The Chicken or the Egg

            I don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg. However, I do know that you need to complete the flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms before you install the base cabinets. Yet I can remember a time when this was a personal head scratcher.

Although I was a novice in home renovation, I had a diverse work history before I became the owner of a condemned home, including a lot of experience in construction. I’d always loved to build as a kid—hours in the sandbox, Legos, giant houses of cards—so while I was on deck to renovate my own place, I gravitated toward jobs building things for other people. Along with this experience, I read a lot about construction and real estate in my free time, more because I was interested in the topic than in preparation for any type of notable career fixing up old homes.

With the book knowledge and work, I was not exactly starting from square one. In reality, I was only adding to a minor base of construction know-how. I was well aware that I still had plenty to learn, and when I reached the point where I felt like I was ready and able to take the leap, I jumped in… not too far from the deep end.

Initially, the sequence of doing things on my rehab really stumped me. I had a pretty solid handle on the fundamentals and various scopes of work, but I didn’t quite understand how they fit together.

Adding to this, was my tight budget and schedule, and I was ever mindful of the fact a wrong move could have a consequential ripple effect that I was in no position to endure. I have working class, blue-collar roots. There was no safety net to save me if I messed up. I wasn’t going for a perfect renovation; I just didn’t want to my mess up so severely that I couldn’t finish within my budget and on the twelve-month timetable dictated by the bank backing me.   

It may sound odd, but this confusion with sequencing on a self-managed renovation is common since a home rehab has lots of steps. It can be hard to know where to start and what to do when.

With each of my projects, a pattern began to emerge. I found myself doing certain things in a specific order, and the proper sequence started to become clear. In some ways, renovating my own home was like any job, and things just started to click.

There are some initial steps that need to be done if the house has been condemned or vacant for a while, but after that, my process can be applied to any renovation. I found my approach safe, practical, and enjoyable. And more times than not, it was profitable in the end when I sold, and in the worst cases, I simply broke even.

My pattern of activities and scopes is certainly not the only way, but it works for me, and I never get tired of sharing it when curious people ask, “How do you go about saving a house this bad?” There are too many great homes out there, properties in gnarly shape eagerly awaiting rehabilitation—aka pig’s ears. For me to keep my triumphs and tribulations all to myself feels like bad rehab karma.

When I buy a pig’s ear that’s for sale by the owner, I have forty-one steps that I typically follow. If your project house is not a total wreck, you can skip to Step 9: Creating a Sketch of the Floor Plan. Some of the stages, like Step 20: Rough-In with the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC scopes, are broken down further. But plenty of them are straightforward and more or less self-explanatory. For example, Step 38: Appliances. I hold off on these units until the end of the project and just prior to the final inspection since they take up a lot of space, and I don’t need them slowing us down on the way to the finish line known as the Certificate of Occupancy.

The appliance step is a good example of something that can be done much sooner. There’s nothing stopping someone from buying the refrigerator even before they find a house and bringing it on day one of the project. I’m sure plenty of folks have done this. But who wants to work around a fridge or stove and move those heavy things throughout a rehab? Not me, that’s for sure. If you do it my way, you’ll be good to go.

In conclusion, I love chickens and eggs equally. They’re both delicious.