Our Second home was bought in January 2017. It’s a large two-story Victorian home. This beautiful home was rented out by a bunch of people in five different appartments. The house had been neglected for years, so much of it needed desperate TLC. The house had many historic victorian features that needed restoration including, all original trim work, a grand staircase, and a pocket door.

We were given this old photo by one of the previous owners. A shop was built in front of the house by the owners; at one point, it was a hat shop, and at another time, it was a grocery store.

From beautiful family home- to meth house

The previous tenants had smoked meth in the house. We had to hire a professional cleaner to decontaminate the home. As soon as we got the all-clear from the health department to enter the house, we could begin the historic restoration of the Victorian beauty.

The previous owners had done some DIY work on the home, such as some custom “energy efficient” windows AKA: plywood and double pained plexiglass. There was a lot of other “DIY” work done by the previous owners, and it needed to go ASAP.

restoring the historic victorian Grand Entry Way

We wanted to make the entrance grand. We added the wainscoting to add even more architecture to the house. The white wainscoting allowed me to choose a bold green color for the walls, keeping true to the bold victorian design without being too overpowering. I added framed historic photos of the Victorian home in the hallway to give the space a vintage feeling and pay homage to its beautiful originality before its restoration.

beauty is in the detail

I bought victorian chandeliers and added ceiling medallions to further enhance the victorian design of the home. Victorian design, ueses tons of detail, and on top of that, lots of bright, vivid colors. I commented to G that if this was my home, I would take the time to hand-paint the ceiling medallions; G replied, let’s do it!! It will look so cool! It turned out to be a fun little side project, and they looked amazing!

Living ROom

The design from the entryway continued in the living room to add flow. I borrowed some furniture from an antique shop to try and stage the house a bit.

I needed to develop a way to make the “energy-efficient” windows look better, but there was such a long list of things to be fixed, and we could not afford to buy new windows. For a quick, cheap fix, my mom and I made some Roman curtains to cover the wood in the window. They ended up looking pretty nice!

Pocket doors

The house came with these awesome pocket doors! They are so beautiful and a neat feature of the historic Victorian house, however restoration but such a pain to restore. The previous owner had drywalled over the door on one side. The doors did not work. We had to restore some of the hardware, which is not easy to find when the house is 100 years old! Also, it is a pain to fix something that’s inside a wall! We added some custom wood bookshelves to the room as well!

Dinning Room

This dining room was at one point a kitchen, then it was made into a bedroom. We decided to use it as a formal dining room. We decided to expose the brick on the chimney to add some old charm to the room.

Kitchen

The kitchen was my favorite part of the house! It is so big and grand. One cool feature is the double cabinet doors leading to a backroom used as a laundry room and food storage. The design seemed a little tricky at first, but once we figured it out, it was amazing! We were able to use a granite piece that we had bought used a while back for the island!

Bathroom

when restoring a historic victorian home, the bathrooms usally will need a total overhall

The bathrooms were so nasty… Just think of what happens when the water is off, and people are still living there. Not a pretty sight or smell… So grateful that I was not the one to clean those out! We tried to keep a victorian style while adding some modern details. They turned out nice and clean.

Bedrooms

The bedrooms were so bright, big and open. We had to add closest to each room and add some walls here and there.

Water damage

The biggest project we did on the house was the roof. The roof is at such a steep angle, which makes it extremly dificult to walk on and repair. After tearing it out to start a new roof, rain clouds started rolling in. We threw on some tarps and prayed they would stay. The wind started blowing, and it moved the tarps. We ended up with some pretty bad water damage. Oh yeah, and did I mention that we just installed brand new light-colored carpet? Lucky the carpet was easy to clean.

The water damage on the ceiling was not easy to fix. We put many layers of Kiltz stain blocker paint. It kept bleeding through. After the tenth layer, we finally were able to cover it up! The water even went through the second story to the first! Some water got onto the new engineered hardwood floors! We had to rip them out from the beginning and put new pieces where the others had been damaged! The water damage didn’t really cost us too much money in materials, but it took a lot of time to fix it! Such a headache!

The green monster

Neglegted does not even begin to explan the extirior of the historic victorian Home. So much of the exterior needed restoration!

