First Time Home Buyer - Next Steps?

[Jake Stone]

Hello All -

Been a listener of the BP Podcast for a few years now and I’ve finally gathered up the courage to purchase my first home with my wife!

The house is a 4 bedroom 1 bath built in 1939 in Central Pennsylvania. All things considered, it’s in really good shape. New metal roof, water heater, windows, HVAC, etc. all the boring big ticket expenses have been covered for us.

Our plan is to remove two non-load bearing walls to open up the main floor’s floor plan, gut and refinish the kitchen completely prior to moving in December 1st.

We took ownership of the property today and wanted to run what we think our next steps should be by you all…

1. Contact the county offices to see if there are any permits required for our planned renovations.

2. Begin by taking down walls and ripping out cabinets in the kitchen. (Floor plan for cabinets remains the same just with newer ikea cabinets)

3. Hire electrician to move any electrical from walls we’re removing

4. Install cabinets/countertops, etc. to finish kitchen

Some other things we’ve thought about preliminarily include things like testing for asbestos (plaster walls in an older home).

Tried to keep it short here in terms of the actual technical items we need to tackle to get this project started, but wanted to receive any feedback from more experienced renovators on the process we have in place.

End goal is to live in the property for a year or 2 and rent it out once we’ve completed renovations and saved up enough for a second property. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!