REMODEL STORY- with Arlene & Aiden

Our clients Arlene and Aidan were looking for a single-family house to be able to host family in. Arlene is from Puerto Rico and Aidan is from england. The market was so competitive for single-family homes that they began to think about a fixer. Check out this wonderful remodel they managed on their own. In 4 months they transformed this 4BD/2BA home in the Highland Park area of West Seattle. Check out before and after pics and Sarah’s interview with them:

SARAH: What was the most daunting part of wrapping your heads around the idea of buying a remodel?

ARLENE: To me, the biggest thing was the magnitude of it. And then also learning that things need to happen in a very specific order. As people who've never owned a house, you know, we had to learn all the terminology and vocabulary around it. I think even if you're an English speaker, like who the hell knows what soffits and facia are? The contractors speak to you like you know what you are doing and we didn’t. And then, the fear of doing this in a completely foreign place to us-are people are going to scam us and run away with our money? That kind of thing.

BEFORE:

AIDAN: To me, it was the hidden things that I was mostly worried about. And I think just looking at the other houses and just saying, ‘Okay, we would pay way more fora smaller house that was maybe redone, but there could also be a lot of things wrong with it that we're not aware of, or we could pay less for a bigger house that pretty much know 90% of what is wrong with the house.’And also, you gave us good info, like this is about how much we would have to spend so we knew that we could do it with our budget.

SARAH: I’m so glad you did. What did you think going in was going to be the biggest challenge and then what ended up being the biggest challenge?

AIDAN: I knew the siding was going to be the biggest challenge. Like just looking at it, I was like, ‘wow...”But it was kind of nice because of that nobody else wanted the property. In hindsight, what was probably the biggest one was needing to be present for the electrical rewire. There were so many code issues and I found we needed to be there to make decisions like, ‘where do you want this electrical socket?’So that was an unknown time commitment. And the siding in the end was actually easier than I thought it was going to be.

ARLENE: I think that for me,I thought the most challenging thing was going to be timing because there's always this talk about things taking longer than expected. And we did leave room in the calendar between jobs, accounting for that. And funnily enough, the only thing that took longer than expected was the siding, which was the very last job. And it didn't really affect us because we could move in. I would say that what ended up being the most challenging was definitely the communication with the siding company. Lots of unexpected deliveries, like we would be in our rental in Lake City and then get a phone call like, ‘You have a window package in your garden.’Large trucks showing up out of the blue that we weren’t able toprep for. Not showing up on time, that kind of stuff.

SARAH: Yes, that is so frustrating. We know how hard bad communication can make the process.Do you think you live in the house differently because you did the work on it?

AFTER:

ARLENE: I think I'm just so proud of it! I think just buying a house is a big source of pride in general and then sitting around and thinking, ‘We chose all of this. We chose that light fixture, we chose this door.’ I do think I also have a big appreciation and respect for people who just want move-in ready homes! (laugh) That must be nice, just buy your house and bring in your stuff and not have to do anything. But I definitely feel a really big sense of pride about our home because we made it from scratch.

AIDAN: Yeah. I'd echo the same, I definitely feel pride. But also, just walking around, I know the choices that we made and I don't feel there are any surprises. Like, I pretty much these things are gonna last for, 20 to 30 years under guarantee. So now it's just the additional things, like I can work in the garden whenever I want to do that. But it's not like, I'm feel like the house is going to fall down. I felt like I know what it is. And we know the house isn't going to fall down because we've got the foundation checked! (laughing)

SARAH: Yes you did- YAY! Now with the neighbors, the community- what have they been saying about the house as you have been working on it. I'm sure they've been paying attention.

ARLENE: They are so happy we’re here!

AIDAN: Yeah, we’ve had people come by and say, we just love what you did with the house. We've got neighbors who are just so happy because when they see a house in disrepair, they worry that it’s going to be sold for cash and someone's going to build these high rises. And so to get people who are going to come in and update it in its original style- they’ve been probably more ecstatic than we've been. It’s a great community and they see what we’ve been doing and they’re also investing in their property.

SARAH: Yes, ‘That siding looks nice, we’re going to paint our house too!’ So, what are your future plans for the house for updates and things?

AIDAN: Next year. We will probably get solar panels, we’re going to be here long enough so it makes sense to do that. We're going to get the deck redone too. And then in subsequent years we want to get the fence redone. And probably the landscaping. That’s pretty much it.

ARLENE: No! (laughing) After all those things we're going to redo this kitchen. I already have a plan for it. And then we're going to redo both bathrooms.

SARAH: Well, I’m blown away and inspired by both of you. I knew when I saw your excel spread sheets for touring houses, you would be a good candidate to manage a remodel!