This house reminded me of a haunted house! The exterior needed some help for sure. I had such a hard time choosing the colors for this house; we wanted it to be bold and unique- I wanted it to be a colorful Victorian home. I choose a green color for the main body, with a creamy accent. Oh my! I turned out SOOO bad!

We decided that we HAD to fix it. It was too ugly. We wanted to save some money, so we tried just switching the cream to the main color and the green as the accent. Thankfully it worked! It looked so much better, and we saved some money on paint. We learned our lesson the hard way, always buy a color sample first! The new roof looks great too! The house also came with a shop in front. We would have loved to do more with the shop, but unfortunately, we couldn’t do anything with it. We had hopes of the buyers doing something fun with it.

Charmaing, Grand, and unique: It was well worth restoring this historic victorian home!

The restoration of this historic victorian home was one of my faviorites! There were some definite hiccups with the house, but the cool details that went into it made it so fun! We had so many people ask us why we didn’t keep the home for ourselves because it turned out so beautiful! Our plan was to sell it from the being, plus I am pretty sure it was haunted ;)! We were able to sell it quickly. Everything went smooth! We learned some things from our first house that we were able to avoid in this closing of the home!

The post From Nightmarish Meth House To An Elegant Victorian Home appeared first on Tzunun Homes.

It all started in 2014 when Gerardo and I were looking for a place to live. We had just moved back from Guatemala, and we were looking for an apartment. The market was slow, and houses were foreclosing all over. We went for a hike in Ogden and saw the cutest little house on 22nd street by the bench of the mountains for sale.

Out of curiosity, we looked up how much the house was listed for. We were shocked to find out it was only 50K! We put in an offer, and it was accepted! After finding out that we just had ten days to close on the house, we could not get it, so we had to back out. We were bummed that we did not get the house. But, with our new information that fixer-uppers are not that expensive, we gave up the idea of living in an apartment and decided to continue our house hunt!

We choose home number two

We found another house for the same price on the same street. It was a lot further from the mountains, and the neighborhood was not as nice. I had a great feeling about the house, so we decided to put in an offer. The sellers accepted our offer, and we thought we were weeks away from becoming homeowners! Unfortunately, due to the house’s condition, it did not qualify for a regular FHA loan. The process was very long and drawn out. It took about four months and some creative work by the bankers and myself.

We had to apply for another loan requiring a contractor to bid on fixing the major issues the bank had with the house. They wanted us to fix the roof and paint the house. A contractor friend gave us a bid of $15,000, and that money was put in an escrow account at closing. Once we replaced the roof and painted the house, the money in the escrow account was refunded. Getting a loan from the bank allowed us to get a home for a great deal, without paying expensive hard money fees.

First Time Home Owners

Since a very young age I always dreamed of flipping a house, the problem was I didn’t know how to start. Dreams were starting to come true for me! Buying this house helped us out financially so much! Our mortgage payment was only 500 dollars a month! There is no way we would have ever been able to find an apartment for that price. Also, it was our own house so we could make improvements to it and increase equity.

Once we got it, there was a list of things the bank needed us to do within three months. The biggest job on the list was fixing the roof. An important thing we learned here is ALWAYS rent a dumpster! There were four layers of shingles, with the first layer being wood shingle. We also needed to paint the exterior. The old paint was pretty bad, it was chipped and peeling all over the house. It also had layers of lead paint underneath. A new coat of paint kept the lead sealed away. It was a big job, but once we finished, we could finally start working on the inside. We wanted to get new carpet and paint inside before we moved in.

Not quite move in ready…

The house was not in tip-top shape… Cockroaches everywhere… Pro tip: Mix borax with sugar and water. It kills the roaches off in no time! Also years of caked-on grease all over the walls and cabinets! The home was full of homeowner special DIY projects. There were a lot of cosmetic and necessary structural improvements needed! One fun thing about this house was it had a 300 sqft mother-in-law apartment in the back of the house. My sister and her husband were looking to save some money, so they decided to move in with us! It was fun to have them so close, and we started the tradition of Wednesday night dinners!

Another strange feature about the house was the floor plan. The bathroom door was in the middle of the kitchen! There were a total of four doors in the kitchen and one window, leaving almost no space for cabinets! With the mother-in-law apartment in the back (illegal non-conforming unit), we needed to combine it to the main area of the home. After many drafts and troubleshooting, we decided to move the hall to the end of the kitchen. Creating this hallway would give access to the bathroom and the mother-in-law apartment. We converted the mother-in-law apartment into the master bedroom.

