All Forum Posts by: Adam Logan

Hardwood floors Lowes 1.78 a SF machined oak. 10% off coupons help.

Tubs tile, showers, cabinets can be painted for a very reasonable price by people in my line of work, in a day.

I Never replace cabinets, I fix themand laminate them in wod venner and have the doors made custom. Here is my secret link http://www.sierracabinetdoor.com

Cheapest BY FAR. Made in Mexico, he ships them in and out from TExas. ike 10 types of wood and you design yourself with 25 possibilities.

Vanities: Paint them. Use melamine home dept aint and a auto spray gun if possible. replace anything broken it will be hidden by paint.

Appliances: USED

Tile: Now I paint them and just get the cheapest money can buy, even mismatched colors. Before I got it at a supply shop up the street. 50 cents a sf and up. Typically, your gonna pay a buck or more for decent tile no matter what.

Pergo: Same place. .69 cents a foot.

Cabinet pulls, ceiling tile, pool pumps, crown molding: EBAY! Lots of knock off fake products that look real. 25 cents a foot for platic crown, .99 a sf metallic painted ceiling tile, even the real thing was way cheaper. Solid nickel cabinet bar pulls were like 8 each, 12 inches long. For expensive decorative stuff, check ebay for alternatives. Also, a good alternative to ceiling tile is ceiling tile textured WALLPAPER. probably 20 cents a SF at lowes. Looks good as a wainscot too.

Paint: WAL MART!! 9.99 a gallon for color place paint. READ CAREFULLY; ITS MADE BY SHERWIN WILLIAMS!!!! Good paint for theprice! Better than ANY glidden.

Doors: Flea market.

Garage doors: Used in newspaper

Tools: Harbor freight, or online at NORTHERN TOOL! Cheapo knockoffs that last long enough to let you not care when they break.

Best investment EVER: Graco airless spray paint gun. 5 gallon bucket design. 600 bucks Home Depot, the outside of a house was done in 2 hours, the inside in an hour.

Or, pick up an HVLP gun and 4 stage turbine compressor and learn to paint your tubs and such. I did, now its my business. Theres your best material place there. 50 bucks to redo a tub TOPS, 200 for a counter tops, 100 to repaint your cabinets tops, probably 20 cents a SF to do tile tops, BUT its not as easy as it sounds, it really takes skill. You can use midwest chemicals for the chemicals, about the best. The gun will cost around 900-1200 for the kit, both the hose, turbine and gun. But, the gun will pay for itself inone jobIF you can paint without runs or dryspray in your paintjob. They will guide you on the phone to kind of tell you what to use at midwest. I don't recommend te risk unless you canrent anhvlp rig and see if you have the inborn talent to paint, because most people cant just pick up one and paint a tub. Counters are easier though, cabinets are hard like a tub. Most likely you will try it once and never do it again without guidance. Its so hard to do a tub, I STILL get runs time to time, luckily I can fix them with a little device i rigged up. But on a scale of 1-10 its probably a 8-9 in difficulty as a beginner. And, the chemicals are so TOXIC 3 minutes around the fumes without a respirator and you will be struggling for air for 2 days. It can kill you! Not like rust oleum, this stuff is NASTY.

Women buy the house, not the men. And, they buy based on the kitchen and the batthrooms, but mainly the kitchen! TRUST ME! Doesn't have to be extremely nice, but the more ammenities / fixtures that save time and make life easier, the more likely you sell the house! At least 50% of my rehab money went into the kitchens. I alsmost always had to run new wiring for a dishwasher and/or above range microwave. But my houses appealed to WOMEN, and I sold them extremely fast.

Just grab some used stuff that matches, brand is not important. Whites a safe bet. A 60k house probably only needs a 30" fridge, you can grab one out of the newspaper, trading times, even some thrift shops sell appliances where I am. On a white fridge, I tried to spend $200 or less, even if it needed a little cleaning up. Unless the house ia absolutely rehabbed to like new condition, the buyers wont expect new appliances. Homes approaching 100k or more, say 1200 Liveable SF plus, I tried to get a double door 36 inch. These I got for about $200-300 used. $150k I always went stainless and never found a used stainless applance, just scratch and dent. $650 was about the min I could get them for.

