It’s been a little over a week since purchasing our 6th investment property, Dudley Court, and so far we’ve accomplished a ton! Taking a look at the last week, I’ve felt proud at the amount I’ve been able to dig into and take care of, especially considering I have a full-time job. But in all honesty, it’s a nice change of pace to be able to get up after 8+ hours on the computer to head to a physically demanding second shift. Nothing cures desk jokey syndrome like demolition!

In past Happy Homes investment projects I’ve not documented much in the way of timelines or blogs, so I thought I’d try to chronicle this property so I can look back in future years to see how things flowed. No two investment properties are alike though, so being able to learn something new from each allows for a more informed project on the next. Unless of course there are major issues, in which case you know what to avoid!

So, here’s a list of the things we’ve done to Dudley Court – and things we’ve discovered along the way!

Week 1

1. All closets are empty. This may seem obvious, we bought a house that someone moved out of. Oh no. These closets were full on hangers, clothes, old computer stuff, toys, you name it, we found it in the closet. First few hours of owning the property were spent emptying the things they left behind.

2. All upstairs carpet & tack strips are removed. Mike was at a bachelor party last weekend (yup, first weekend we owned it, he bounced!) so I spent about 5 hours between Saturday & Sunday (June 8 & 9) to rip out the disgusting carpet. Yes, I carried it out myself!

3. Paint, chemicals & gas cans are gathered for disposal. The sheer amount of items we found that we’re not able to dispose of in a dumpster is baffling. The previous family lived in the house for 39 years and must have painted their home 27 times. From the crawl space, to the garage, shed & worship, boxes upon boxes of paint need to be discarded.

4. All furniture has been removed & put in the dumpster. An entertainment center, old mattress, end tables, plastic dressers, all outta there.

5. Kitchen has been completely demoed. Mike removed all upper & lower cabinets, along with dishwasher, microwave & appliances. I helped clean up the mess and removed backsplash. We’ll keep the fridge and stove (both newer, in great shape) so right now they’re sitting in the living room! We hire a demo crew to demo tile & bathrooms, so the kitchen floor was removed Friday, June 14.

6. Two windows are framed out. This is huge due to the fact that the house is brick, the windows were original and the flanges were hidden. Mike had to frame these bad boys just so in order to get the new windows to fit securely.

7. Had the sewer line scoped. Unfortunately, we’ll need to replace a portion of the pipes, but this is a job Mike will be able to tackle himself, just by renting a machine and rolling up his sleeves.

All in all, we did a lot ourselves up to this point and I feel really good about the work, especially due to the fact that the previous owners left so much junk we had to clear out!

Next steps are completely clearing out the shed, attic & garage (we have a Veteran donation place coming next week), setting up a meeting with the structural engineer (this will be pricey I’m afraid!) to ask about removing the additional walls in the kitchen, to open up the layout, finishing demo (our crew is working this weekend!) and ordering new windows. Lots still to do, but on such a good path!

Happy Weekend – and cheers to all the weekend warriors!