Wow! It’s been a while since my last post. Things have been a little crazy. As you can see from the photos below the guys have been working on the front of the house. They removed all of the old siding and removed one of the old front doors. This was a double but now it’s going to be a single so we don’t need two front doors. So a third window is in and the place is shaping up nicely. They also removed the upper section so they could reframe for the new/old attic windows we purchased.

Everything is pretty much buttoned up now. The heat and AC units are installed, the plumbing is roughed in, the electrical is roughed in and we spent most of last week waiting for our cover up inspection. That inspection happened Friday and we are good to go. The guys were working on insulation yesterday (Saturday) but I didn’t make it by for a look. I’ll pop by tomorrow and take a few more photos. In the meantime here are a few from last week, up until we stopped to wait for the inspector.

Giving the old lady a facelift. Also removed one of the two front doors.

The lower half of the front is put back together. Now they are opening up the attic area to reframe for the attic windows.

Here’s a view of the front once finished. The porta potty kind of blocks some of the view. Should have taken the photo from the other side.

These are the windows Dawn picked out for the attic. Once the exterior paint is finished they’ll look nice.

So the last few days I’ve been a little under the weather and haven’t had a chance to make it to the house so I haven’t posted anything. But today I managed to swing by and the guys are making pretty good progress. They are doing the plumbing and electrical rough in now. They have most of the plumbing done and they were finishing up the electrical wiring when I arrived. They have the water heater ready to install in the attic. In the next day or so they will be bringing in the AC unit and will get started on the duct work. Once all of this gets done we’ll be ready for a cover up inspection. That’s when the inspector comes in to check the electrical and plumbing work and, if everything is good, he gives you a green light (actually a green sticker) to go ahead and install the sheetrock. Or in other words he gives you the OK to cover up the walls. That’s why it’s called a cover up inspection.

Plumbing Rough In for the deep sink in the laundry

Inside the laundry looking toward the kitchen. Plumbing rough in for the washing machine.

The kitchen door leading to the laundry room and then to the back deck.

Recessed lighting in the kitchen.

You can check out our Layout by clicking this link.

We played around with the arrangement quite a bit. The immovable items like the fireplaces and pocket door sort of dictated a lot of the layout. We think we have something that will be pretty nice once it’s all finished. And we’ll be keeping it as historical as possible while still updating it for modern living.

Just a note on the bedroom sizes to help you get an idea. The two guest bedrooms are drawn to scale with queen beds in them. The master bedroom is drawn with a California King in it.

Well, the guys finished up the siding and got started on the roof. They got half of it finished. They finished one side from the gutter all the way up to the ridge cap. Then the rain came. So, since it has been raining off and on the past few days they moved their attention inside.

In the rear of the house there is quite a bit of termite and water damage to the wood floors. Wanting to save as much of the original home as possible we have decided to remove the wood floors in the master suite. We will use the wood from the master suite to repair the floors throughout the rest of the house. Then we’ll go ahead and use new wood in the master suite. The floor guys are pretty good at matching color so, other than the fact there won’t be any dings and dents, the new floors should match the old floors fairly closely. And the new wood will be in the master suite where most guests won’t have the opportunity to see.

Also, the fireplaces are almost all uncovered now. They have one more small one in the rear of the house. These are going to add a nice touch to the interior.

Tomorrow I’ll post the layout drawing. Until then here are a couple of photos.

Siding is finished. Got half of the roof done. Then the rain came.

The new sub floor in the master suite. Notice the fireplace. They still have to knock the stucco off of it.

Here’s a fireplace in the front of the house with the stucco removed.

And here are two old claw foot tubs we will resurface.

The guys have the siding almost completed and are beginning to turn their attention to the interior.

One of the original details are the three original coal burning fireplaces. They were covered over with stucco and the guys are taking the time to uncover them. Some of the other nice details in this house are original wood floors, 12 inch baseboards, and a real nice pocket door that will separate the living room from the kitchen/dining area. Here are a couple of photos of the siding as well as one of the fireplaces that were uncovered. I’m finishing up the interior layout and I’ll post that soon for you to check out.

Finishing up the siding.
Interior work starts soon.

We’re almost to the point we can close and lock the doors.

There are three of these fireplaces in the house.

Well, at least the damage has been repaired. The guys have the back of the house reassembled. See the first photo.
I also told you I would fill you in on one thing we didn’t plan on.
The middle photo shows the second outside wall. It ended up needing to be removed and replaced. We thought it would be ok in the beginning but when we got into it the wall was just too far gone.
So now the house has three outside walls and the rear 10 feet completely rebuilt. Now they have started on the siding.
I guess it’s time to start working on the interior layout. We have some ideas and are going to try to keep it as historical as possible while giving it some modern conveniences. Stay tuned.