Stoves I did my BEST to get a smooth top. Just looks nicer. Again, I was not "set" with only flat tops, especially with the price difference. On a 60k home I would spend around $100-150 MAX $150 on a range. I usually grabbed something that needed a cleaning around 100 bucks or so. Not the newest, just "decent." The pans are cheap and easy to replace and really make a big difference. The burners are nt terribly bad either if the old ones are rusty. If the things dirty and a slobs selling it, even better cuz you save a ton if they dont clean out the oven with oven cleaner.

Dishwshers a dime a dozen, and a NECESSITY to sell the house and compete with other sellers.. I usually paid $50-$75 for a used one, $150 - 200 for new scratch and dent stainless with my source when I needed them new. They have no resale value. Probably the easiest thing to buy cheap and in good shape. Not something people typically look to buy used. They last forever, so usually people buy them new to stay updated. When I got them used, it was always due to a remodel. I got 3 brand new ones for under like 200 bucks at a local builders surplus liquidation once. I typically spend $35 bucks and threw in a garbage disposal in line with the washer too. Just another nice convenient time saver. However, a PAIN to wire to a switch with existing walls. Unless gutted, it was my nightmare.

Think of it this way, you'd want it too, and imagine if you had to pay an electrician, plumber, etc to come in ON TOP of the price of the items new. DIY you really make a difference in the marketability for little cost. If you dont know how to do electrical work, LEARN LEARN LEARN!! It makes one take for granted how easy and cheap upgrading a kitchen is if they are not paying a electrician $75 an hr to run the wires, usually costing as much or moe than some of the appliances!

Electrical Possibly the most important thing I mastered that gave me so many options when rehabbing, dont forget... wire is dirt cheap! If you need advice on electrical, I can help. It takes a while to learn what amperage breakers you need and gauge of wire (a dishwasher pulls up to about 14 amps, needs its own line basically. 20 amp breaker, 14 g wire I believe is what I used, but 16 would suffice. I just tend to always size up my wire. Other than that, its just hairpulling trying to fish it up walls into the attic and to the breaker box. Behind dishwashers/microwaves you have a nice area to put a hole in the drywall to get it done easier, and it hides it well. No one will ever see it.

One thing I tend to be very adimant and picky about is I ALWAYS put an above range microwave and NOT a hood. Countertop ones are so outdated, take up so much space, that it REALLY seemed to help sell the homes faster. Its not a cheap thing to put in if you pay for instalation, so if you do it yourself, you really underestimate the value it has to a buyer who PROBABLY would intend to have one installed but most likely are going to be swayed by such minor things when it comes to making offers. Its a hassel really, and probably $500-600 to get one new and pay installation. I ALWAYS bought them new, white maybe $150, stainless $250-300. Its a pain in the ARSE too sometimes because if the cabinets are old, sometimes the bridge cabinet is like 18 inches and the thing sits TOO LOW. This is where it got tricky. You actually can carfullt CUT the cabinet with a good expensive jigsaw and a skinny blade. Formica you just CAREFULLY peel back on the edges, and on the flat surface, aplly duct tape over the cut point. Use a circular saw with a lot of teeth in the blade. The tape prevents chipping. Peel it off and apply the strips you removed with contact cement. I have donw the same with wood ones, just had to be creative and put them back together with dowel rods and such so there were no external screw holes. I have done this to lower cabinets too to fit a dishwasher. Really study the design so you know exaclty where to cut and how it will fit back together. Drawers are not much harder, though you may need a router to route the slot back in to the bottom piece of wood. If they are wood not formica, you have to match the router bit to the drawer edge and reroute then stain the edge. More noticeable. But the doors can always be trimmed and put back together especially panel doors. Dowels through the bottoms and a screw on each side to sturdy them, then some wood filler and a touch of stain if necessary.