Take it slow when you start flipping homes

A great way to get started flipping houses is to do slowly or on the side if you don’t have a high-interest loan. We worked on the house little by little. We would save money and then fix things as we went. It took about two years from start to finish. Since G and I had full-time jobs, we could only work on the house in the evening and weekends. With such a low mortgage, we were able to save a lot of money and put it towards our house. G did most of the work himself. We had some help on the roof, but that was it. We estimate that we spent around $20,000 give or take. I don’t know why we didn’t keep track of our expenses (rookie mistake), learn from us, and always keep records of your costs. A really easy way to do this is to use a separate account or credit card just for the house. That way, you know how much you spent even if it takes years to finish.

Kitchen

We decided to install concrete countertops in the kitchen. It was our first (and last) time doing it, but they turned out nice. It gives the house a sleek and modern look. I love the contrast of the grey counters with the white cabinets. We added the turquoise penny round tiles to the backsplash. It adds color and fits the style of the craftsman era.

Bathrooms

Main Bath. The Green tile made the bathroom feel so dark and gross. You can not see in the picture but there was a wall in between the shower and the rest of the room. It made the small bathroom feel even smaller.

Master Bathroom. For this bathroom, we had to close off a window where the mirror is. Also, the trap door to the basement was in here, so we had to work around that as well. G found this really cool rain forest green granite and got it for a great deal.

Living Room

Other improvements included refinishing hardwood floors, adding hardwood floor into the living room, new carpet, resurfacing the walls, opening the wall between the kitchen and living room, and replacing the windows.

Bed Room

If you are just starting flipping houses one suggestion I have is don’t go cheap! One of the bigger mistakes we had made with this house was the decision to go cheap on everything. I didn’t think the house would ever be worth then 100k, so I didn’t want to invest much into it. That is why we did things like concrete countertops instead of granite. One crazy thing I did was buy used carpet… I know… who would have thought there was such a thing! It is a carpet that is used at showrooms and then sold super cheap. The carpet was the lowest quality carpet I have ever seen. We definitely learned our lesson. We ended up replacing the carpet in the master bedroom because it was so warn out.

Exterior

The exterior needed a lot of work too. We repainted, put a parking pad in the back, landscaped, and re-did the porch.

Discovering our Brand

When I started flipping houses, I thought to make it work, I would have to use the cheapest materials I could find. To be honest, it is the way a lot of other flippers in Ogden do things. We didn’t use the lowest quality things. We still had hard word floors and semi-custom cabinets, good quality shingles, and paint. I did not want to spend money on things like appliances or lighting. We even saved money on concrete countertops, “used carpet,” and a new swamp cooler instead of paying the price for central air.

When we placed the home on the market, I realized how competitive things were. I also realized that people looked for nicer items in homes, especially new appliances and custom lighting.

This was a great learning experience for us. We discovered that we wanted to make our homes more custom with high design. We realized that there is a market for high-quality homes in Ogden. I also realized how amazing Ogden is, and how it is a highly desirable city (shh I’m trying to keep it a secrete ).

Take a look at some of the improvements one of the subsequent homeowners made to the home! I love the way it looks! They did such a great job elevating the space!

A great start for flipping houses

It was hard saying goodbye to our first home. We had put so much work into it, and it was where Gabe was born. We wanted to start our business of flipping houses, and that we needed to sell the house.

By the time we were ready to sell the house, the market had significantly changed two years later. More and more people were in the market to buy homes. We were lucky to buy and sell at the right time. We received multiple offers well above the asking price and sold the house for 145,000 in the end. This profit allowed us to start our business.

We had a few hiccups on this sell. The buyer was getting an FHA loan, and the inspector had some weird requests. One of them being to move the main power line. We contacted Rockey Mountain Power, and they were able to straighten things out with the bank (thankfully)! Also, the buyer was having a hard time with his lender. We eventually closed three months after the offer was made. This profit allowed our business to grow.

Main takeaway if you want to get started in the home flipping business.

