This is the fourth post in a four-part blog series about fixing and flipping a home. Click here to read Part 3. I left off with the landscaping work we did. Now, comes the kitchen!
Kitchen “Facelift”
Our kitchen was in decent shape when we bought our house, but it was just plain ugly. It still had the original tile counters, backsplash, and floors from the 60’s! The cabinets had been made very well, and they were in good shape, but they were very dated, to say the least. Our kitchen was adjacent to our dining room in a very open layout, which we knew would make it the focal point of the home when it came time to sell. We needed to give it some new life, but we knew kitchen remodeling jobs could get very expensive! However, once again we learned that we could completely change the look of a room without spending a ton of money. The key was to focus on a few specific changes.
First, we paid to have new granite countertops installed. We shopped around a bit and found a store with a sale on a gorgeous type of prefabricated granite that they agreed to sell and install for just over $1,800. Next, we painted the cabinets and added new pulls, again, a very inexpensive job. We also got a beautiful new cast iron sink at Lowes, and its installation was included in the price of the granite job. Finally, we bought some pretty, but very cheap “subway tile” backsplash pieces and installed them ourselves above the granite countertops. The effect was visually astonishing. Combined with the other painting we did and the hardwood floors, it literally looked like a completely remodeled kitchen!
As you can see, avid investors don’t have to be the only ones that buy, fix, and flip! If you find the right cosmetic fixer-upper and put some hard work into it in your part time, the home that you live in can become even more of a great investment than you thought! As I’ve talked about in other blog posts, this can be a great method of accelerating the process of building your net worth, not to mention getting to the point where you can finally buy your dream home!
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