I did this almost everytime I did a house. Typically, you CAN tell YOU did it, but no one else will be able to if you take your time and do it nice. Now I can paint the darn things so THAT would have been so much easier. I coulda cut them and chipped and marred them to death, bondoes the damage, and shot them or even relaminated them in real wood veneer. I got into this business FOR my REI company AFTER I bought my final house. Ii tell you I would have been breaking the bank being able to paint my floor tile, applicances, cabinets, counters, tubs, showers, sinks. I installed abut 5 tubs because I never knew about this business. For twice the cheapest tub money can buy, I coulda had them refinished. 2nd to last house, I came across a guy who does this, and he did my counters and shower in like 3 hours for about $800. Before that, I woulda replaced them myself and spent 2 weeks doing it.

I stumbled onto the wood laminate veneer online and after my last house did MY kitchen in it, just bought my doors from THE cheapest company on earth, out of Texas. He has the mexicans make them and brings them back over the border. I have 36 cabinet doors, 60 SF of counter, and justto have them painted was $1800! Mills pride at the Depot was $3200 to replace them! I refinished them, with SOLID oak cathedral doors and oak veneer for around $1400!!! I then discovered people pay THOUSANDS for formica, so I started doing it on the side too for about the same price as formica. Dunno how I got off the subject, but this brings back memories of when I loved life and had my REI company. I miss the rehabbing. I would LOVE to do rehabs for people / investors for a living. N0 one on earth can rehab a house cheaper than I can. I spent ALL of my time studying alternatives to costly repairs, and honestly, I can probably use paint and rehab 90% of a house entirely with it, in a week or two! I never got to try it anywhere but my house and customers. :(

Just for the heck of it, heres before and after in my kitchen. The counter is the first paint job I ever did. I put flex wood banding on the edge to make it appear solid surface! Avoided 6k in granite, spent $300 in chemicals, and pretty neat huh? These are the $1400 cabinets too, MINUS the nickel bar pulls I got on ebay for 300. The tile is the only thing I splurged on, almost $2000 in tile and Idid it my self. Porcelain and stainless steel tiles. The front of my island I made from SOLID oak, and 3 ceiling tiles. That cost about $500 and I hit my finger with a chop saw ending up in the ER while doing it. But hell, It went right over the formica, and the woods matched the veneer and stain to a TEE! Also, the microwave is an example of a cabinet cut I did to make it fit. Put it in after I did the cabinets, so I had to cut them. Just goes to show, it CAN be done easily even on expensive or solid wood doors.

Sorry for the rambling on. Hopefully you get sme good ideas from my ramblings. I am the one to go to when you have a dilemma and need a work around for it. Most likely, I have been faced with the same dilemma and found a way to do it myself and a hell of a lot cheaper. I have replaced submersible well pumps, added a drain to a pool by digging a cave to the bottom, built a studio apartment with full bath and kitchen under my stilt home through the concrete slab, wired it entirely and plumbed it, framed it, replaced an entire attic worth of ducting, removed a dock out of the gulf, cleared a full 1/2 acre lot with my truck, a 3 ton chain, and a chainsaw, then sodded it myself. Yep, I used to have things to be proud of til I got screwed by my ex wife. I am ALWAYS hapy to help advise OBVIOUSLY anyone who needs advice.

First counter repaint I ever did. A lot diferent than the other guys in the business huh? :)

Before

After

Closer look, though an EARLIER less finished picture, at my masterpiece backsplash and hopscotch floor to match. The bottom mosaic tiles on the wall are 6 inches wide and 3 inches high. They cost 12 bucks EACH!! the 6 inchers on the floor are stainless and were a meek 6 bucks each. Money was a nice thing to have! Nice indeed until it was all gone. But the pride I took in my rehabbing was far greater than the money. Every hose I did I made BEAUTIFUL, I was addicted to the pride of seeing people drop jaw at my creations. I gave investors a HELL of a name around here,one of few that realtors actually had a demand for my homes and showed the properties to buyers because I had rehabbed them! Now, every penny was a waste I put in this house as it has declined $125,000-150,000 in value from "the crash." Sucks and I will probably lose the house too soon with my $2400 mortgage LOC INTEEST ONLY!!!, home/flood insurance 4k a yr, 5k yr taxes, and all the hard work and pride will be auctioned off to a buyer who knows NOTHING about what I did in here. I am a hurtin big on this one!

