Decisions Decisons – Stylistic Choices When Doing A Flip

When you are fixing and flipping a home on TV it seems easy, but unfortunately it never is. You never get to witness the the internal turmoil that the the TV stars face as to what decisions you need to make when it comes to repairs. As we start to get into the nitty gritty for our Rocky Point “House on the Hill” flip a few issues have arisen:

Kitchen Cabinets: The original plan was to keep the kitchen cabinets as they were and simply replace the counters, appliances and put in a nice backsplash. Well the designer (aka my wife) nixed that idea immediately as she hates the look of oak cabinets. I can’t say that I disagree with the thought, but the reality is that the cabinets were in very good shape. One of the drawbacks of this house is that you enter the house directly into the kitchen. In order to make this a positive, the kitchen really needs to be a showpiece. So we decided to paint the cabinets a light grey using a high quality chalk paint. This coupled with a white Quartz countertop and a white subway tile backsplash using a grey grout should really make it pop. White shaker cabinets are still the most popular choice, but I think grey shaker cabinets will be the next popular trend.

Bathroom(s): Another drawback to this house was the bathroom situation. The house currently has only 1 bathroom (and a small one at that) so we originally decided to take the 4th bedroom in the house which was more of an office and convert that into a laundry room/half bathroom combo. By moving the washer and dryer from their current positions which was right next to the full bathroom, we would then expand the space of this bathroom to allow for a larger tub, a larger vanity and of course more space throughout the room itself. Once again the designer was not happy with this. I hate to admit when she’s right, but she’s right in this situation. She questioned the practicality of taking a big room and making it a laundry room/half bathroom whereas the better option would be to convert the existing full bathroom into a half bath since it was so small and leaving the washer dryer in its current position since we don’t need the extra space now anyway. Now you are left with a large room to put a sprawling full bathroom with a tub, stand up shower and a double vanity. While the main bathroom is a little further from the bedrooms, you still have the half bath near the bedrooms in the event you have to make a trip to the toilet in the middle of the night. Regardless, it’s not that much further as this is a pretty small house. Given the choice of a smaller full bathroom near the bedrooms, or a half bath near the bedrooms with a jaw dropping full bathroom just a few extra feet away, I choose the latter.

Paint colors: This is always a pain because it seems so easy, but paint is never how it appears in a magazine or on a chip chart. I never like to do the same paint color again and again. Yes I will always pick neutral colors but a lot of time the paint is dictated by the kitchen cabinets you use. Now why is that? Let me explain. In areas where the living room, kitchen and dining room are on one floor, depending on the color of your cabinets, you will then must pick a floor color to complement that color. As a result you want a paint color that goes well with that floor color. Notice the connection? Cabinets —Floors –Paint. For this flip we are doing Benjamin Moore Navajo White in the bedrooms and living room. This paint color goes well with close to everything, but we are picking Classic grey for the paint in the kitchen to complement the grey cabinets. Depending on the fixtures we pick for the bathroom, we could have a whole new color to go with. Stay tuned!!

Why Go Through The Headache?

Listen it’s a hot market no question about that, but who knows how long that will last for and if you do the same type of flip that everyone is doing, you won’t stand out from the competition. To simply clean up the house and make it look slightly better than average is not a good approach in any market. Investors run the risk in times like this of getting lazy, and not putting enough thought into their finishes. That’s not the approach we take. You always want to look back with no excuses, and to make sure you did everything in your power to make the home as attractive as possible. I can’t wait to show you some before and after photos so you’ll really notice the difference. We want people walking away from this house and saying although the house has a few extra steps to get to the front door, that kitchen and bathroom is just not something we will find anywhere else. Not every house can have every feature that you would want in a home so that’s where the challenge is with this particular property. Yes I bang my head against the wall wondering if I’m doing the right things, yes I get into disputes with my wife and yes she yells at me quite a bit, but it’s all part of the process and if you don’t love the process then this is the wrong business for you.