Anatomy of a Remodeled Rental: Week One

About a year and a half ago, I came across a house for sale by owner. The price was so low I was a rather suspicious, but we decided to take a look. It was much cheaper than surrounding homes, all basically the same style.  It's a simple home with nice-sized rooms; no basement, three bedroom, one bath, and has a rare (considering its 1976 age) 2 car garage. Perfect for a rental. The owner seemed surprisingly unwilling to sell it, but after numerous conversations with Stan in which he promised she could take as much time to move as she needed, she signed a contract. The whole processes took over a year, which was good since we were still working to remodel our 4 plex.

 

The bones of the house are good: no funky traffic patterns, no weird "what's this space for?" issues.

 Kitchen view, from the garage.

 

Clearly, there's some updating to do, but it's a handyman's nightmare dream.

The previous owner was around our age, but it very poor health. She was moving to another state to be near her daughter, and we told her to leave whatever she didn't want to take,

and we'd dispose of it.

 Living room, looking into the dining room.

 

She left us a washer and dryer, which were located in this space on both sides of the kitchen, going into the garage. We were thrilled about that--they were in great condition, and we are now renting them to some of our other renters in another property.

 

The hallway, with that lovely 70's light fixture.

Looking left, into the dining room/kitchen from the hallway

 

and right, into the living room.

There's a wood burning stove with a gorgeously fabulous brick half-wall in one corner of the living room.

Entry door- no coat closet. It's around the corner in the hall.

Looking from the living room into the dining room.

The bathroom is about as uniquely decorated as any place we've owned. I just wanted to be a fly on the wall when someone decided paneling would look groovy in the bathroom. At least there's not orange shag carpet covering the entire bathroom floor like our duplex had.

These are the same lights we pulled out of the duplex a few years ago. They must have been hot stuff in the 70's.

Even the back of the toilet has that lovely gold mirror.

Speaking of the 70's, the previous owner left us her waterbed. Yay!

Closet doors with holes included.

Second bedroom, same WAKE UP! blue paint. Love the blue wall/orange floor combo. The three bedrooms all have popcorn ceilings, the living room/kitchen/bathroom/dining room do not.

The third bedroom has more paneling. Nothing says "remodel me" like paneling.



This third bedroom has the hole in the floor for access to the (new) furnace, (new-ish) water heater, and plumbing. Stan's already taken a dusty tour through the crawl space. I was satisfied to relive the experience through his description.

The backyard is nice and big, and accessible through the sliding glass door off of the dining room. It comes with a fenced-off garden space, chain-link fencing all around, some nice trees, and all those purty white flowers on the lawn.

It has an ancient, but working, central air conditioner,

and these lovely holes--one for septic tank, one for a well for watering the lawn. Water is sooo expensive here--well over $300 a month in the summer. Having a working well is a real plus-no big water bills. Landlords in Billings usually pay the water bill to insure yards stay watered.

 So why, you ask, was this house so cheap? You're looking at it. The old owner is a heavy, heavy smoker.  Smoker people! Look at these disgusting outlets! This is what your lungs look like!

 

 Now our challenge is to remodel quickly, but cheaply, to retain the inexpensiveness of the place. It's surprisingly challenging to remodel without over-improving.  For example, originally we planned on tearing down this pony wall between the hallway and dining room, making a big open, flowing space. It would have required moving an air intake vent. Then we were going to put in wood floors. Oh my. Do we think money grows on trees???  First of all, we are done with extensive, time-consuming upgrades to our rentals, second, those things don't really bring in more rental dollars. We scaled back our plans, and will do only those things that must be done without overshooting our neighborhood.

 

The best thing that's happened so far is that Stan asked a young (23 year old) man from our single's ward if he wanted an evening/Saturday job. He enthusiastically did.

 I'm past my rip-out-carpets-fling-it-over-my-shoulder-carry-it-to-the-dump days.  It's good to have a young, strong, hard-working helper for Stan to labor with.

Our helper decided a week later to go on a mission and will be leaving in two weeks. We are working him hard until he goes. He'll find a mission restful when we're done with him.

 

DAY ONE: TEAR DOWN

We had high hopes ripping out the carpet would help with the sickening tobacco smell.

It didn't help.

We are replacing some of the closet doors that have holes, so they visited the trash.





 

I know this will shock you, but we've decided to take out the paneling in the bathroom. We will be keeping the vanity, but will replace the floor.

I was surprised to see wallpaper remnants. That means someone replaced ugly avocado green wallpaper with uglier paneling. Wow.

 

That split rail fence around the garden came down. It's going to be so much easier for me to mow.

 

Everything was loaded into a trailer and hauled to the dump.

DAY TWO: BATHROOM AND STOVE

We are removing the door and tiles from around the tub. The tiles are seriously damaged, we hate tub doors. They are always dirty, scummy, and difficult to clean. Most our renters leave them for ME to clean.

Love those etched swans on the tub doors.

 



This door was cemented in place. It was a major project for Stan and Randy (our helper) to remove.

 

The easiest way to remove tiles is to remove walls.

 

Next was the stove and lovely brick decor. Our insurer won't insure our rental property with free-standing stoves. There's a few new holes in the wall.

The work on day one was more dramatic, but day two was grueling.

 

DAY THREE: REPAIRING

 

Ok, maybe not ALL repairing. Stan pulled the dishwasher out. Turns out it had never been connected. It's a 20 year old dishwasher that probably has never been used. There will be some new plumbing to be done when we work on the kitchen.

Stan and Randy put up new walls around the tub (tile to follow) and added a light and fan. There were no lights over the tub area and no fan. The only lights were the two dim bulbs over the sink.

This required a new electrical box and two new switches to be added: a fan and a bathtub light switch.
Stan the electrician did it all.

The stove wall is repaired

and the chimney was removed as much as possible. The rest has to be removed from the other side. We will be capping this hole for now.

 

There you have it--a week's worth of work. Stay tuned for more. We hope to be done in time to rent it September 1. We have three times a week to work- 4 hours each Tuesday and Thursday nights, and all day Saturday. The rest of our evenings are spent at the Single's Ward, doing Single Ward activities.