this house!  Of course I will keep blogging and sharing progress along the way.

Here's to 2021!