Relentless Forward Progress

The worse it looks, the better. When it comes to an investment property, I don’t shy from this philosophy. There may be problems too large to overcome with elbow grease, but as a starting point, the uglier it is now, the more upside there is when you’re done with it. 

But where to start? First of all, you’re doing the kitchen. No questions asked. It’s getting gutted. I mean, it’s possible your fixer upper purchase is the first of its kind with an inviting and spacious kitchen that will wow buyers, and if that’s the case, put the pen down and don’t sign the contract.

It’s not always cut and dry. Our most recent kitchen was legitimately decent. Everything was updated in the seventies (I know what you’re thinking) and the cabinets were real wood and could have been refinished or painted. My realtor friend talked me down from that approach. Instead, we sold them for $800. 

The issue with bathrooms is naturally how they look,  but more fundamentally important  is the question of quantity. Our home is 3.5 baths total. Since we’ve lived here I’ve done no renovation to any of them save some emergency repairs; that’s possible because there are so many of them. The simple fact that they exist is enough to make me sleep easier, knowing that the value of this house is going nowhere but up. Also, it’s weird that in three years I’ve never showered in the downstairs bathroom, the realm of our eighteen year old son. And frankly, I’m not sad about that.

The number of bathrooms is a serious limiting reagent in a house’s value. We learned this the hard way in our first flip and there was a point after we had the house on the market where we considered taking it back off the market and trying to add another bathroom. That’d probably have been a boondoggle in that stage of the renovation and we didn’t do it, but we had to drop our asking price, a lot. People want options for where they attend to their bodily functions and, well, I get it. If the whole world had more private bathrooms then the world would have a whole lot more happy and less disgusted spouses and parents.

For me, it all started with a bathroom. Our upstairs bathroom in our first home where all the boys lived had dingy linoleum flooring and damaged plaster from where the shower curtain never quite got pulled tight to contain the shower spray. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they were bathing so darn much but come on, boys! Have you ever repaired plaster? I didn’t think so! Pull that curtain tight! 

After having owned the house for ten years, its value had appreciated considerably and having no other real options in the liquid income department, we took on a home equity line of credit (HELOC) for $15,000. “No way we’ll ever use all that,” my young self said. Yeah, right. 

I’ll tell you what. I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t know if anyone does at first, but I really, really didn’t know what I was doing. I am smart enough to know when to ask for help and do some research, though, and that bathroom was and is beautiful when I finished it a few weeks later. We used some entirely impractical blue mosaic tile on the floor which turned out stunning. I figured out how to repair plaster and added wainscoting to provide some more little boy shower insurance. We added lighting and an exhaust fan and paint and suddenly I had done it: my first bathroom renovation. I couldn’t believe my eyes. 

That first two project showed me that I could do the work AND that we didn’t need thousands in cash on hand in order to commit to a project. Leveraging our home’s equity allowed us to increase our property value,  which was clearly a good move, and have a great bathroom. A win-win. 

Fear prevented me from doing a whole lot of things for half of my life. Inertia is an immense force, but it works both ways: if you can get started on something, especially a project with a lot of zeroes attached to it, quitting quickly becomes a non option. Especially for a risk averse person like me that hates debt. It becomes financially infeasible to give up on it. So you just keep going. 

I also bought into the philosophy that any progress is good progress. If I had massive ambitions for a given work day and I only got a fraction of it done, that’s still more than I had done before I started the day. When I get into a big project I tend to not take days off, for better or for worse, but that doesn’t mean I’m pulling all nighters and moonlighting with a sander in hand. It just means that every day I’m making some measurable progress. if I’m too tired to swing a hammer, maybe I’ll venture out to the landfill with a load. Or just clean. Or make important phone calls. Or source materials for later. 

It’s all progress. Some days it’s more visible than others, but relentless forward progress gets a job done. Good luck, and don’t be scared.