All Forum Posts by: Raven Parmer

We use Highland Roofing

We installed Ikea cabinets in our carriage house, which will be a rental when we move out of it.  I love them. The toe kick is cheap, but I find everything else to be sturdy and well-made. Much nicer than the cheapo preassembled Home Depot type cabinets. We even got the least expensive flat panel doors (like $4 a door), and between my husband, myself, our dog and two daughters, they are holding up great. I plan to use them in our main house as well, but upgrading  to Semi Handmade doors. You can get a really high end look with those doors. Probably not appropriate for flips and rentals though because they add up fast. We had custom cabinets made in our last home and I like the quality of the Ikea cabinets better. 

White subway tile is overused, but I believe it is a timeless (and inexpensive!) finish. I think the mosaics look dated really quickly. 

Agree with others that it depends on what you find underneath. I would rent a floor sander from home depot and try to get down to original wood. If it's in decent shape I'd poly it an move on. If it looks terrible, or if you just really want to paint, I'd go to SW or PPG and ask for their best paint to use on the floor. I painted and stenciled the bathroom floor in my carriage house because there was no salvaging the hardwoods. I can't remember the product, but it was from PPG. I painted them Black Fox, which is very dark. Yes, you can see dusty footprints, but my stencil is a white floral, which helps hide everything.  Here is a blog where they painted stripes on the floor, and it is cute: https://addisonswonderland.com/how-to-paint-hardwood-floors/ . And when I did my bathroom floor I used this as a guide:  .https://www.younghouselove.com/operation-stencil-the-subfloor/ . You could also look into whitewashing maybe?

We have completed a gut demo of our house and are ready to rebuild. I am looking for a framer/carpenter to frame new interior walls and a new 2 story stair. Does anyone have any recommendations? I have tried thumbtack and next door with no luck. Thanks!

We are doing a live-in-flip total gut, but we have a carriage house where we're camping out until the main house is livable again. Definitely do roof first so no further damage is done. Are you bringing it down to studs or keeping existing drywall/plaster? If you are going down to studs, all your M/E/P will be less expensive because they have full access. But then you have to drywall the whole place. If you have drywall skills, then that's great. But, I'd do all that stuff first, then work on cosmetics. To get it livable, all you need is working and safe MEP, a roof, and some drywall on the walls. If you can finish drywall, you could literally just hang it, and move in. Finish it room by room. Not a fun way to live, but that gets you in the house fastest. Without knowing the complete list of what you need to do, that's the best advice I can give.

This is a combination of several ideas above...It's also in the vein of not spending too much money since it's a rental. If you have the budget, moving restroom etc... around would be nice, but I am assuming you want to keep as much existing as possible. I'd make the kitchen/LR opening tighter if possible, move the opening between dining and kitchen down, make an island. Keep sink in same place, add dishwasher next to it. I like the idea of using the nook as a pantry b/c it's so remote and redundant that I don't see a need for it. Or set it up like a little art room or office nook. I don't like the idea of closing off the LR/kitchen doorway altogether because it makes traveling from kitchen to front door a long path. I dont know about you, but in my world, I dont use the dining room much, but I am constantly in and out of the kitchen. I think it would be annoying to have to go all the way around.

Bright Ayalingo 1. How was the transition to the new house. Did you have a house under contract during the same time the house was up for sale?. Am trying to gather ideas on how others have transitioned from house to house.  Since it had turned into a seller’s market, and fixer-uppers in good neighborhoods were flying off the shelf, we started looking for our next house about 3 months before we were ready to list our current home (going off the assumption that it would sell quickly). We didn’t expect to find anything so soon, and had a back up plan to stay with my in laws if we became homeless. We found a great opportunity fairly quickly. It was FSBO, and they had listed it on Zillow. It had been for sale for a long time for that market. Not sure if FSBO was scaring people off, or what. So instead of being homeless, we would have the opposite problem of owning 2 homes. Luckily, there were complications in buying it because it was an estate and a rental and there was some unpaid rent and zoning issues. It all got worked out and we closed on the new home just a week or two before we closed on our old home! 2. Did you sell this house yourself. I know you mentioned you had an open house scheduled. Are you licensed?. Am not licensed and considering  trying to to "For Sale By Owner" route. I am not licensed. We considered FSBO bc I am greedy and didn’t want to pay a realtor. But we decided that since it’s our first home, and we didn’t have a 100% clear idea of best price, we decided to hire the realtor who was helping us buy the new house. Other than have the photos taken, list the property online, and show up to the closing, she literally had to do nothing to sell the house. It sold in a couple days, before having an open house. We kicked ourselves for not trying FSBO, but in the end, might not have been able to get as many eyes on it as she was able bc of the mls. I’ve heard of low-service realtors who will put your house on mls for a flat fee, and do nothing else. In hindsight, that may have been the way to go. But if I wasn’t confident that the house would basically sell itself, I’d go the traditional route and hire a realtor.

@Kevin Wang thanks for the response. It seems so complicated now but I am sure that as I start navigating it, things will fall into place. but it sounds like there are different structures and different options. 

@Eric Stafford good to hear i'm not the only one trying to schedule around the kids. haha. so, you passed the test, and maintained your license with continuing education? but without the broker, you can't take on clients - yourself or otherwise? and can you access the mls without the broker? 

As may others have, I am thinking about getting my realtor license. I know you have to find a brokerage, but I don't really plan on doing anything with my license for a couple of years. The only reason I am considering it now is that i will be off work for maternity leave in a couple of months, and that would be a good time for me to do the courses. So, what's in it for a brokerage for you to hang your license there? Do they charge a fee if you don't actually represent clients and bring them in commissions? What other expenses would be associated with having my license? Is there an annual fee to keep my license active? Is there continuing education or anything like that to maintain my license? Or, alternatively, could I go ahead and take the test, and not join a brokerage for a couple of years until I'm ready? Or is there a time limit - could the license lapse?

I'm sure someone is going to ask why I wont be using it for a couple of years, so I'll go ahead and address that as well. My husband and I bought a 117 year old duplex with a separate carriage house, and we are renovating it, mostly ourselves. And we work full time jobs, and we have 2 kids with one on the way....