Rear of the house framed out.

The other exterior wall replaced. There was a lot of water and termite damage.

Siding going on. We’ll be able to lock it up pretty soon.

They took the back of the house off! Yes, off! So now they are rebuilding a 10 foot section of the rear of the house. It was damaged by water and termites and, with the modifications we are doing to the interior in this area, they felt it was better to remove and replace.

P.S. For you new rehabbers out there, this is not typical and I would not recommend a project of this scale for your first rehab. We’ve been doing this a while and we anticipated quite a bit of this extra work. With that said, there’s a lesson here. Even though we plan for the unexpected there will always be a hidden item you just don’t see coming. We knew about the rear of the house. I’ll post one later that we didn’t plan for. It just goes to show ya it’s always somethin’. Here are a couple of photos.

Water and termite damage forced us to remove the entire rear 10 feet of the structure and rebuild.

Moving quickly to get the back 10 feet of the house rebuilt

So the first couple of days were fairly uneventful, at least from a photo standpoint. Since the house had been sitting vacant and gutted since Hurricane Katrina it suffered a lot of wood rot and termite damage. Quite a few of the floor joists, the framing that makes up the foundation, was rotted and/or eaten. So the guys spent the first few days repairing/replacing the support pilings and replacing the damaged wood floor joists. The we found out the next morning they were going to remove the siding, it too was heavily damaged, and were going to begin removing the one outside wall.

The house was leaning a bit to the right because of the damaged foundation, now repaired, and the outside wall on the right side. So the idea was to support the roof on the right side, remove the outside wall and rebuild it. We went by the project at lunch time. They already had the wall replaced. In talking to the guys they said, “We didn’t like seeing that roof hanging there without a wall. It made us nervous. So we built the wall back pretty quickly.”

I guess I’m glad I came by after the wall was already finished.

New outside wall just finished.

The view from the inside

So where do we start? That’s often the question with a rehab. In any case you have to close on the property first. It’s not smart to start work on a property you don’t own. So step one, close on the property, Check.

Actually step one comes before you write the contract and that is, what are we going to do with this property? In other words, what is our exit strategy? In this case the property is a Katrina flooded gutted double. The neighborhood in question is increasing in value for single family homes but is stagnant and maybe even declining for doubles. There’s no rule that says we can’t make a double into a single family home, so that’s what we are going to do.

The next step is obtaining permits. Since this is a Katrina damaged property it has been sitting vacant for almost 10 years now. That means there’s a little more involved in the permit process. There’s a damage assessment, a pre-Katrina appraisal involved, and a quote from the contractor for the repairs. If all works out we get permits. Long story short, we got the permits. If you have questions about the process shoot me a note and I’ll fill you in, it’s a little bit of a process but it’s nothing too terrible.

We’ve already met our contractor at the property, we did that during our due diligence process after getting the property under contract. But now that we have the building permits in hand, and the permit that allows us to convert a double into a single, we want to meet with our contractor, give him a little cash to get him started, and go over the scope of work one more time.

This is going to be a pretty big project. When we are finished this place won’t look anything like it did when we started. Here are a couple of day one photos. Stay tuned, we’ll post more.

It’s a little hard to see in this photo but the place actually leans a little to the right.

There was a shed on the back of the house all overgrown with vines. The place is a little scary at this point.

Yep, flooded and gutted. But wait until we get moving on this place. You won’t believe it.

So we just closed on the new project on Friday, 4/24/15.

This one took quite a while to close. This was a succession property and there were 6 heirs. There were some issues to resolve, and trying to coordinate all of those schedules was a challenge, but we finally got it done.

I’ll get into some of the details in my next post tomorrow.

Stay tuned, we are going to post the good, the bad and all of the details of the project in the hope that we can help others see that it’s just real estate investing, it’s not rocket science.

We have a new rehab we are about to purchase and start.

We’d like to share this journey in order to help investors and fledgling rehabbers to better understand the process.

Right now we have the property under contract, the check is at the title company and we are just waiting for a clear title and closing date.

This one is looking like our biggest rehab project to date. It is not our largest in terms of dollars spent, or the one with the largest estimated after repaired value (ARV), but it will be our biggest in terms of the amount of work that is needed to be done. This one is a flooded/gutted property, in an up and coming neighborhood, that needs everything from a new roof all the way down to some foundation work and leveling.

Stay tuned, this is going to be an adventure and hopefully a learning experience for all of us.

Al D.