Never forget,
1. Cashflow is king. Oh boy I know that now! I was used to making 30-70k checks every 3 months. But when I lost my Co. I got left with a 200,000 lifestyle and a 40k job at the MOST so really, as long as your lifestyle is below your means, youll be fine when you sell. I lived check to check and SPENT my 200-250k PER YEAR!!! I was broke by the time the next check came cuz of an expensive wife.

2. Vacant land is like a two headed alligator that never *****. It takes and takes and takes producing no income only expense on taxes and such until it sells. Dad always said that, I find it funny. Though my best profit came off 3 adjacent lots I grabbed for 20k and sold for 81,000 a month later with no rehab, nothing. Just sat down and called every person who had vacant land in that area whos mailing address was out of state and got 4 out of the deal, those 3 and another for 8k that I flipped in 3-4 weeks to a builder for 29,000. So I made 80,000 that year alone just screwing around with the land AROUND a property I was rehabbing in a rural area of town. Then I made 50k on the house! haha that subdiv brought me 130k for one homes worth a rehab and a days worth of phone calls!

Depends on the coverage homeowners provides. I never took a chance. A tenant gets hurt and somehow wins a few mil and I am stuck in sole posession, whew thats rough. Just a lot of things can happen. 1000 or less to set up an llc, tax breaks, personal liability not a concern. Insurance a bit tougher to get but not too bad. How I always did it!

LLC. You will personally not be held liable if anyone sues you. The corporation takes the hit. JUST be SURE you file mortgages even if your OWN on every property within the LLC. Make sure something is securing all the assets!

I have had prolly 10 bikes from dirt to street to onroad offroad. Just something about a 2 stroke race bike does it for me, I just had to sell my CR125 cuz of money problems. :(

Reminds me:

Next is my 2006 F250 turbo diesel king cab or extended cab whatever. Thats gotta go for 29k 0r 28k so if anyone knows anyone looking for a nice truck, let me know. Take over payments if you want. Leather top to bottom, 4x4, about 7 liter v8 diesel engine, 41k miles. Back seat, big bed, LOADED. Payments are 650 a month. This thing is white, nice and is FAST! Dunno the value but gotta be more than 28-30k I paid almost 40k a year ago and at the time I STOLE it. New they were 50k!

Back to the topic, I have had every jap bike known to man in dirt and street. But since were talking street, where I neverhad a bike longer than 6months cuz I cant jump and race it, I did have this death machine, a 1983 Honda Magna VF1100. Shaft driven, 650 lbs, 120 stock HP. 0-60 in 2.8 seconds OR just when your switching into second after getting on it. 6 gears and 60 in the first onewas sick, what was sicker was when it came up on you at almost 700lbs in second gear when your doing 60! I had it topped at 146mph with my friend on the back. I am sure the thing woulda done 155 wound out, not that impresive, but for a 1983 and a TOTALLY STRAIGHT UP street bike, not EVEN a cafe style,the design was AWFUL for the power! It had the interceptor 1100 motor in the frame of a stinking old geezer bike! It beat the TAR outta my friends 600 crotchies, first gear killed them,they were in 3rd when I was going to 2nd.

Definitely a stupid STUPID designed bike. It was like putting a zx1100 motor into a big heavy upright bicycle with no steering radius.

I even had a ninja 250. That little piece of crap cost me $2600 NEW and did 115 MPH!!!!!!! I had a katana 600 did maybe 130-135. The dangeroust of danderous was my KLR650 enduro. Biggest bike I EVER saw. Imagine a 5 gallon tank on a big dirtbike! Thats what it was! It was so HEAVY, but worst, the thing did 105MPH!!! Its a freakin dirtbike! A 125 race bike might do 55 even though ppl say they think theirs does 80, it just FEELS like your doing 80! Try ACTUALLY doing 105-110 on a dirtbike! Hell, I had 250 racebikes and I doubt they did 80, prolly like 70-75. That was for a second though as it wound out. This sucker just kept going being a 4 stroke!

