Tales From A Fixer Upper From A Guy Who Never Fixed Anything Before
This isn't a revolutionary concept, but everything starts to change as you get older. When you're a young man in your 20s, you can go out searching for a house or apartment and the biggest criteria is "how close of a walk is this from my favorite bar/restaurant in the city?". Then one day you have a kid and you have to start worrying about shit like school districts. I wish I could shake every 25-year-old right now and tell them to cherish every moment.
Eventually you find a house in a great neighborhood for a great price. But the only reason you can get it at that price, however, is because it's a total piece of shit inside. Cracked plaster everywhere, carpet still in from the 70s, place is covered head to toe in wallpaper. Looks great from the outside, and you'll continuously hear the phrase "it has good bones". Good bones is just an easy way of telling you that your house is going to take a shit ton of work before you can actually live in there. It's a total fixer upper.
For some of you, I'm sure that's not a problem. But for someone like myself who has barely ever held a power tool before, the task can seem rather…daunting. So what do you do? Do you end up waiting for a different house that is wildly more expensive but move-in ready, or do you take on the job and just learn all the shit you need to do on the fly?
Here are some things I've found out so far as a dumbass who decided to just learn all this shit on the fly.
(Almost) Everything Costs More Than You Think
This isn't meant to scare anyone away from taking on a fixer upper right off the bat. But it is pretty important to know. There's a good chance that you've literally never thought in your life about how much something like new siding and gutters cost. Nobody walks around knowing how much it costs to get brick repointed. If you're buying a fixer upper thinking that you're going to be saving hundreds of thousands of dollars, that's probably not going to be the case at least in the short term. Once you get everything done, then you'll end up with a ton of equity in the house and you'll still be saving on your mortgage. But just be ready for some sticker shock.
Learning New Things Rocks
All I knew about houses heading into this was how to live in them. I didn't know a damn thing about how they're put together. I also didn't know dick about how to use any sort of power tool besides maybe a drill. My tool belt before consisted of duct tape and super glue.
There's something exciting about learning new things. I think it's because one you learn something, you realize how dumb you were before. And now you're excited about no longer being such a dumbass. So you learn how to hang drywall and tape up the joints. Heck, even just learning that sheetrock and drywall are the same thing makes you feel like less of a failure as a man. Nothing makes you feel more like a man than tearing through some concrete while learning how to use an angle grinder. But then you also learn that you 100% need wear a mask.
Fact of the matter is that if you go into a fixer upper knowing nothing, then you're learning something new every day you're in there working on it. So if you fuck something up down the road, now you'll know how to fix it. You wouldn't know that if you bought a house that was move-in ready.
Everything Takes More Time Than You Think
Maybe your task for the day is to pull up a bunch of gross carpet that has to be at least 40 years old. How long could it possibly take to cut up some carpet, roll it up, and take it out of the house? 45 minutes? Next thing you know, you're on hour 3 of pulling staples out of the floor because you didn't every staple every made could fit onto your floor. Or maybe your job for the day is to bash up some tile in the bathroom. You figure you're young enough and in decent shape, you should be able to hammer through that pretty quickly. Then you find out there's another layer of tile under that tile, and a wet bed under all of that. You're swinging that sledge all day before you even see a stud.
So however long you think something is going to take you, just double it. Or maybe even add an extra day to be safe.
There's Nothing More Satisfying Than Seeing A Room Come Together
Demo is fun because you just get to bash shit up like a wild man. But when the demo is all over, you're looking at what appears to be an active war zone in your house. It just seems like there's no way that it could ever resemble a livable area ever again. But then piece by piece, it starts to come back together again. Once you start to see that you have an actual room back, you get this euphoric rush of relief and satisfaction. Relief that you didn't completely fuck up your house, satisfaction that you used your hands to actually do something worthwhile. Again, it's all about chasing that high of feeling like an actual man.
Some Things Are Well Beyond Your Capabilities
It's one thing to hang some drywall. You can watch enough YouTube videos to at least get a sense of what you are getting yourself into there. But let's just, for example, say you have to totally reframe an exterior wall because of termite damage. It's probably best to just leave that to someone who does it for a living. Some things you can learn on the fly and get away with making some mistakes along the way. Other parts of your house might not be the best to experiment with.
And lastly…
Wear protection. You're trying to save time and money everywhere. Last thing you need is a trip to the emergency room because a shard of ceramic tile got you in the eye.
Basically what this all comes down to is that you can do it. It's not going to be as easy as just hiring a bunch of movers and being able to throw a nice little house warming party in a week. But if you find the perfect spot for the perfect price and have some "good bones" to work with, I'd say just go with it. You'll probably end up appreciating the house more anyway.
By the way--I'm not done with the house yet. So I'll keep writing some of these along the way if you're all interested.