Flip This House - My Own Home

Parent Cafe
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Back by popular demand, I am starting a new thread for my next flip. However, this isn’t a flip… this is my personal home. My home has been neglected for many years and has several major underlying maintenance issues. In addition, I want to am moving into a new phase of my life where I would like to minimize maintenance (good luck with that!), find a way to make passive income off the property, and try to get the home so that I would be able to ‘lock and go’ so I can travel more. Right now I cannot travel much because too much can go wrong with my property between a failing roof, rusted exterior, pool and a yard that is too big for me to take care of.

I am going to try hard to hide the exact location of this home but we have a lot of armchair amateur detectives here :slight_smile: It is an ocean front (across the street) lot about 1/3 of an acre with too much landscaping requirements. Not to mention most of the sprinklers are broken, landscape lighting is constantly broken (which causes a big safety issue coming up the front walkway) and seem to have a mind of their own on when they come on and off. Not to mention my deceased husband installed the lighting controls for the front and back and I cannot even find the box that controls the back yard lighting :slight_smile:

I have the following goals with this project:

Rental Unit - turning my back guest suite into a rental unit with a private entrance (already exists). I need to remove the water heater and add a kitchenette, trying hard to add small washer/dryer, storage and a new closet area. Also going to blow out the front wall and add a french door, more windows and a small private covered patio. This will be a studio apartment because I cannot see a way to create a separate bedroom in the space. I will load floor plans in a little bit.

I am having trouble getting a good kitchen designed into the space - will load floor plans

Renovate small half bath and laundry room. These are still stuck in the 50s from original build. Just need to change out flooring, paint and put in a new vanity and toilet

Possibly replace all the flooring in the house. Right now I have dark merbau wood floors in the living room and mismatched stuff everywhere else. I would prefer to brighten everything up with lighter flooring and get continuous flooring through the house, except for laundry and half bath. I have inherited a lot of very expensive tile from prior projects and/or friends so I am going to try to use that in areas that I don’t really care like the laundry room or back bathroom.

Paint ceilings and everything else!

New furniture, but I have to try to make everything cohesive with the existing kitchen which has to stay mostly because it has concrete counters and I cannot deal with trying to jack hammer those out. Besides, I love my custom kitchen even though it is dark mahogany

New roof and new exterior paint

New siding - I think t his is going to make the biggest difference with the appearance of the house. It has old school board and batten on the front of the house. I think I am going to tear it off and put horizontal hardi siding to withstand the salt air better and improve the curb appeal.

Change out large water heater to two separate tankless water heaters mounted on the exterior

freshen up the outdoor shower, fix or remove the surf shed (because I do not need 20 surfboards anymore!!!, although my constant guests seem to need them, but it’s not about them anymore, it’s all about me!!! me!!! me!!!) and some other minor projects

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Regarding the big skylights. We do open them up in the summer because the great room area gets baking hot in the late afternoon since we are directly west facing with the sun setting. We don’t have an attic over that area or any release of hot air so the skylights help the ventilation.

The front sliding glass doors fold back into a pocket to open up the whole front of the house. But, if I open those and the back doors I get a wind tunnel through the house with papers flying :slight_smile:

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Forgot to add. Also changing all the doors, trim and baseboards in the house. They are still the dark mahogany doors but they are hollow with cheap veneer. I think that will help lighten everything up.

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" I need to open this up to install major soundproofing between the rental and this bedroom"

QuietRock, acoustical putty, fiberglass insulation, if you have space a second set of joists that let you decouple the two wall surfaces.

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Don’t have the space to lose another 3 1/2" in the adjoining bedroom. The back room was a garage conversion so it already has the original stucco/plaster wall plus a layer of drywall over that on the rental side. We are putting in fiberglass R19 insulation and 5/8" drywall. Couldn’t find Quietrock anywhere this morning. Have never heard of acoustic putty. May look that up

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Seems like you are moving quickly!

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What a lovely home with a lot of projects!

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Lowe’s site says Qietrock is available for pickup at Mission Valley. Probably too far from your place.

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OMG I LOVE your covered patio and actually all your outdoor space.

Gotta say that I also really like your dark floors…

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I personally like dark floors—in other folks’ homes. For my home, we have regular white oak, which hides dust better than darker floors. My sisters both have darker floors, though I can’t remember they type of wood they used, sorry.

One looks like koa (but isn’t). The other has an even darker wood (like black walnut), but some other Chinese variety.

I do love hardwood floors and the things you will be doing sound appropriate.

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So excited to follow

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What a wonderful location. CB, I know that when you’re all done, it’s going to be a show-stopper.

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QuietRock is one brand, there are others that do the same thing, you’ll find them if you Google it. It’s not cheap though.

You don’t need a full 3.5 inches for the second row of studs, just an inch or less. You put the new ones in between the old ones, but pulled back enough so there is no physical connection between the two wall surfaces except at the floor and ceiling.

Acoustical putty gets put around outlet or switch boxes or wherever there is a hole in the wall, to block sound transmission though the air cavity in the wall.

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I’m sure you will be adding both value and liveability to your gorgeous home! Great idea to have a studio you can rent out!

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No zoning issues adding an apartment? Around here it would be illegal unless you are in an area zoned for multifamily.

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Maybe its time to down size! Make it a true “flip”. We found the large house we are living in requires too much maintenance adding a renter is going to get you more headache (I have 5 to worry about every day, although they do not live with me :smile: ). I hate my swimming pool, I have to worry about it every day, skimming leaf’s is a major headache, if you don’t, they will clog the pump and then you have a mess on hand.

A true worry free home is a condo, where you can lock and go.

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You do not want to be a landlord if you expect to “lock up and go”. You need to do all of those deferred maintenance projects so the house does not deteriorate underneath the surface. Before making other changes have a discussion with local real estate agents to find out which projects pay off. As above, it sounds like you need to sell your house and move.

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It really depends on the renter. I feel that CB already has a person in mind. So that aspect is probably sealed. I would not sell in CB’s situation. Her social life revolves around that patio! :slight_smile:

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I don’t think there’s an issue with lock and go if there is a tenant in the other half, if anything having someone in the building is better. It’s no different than if you were renting half of a duplex or whatever.

You will probably want a property manager to help. It’s a royal PITA to deal with tenant issues when you are halfway around the world, ask me how I know. :smiley:

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I love the outdoor space and you can’t beat ocean front!! Location, location, location…The bones are fabulous. I can’t wait to see what you do!!!