4000x1.25=$5,000 hmm shoot me an email I may be able to do that for you! You get the tile and grab me premixed type 2 white thinset comes in 5 gal I believe, $25 per 100sf they quote a can will last, I push it and say $125-150.
Another thing, interesting is that I can paint this crap through my company products. When I have a job, I get the worst cheapest crap and shot it all the same color to match before I install it (or shoot right over existing tile). But those are corporate benefits :) I finally got this down where I can walk in and virtually "paint" a house together, cabinets, flooring, walls, tile, appliances, even light fixtures in metallics if I get that cheap. Of course, its with highly toxic chemicals but I did this to one house, all tile floor, cabinets, vanities, tubs showers, the whole dang thing it took a week and no normal person could tell anything was paint. I think my rehab cost for the chemicals was under $1000 and it took a week!

Yeah, and those guys like us painting your tubs, their costs range from $20-$50 per tub if they use the old crap (20) or the new molecular bonding agents (50). 2-4 hours and probably charge $300-500. Make sure your getting commerical discounts (we go down to 150 for ex) if your going to be a repeat customer, and make sure they use aliphatic acrylics before signing (when you ask if they squirm, they dont even know their chemicals). These guys have WIGGLE ROOM. A counter costs us about 150-300 small to huge so you should not be paying much more than 30-35 a linear foot IF they are high end coaters and 20-25 if they are low end sandpaper finish sprayers. If they finish a counter in 1 day they are low end, 3 days is high end, cant tell if its corian contractors. Just an fyi.

I used to get mine at lowes, I only did stainless and the guys in the dept called me every time a scratch and dent was put out and id buy it 25% off and store it.

Now, I could buy the cheapest one around in avacado with dents, fix the dents, paint it with my industrial stainless flake paint, and its pretty damn close looking. ut, I am a professional refinisher.

I can refinish ANY cabinets cheaper than they can probably be bought in many cases. I can fix them too beforehand. I dont do formica, but I can paint ANY color with an alphalitic hydrocarbon porcelain solid AND color, fixing chips, swells, you name it, in 1 day. I can do the same and get you new doors which YOU use a program to design and I charge no markup, and get a client discount too.

Or

I can laminate ANY of them with REAL WOOD ANY SPECIES and professionally finish them in any stain or just a clear coat, EXCEPT this option the doors MUST be replaced in the same species of solid wood, which I have made and you get to design them from a choice of about 15 different combos. I pay 40% sometimes less than a lot of cabinet builders for doors. I got 36 cathedral solid oak in my huge kitchen for $900. I dont mark that up either. The insides stay the same or can be painted with the above paint, but they appear INDISTINGUISHABLE from solid wood. I do it for a for a lot less than some FORMICA guys.

One bid the lady showed me sears quoted 7000 for relaminating her kitchen. I quoted her 3500 on the real wood job.

Usualy customers have me redo their top in a specialized series of expensive topcoats that have a stone look, and I put flexwood trim around the edge of the formica top first and fill all cracks then sand, prime, paint, and apply up to 6 coats of the hardest clearcoat I have ever seen. Usualy mistaken for corian. Product i use is marketed to look like granite, but really, corian. Without the flexwood, looks like formica still just very shiny and pretty. $25-35 a LINEAR foot. Not much more than a cheap prefab formica top except theres a 5 year warranty on mine and it looks a hell of a lot better.

So, sometimes buying is not even the cheapest option!

Tile tile tile. I did it in EVERY house. The WHOLE house. When selling, carpet was added as option for the bedrooms if there was a complaint. Its a ten minute cleaning when they move out. Use tans, darker grout as posible, use grout sealer to prevent stains, and use PORCELAIN tile just make sure your patient or keep eyes open for sales on it and store it away when under 2 an sf. I got it as low as .99. Reason: Ceramic is glazed over red clay. Chips show red under them. Ceramic is the same color through all the way. Buy 1 extra box and it will last a lifetime in replacing breakage. If any. Use a slightly smaller grout joint. Use sanded grout. And DO IT YOURSELF ITS EASY, or hell your doing a LARGE are message me and I will do it as low as $1.25 MAYBE per SF and I will travel to do it for you anywhere.