Monday, November 8, 2010

So our story begins a quarter of the way through...

R3 Renovations started back 6 months ago.  Well, the idea for R3 started a year plus earlier than that, but that is a story for another time.  We looked at a couple of houses, even put an offer in on one before we found the one we purchased.

Our first property is 508 S. Potomac.  We purchased her in July and did something they always tell you not to do.  We sat on it.  In all fairness, we did that because it took a long time to get to a point of signing contracts.  Our feeling was that it was better to pay a few months of carrying costs (the cost of holding a house which includes taxes, utilities and mortgage payments) rather than over pay for construction and run head first into something that we didn't have all of the information that we needed to make good sound business decisions.

I knew there would be a big learning curve and we did as much research as we could before hand, but honestly, there comes a moment when it's time for experiences to start teaching.

Our time line was to have the house on the market approximately the end of October.  Well, we didn't start demolition until the beginning of November.  It's okay though.  The amount that Shawn and I have learned has made it worthwhile.  The good news is that in 3 months, we'll have completely renovated a 100 year old rowhouse.  Considering I wanted to start easy and do a house that needed a new kitchen and some bathroom work, this is a major deviation.

But of course there are reasons.  First off, we live in Baltimore, in one of the neighborhoods that are 99% Rowhomes.  Because we didn't want to go too far on our first renovation, a lot of neighborhoods and towns were out of the question.  Having made the decision to stay local, that left us with only 100 year old rowhomes.  Some of those places had been renovated at one time or another but the place to make real money is in buying a shell and doing a ton of work.  In for a penny in for a pound.

That leads us to November 4th, 2010.  This is the first day of demolition.  The first day of true work. The Beginning.  Below are pictures of the house beforehand.















And below this is the Demo day from November 4th:





The Adventure has just begun...

6 comments:

  1. Oh wow - this is awesome! Can't wait to see the various stages. I know it's going to be amazing when it's finished :)

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  2. Are you not going to keep the panelling?? Bold choice.

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  3. @Tracy. Alas the paneling only goes eight feet high! Curses!!!

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  4. Oh wow! That's a lot of demo!

    This house will come out beautifully, I bet. I'm looking forward to watching it transform!

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  5. So excited for you two! Good luck!

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  6. Nifty stuff. I'll be adding this one to my reader. :)

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