This is the story of our first home remodel of a 3 bed/1.75 bath, 1880sf, 1955 brick ranch house.
We moved to El Paso, Texas from Germany in 2015 and had about 10 days to find a house before my husband, and Army pilot extraordinaire, had to go to an 8 week training course out of state. We arrived on a Friday and I had to start my full-time job the following Monday (and contrary to what I was told, I would NOT be given any time off to help find a house.) So the scramble began...
This was going to be our home, not an investment property, and we wanted a super walkable neighborhood with lots of amenities. We decided to purchase something in Kern Place--a historic and hip neighborhood in west El Paso. Moving in October, I can't say that inventory was great and I was pretty convinced that we'd have to do some home improvements to whatever house we chose. We didn't really plan on an entire house renovation... (Click "Read More" to continue...)
We moved to El Paso, Texas from Germany in 2015 and had about 10 days to find a house before my husband, and Army pilot extraordinaire, had to go to an 8 week training course out of state. We arrived on a Friday and I had to start my full-time job the following Monday (and contrary to what I was told, I would NOT be given any time off to help find a house.) So the scramble began...
This was going to be our home, not an investment property, and we wanted a super walkable neighborhood with lots of amenities. We decided to purchase something in Kern Place--a historic and hip neighborhood in west El Paso. Moving in October, I can't say that inventory was great and I was pretty convinced that we'd have to do some home improvements to whatever house we chose. We didn't really plan on an entire house renovation... (Click "Read More" to continue...)
My husband didn't even want to look at this house in the beginning, but I had loved the huge live oak in the (overgrown) yard and had seen photos of the oak floors inside and could see its potential. I finally persuaded him that we should take a peek. This is what we walked into...
A bit scary? Maybe. Walls begging to be torn out... definitely!
A bit scary? Maybe. Walls begging to be torn out... definitely!
There was a second wall (not pictured) that leads from the kitchen to the dining room with a swinging door. The photo of the kitchen is from standing in that doorway.
After developing a quick $35,000-ish rehab budget (insert hysterical laughter here), I was able to persuade my wonderful husband that this would be a great project and that THIS was the house for us. My father also agreed to run point on renovations as my husband and I were both working full time.
We had about a 45-day close, and I started lining up my tradespeople so that we could begin work the day we closed in mid December. I will be the first to admit that I had NO idea what we were really in for. I think my timeline was something like 12 weeks to be completely finished (yes, feel free to laugh.) 12 weeks may have been doable with a MUCH larger budget, doing ONLY what is listed below, hiring out ALL the jobs, not closing a week before Christmas and not living in it too. I'll try to cover each of these areas in separate blogs with all the changes that were made to budget and scope of work along the way.
Here is a rough idea of the scope of work that was initially planned. It was woefully underplanned and underbudgeted from the start.
1. Walls. Remove 2 walls (kitchen/dining wall and living/"den" wall.) Paint everything.
2. Doors. Remove the 2 stained glass panels in the dining room and replace with a French door. Paint all doors.
3. Floor. Build up the floor in the "den" to match the existing floor height in the rest of the house. Add new oak flooring in the den and refinish all the wood floors.
4. Kitchen. Gut everything and install new kitchen.
5. HVAC. Remove existing evaporative cooler and install new HVAC system on the roof.
6. Bathrooms. Minor updates (paint, hardware, etc.)
7. Landscape. Remove all overgrowth, ivy and diseased cypress.
8. Windows. Remove all shutters. Replace the existing "den" window with a larger window.
9. Miscellaneous. Square out the existing openings at the entrance (instead of the original arches.)
I'm sure I missed a few things but here's a rundown on my initial budget (again, insert laughter here.)
$2,800 - Electric (for new HVAC)
$8,000 - HVAC
$8,600 - Floors
$2,000? - Wall move (living room/den)
$500 - Landscape
$6,000 - Kitchen cabinets
$2,000 - Kitchen countertops
$2,000 - Kitchen Appliances
$1,000 - Guest Bath
$1,000 - Main Bath
-----
Total:
$33,900
The rest was going to be done with sweat equity (or so I imagined.)
Fast forward 3 years of living in a work-in-progress house and we were finally DONE! Obviously, it was not a 12-week project. And the final budget came in just shy of $80,000. That does not include the COUNTLESS hours my father spent making sure everything we touched would last another 50-100 years. We took no lavish vacations, hardly took a day off, and poured all of our disposable income into this project.
When all is said and done, the house was beautiful. I wish we could have enjoyed it more than a few months before we moved (back to Germany!) But we were able to squeeze out a small profit after the sale so I feel like we were able to do a Master's course in home renovation and get paid to do it (sorry Dad, I know you only got paid with food and a few weekend trips around the Southwest.)
I hope you enjoy reading about the adventure of our very first home renovation in the weeks and months to come!
After developing a quick $35,000-ish rehab budget (insert hysterical laughter here), I was able to persuade my wonderful husband that this would be a great project and that THIS was the house for us. My father also agreed to run point on renovations as my husband and I were both working full time.
We had about a 45-day close, and I started lining up my tradespeople so that we could begin work the day we closed in mid December. I will be the first to admit that I had NO idea what we were really in for. I think my timeline was something like 12 weeks to be completely finished (yes, feel free to laugh.) 12 weeks may have been doable with a MUCH larger budget, doing ONLY what is listed below, hiring out ALL the jobs, not closing a week before Christmas and not living in it too. I'll try to cover each of these areas in separate blogs with all the changes that were made to budget and scope of work along the way.
Here is a rough idea of the scope of work that was initially planned. It was woefully underplanned and underbudgeted from the start.
1. Walls. Remove 2 walls (kitchen/dining wall and living/"den" wall.) Paint everything.
2. Doors. Remove the 2 stained glass panels in the dining room and replace with a French door. Paint all doors.
3. Floor. Build up the floor in the "den" to match the existing floor height in the rest of the house. Add new oak flooring in the den and refinish all the wood floors.
4. Kitchen. Gut everything and install new kitchen.
5. HVAC. Remove existing evaporative cooler and install new HVAC system on the roof.
6. Bathrooms. Minor updates (paint, hardware, etc.)
7. Landscape. Remove all overgrowth, ivy and diseased cypress.
8. Windows. Remove all shutters. Replace the existing "den" window with a larger window.
9. Miscellaneous. Square out the existing openings at the entrance (instead of the original arches.)
I'm sure I missed a few things but here's a rundown on my initial budget (again, insert laughter here.)
$2,800 - Electric (for new HVAC)
$8,000 - HVAC
$8,600 - Floors
$2,000? - Wall move (living room/den)
$500 - Landscape
$6,000 - Kitchen cabinets
$2,000 - Kitchen countertops
$2,000 - Kitchen Appliances
$1,000 - Guest Bath
$1,000 - Main Bath
-----
Total:
$33,900
The rest was going to be done with sweat equity (or so I imagined.)
Fast forward 3 years of living in a work-in-progress house and we were finally DONE! Obviously, it was not a 12-week project. And the final budget came in just shy of $80,000. That does not include the COUNTLESS hours my father spent making sure everything we touched would last another 50-100 years. We took no lavish vacations, hardly took a day off, and poured all of our disposable income into this project.
When all is said and done, the house was beautiful. I wish we could have enjoyed it more than a few months before we moved (back to Germany!) But we were able to squeeze out a small profit after the sale so I feel like we were able to do a Master's course in home renovation and get paid to do it (sorry Dad, I know you only got paid with food and a few weekend trips around the Southwest.)
I hope you enjoy reading about the adventure of our very first home renovation in the weeks and months to come!
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