1. You do not need lots of money to get started. When we bought this home, we did not have a lot of money saved. We were able to get an FHA loan on the house, so we didn’t have to worry about paying high-interest or meeting different deadlines. Having cash on hand will always help, but it is not required.
2. Personally having a background in construction and home repair helped us a lot. I also love interior design and love to work on projects. It is possible to hire out all the work that will need to be done in your house, but I recommend learning a few skills and doing some projects DIY. It is a great way to get involved, save money, and learn a thing or two about home care. Once you have gotten a few flips under your belt, you can move on to hiring out most of the work.

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Starting a business can be scary and risky. Flipping this house provided us with enough cash to start taking bigger chances in our investments. If you are interested in investing in real estate but need help getting your dreams started, don’t hesitate to contact us! If you have a house you need to sell that needs a little TLC, contact us, and we can see what we can do for you!

The post Our First Flip: How We got our Start Flipping Houses appeared first on Tzunun Homes.

Historic Craftsman Home Restoration

From Scary to Stunning

Historic Home Restorations can be tricky, you want to honor the original craftmanship while adding modern amenities as well. We kept as much as the original beauty of the home that we could. Thankfully the staircase was salvageable. A lot of love and sanding brought it back to life. We are so glad it was never painted! The hardwood floors were surprisingly saved as well! The leaded glass windows needed some repair, but G works with glass too. We brought out some original hidden features in the home: the brick. In my opinion, the brick was the star of this home! G added other elements to complement the history of the house while trying to keep a new modern look.

kitchen

From chop up and dark to wide, open, and bright

Ok confession time: I am usually the leading designer for all of our fixer-upper projects. Which generally means I get to pick all things that are pretty! With the COVID 19 Pandemic going on, G did most of the shopping so I could stay home with Gabe. Furthermore, I think G just had this incredible vision in his mind and didn’t want to get my opinions involved! Can I just say He did such a fantastic job!!!

I love the way the rifted oak cabinets look with the oil rub bronze handles. It fits the craftsman style of the house perfectly. We were so glad that G decided to run the subway tile up to the ceiling, It looks so rad with the open shelves and the exposed brick. The lights help give the space a modern/industrial feel.

I can just imagine a huge table here where family and friends can come and gather. The one thing I did choose in the house was all the paint colors. I love the way the dark charcoal color looks with the industrial-craftsman kitchen. It shocked me that the original hardwood floors looked so good after G restored them! I also did not realize that G had to take some of the hardwood flooring out of the master bedroom and surgically insert them into the kitchen and living room. They sure are beautiful and full of character!

Take a look at the transfermation this space went through!

Living Room

Hand. Carved. Fireplace.

Growing up in rural Guatemala has its perks. G learned how to make furniture from scratch at a very young age. His father was a carpenter, as was most of the community. Most of the people that built furniture did everything by hand, they did not use power tools. With all of the hand-carved features, the fireplace truly fit the history of the home.

When G was building this fireplace, he decided to add some hand-carved elements. He said, “my dad used to do this to the furniture he made.” He made the dentil molding by hand as well.

We Love leaded glass!! It is one of our favorite aspects of craftsman style homes! Thankfully G knows how to work with leaded and stained glass (I know, what doesn’t he do?) because there were a few broken pieces of glass that needed repairing.

When doing a historic home restoration, sometimes you get lucky and find gold, or in other words, original brick! We decided to expose more brick in the living room to tie it together with the kitchen, plus it is just so pretty! I wanted to do something different, so we painted the ceiling a charcoal grey. We talked about adding some beams or a coffered ceiling, but we didn’t want to take away from the beauty of the fireplace.

I love how open and connected this little nook is from the rest of the main living area. We had to knock out the wall between the entryway and living room to accomplish this flow. Take a look at what the space used to look like.

Restored Stairs

One of my favorite things, when we restore historicccf homes, is working with original features. The stairs were in pretty great condition and are one of the most prominent and original features of this home.

Nothing needed to be changed here. Justs some love, and a lot of sanding. Adding the cool Edison blubs was a nice touch.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are the grossest part of fixing up a home, in my opinion. This house has 3 bathrooms, but it used to have 7! Say What! You took out bathrooms?! Usually, when trying to improve a home, bathrooms are added not taken away!! We took out all the extra bathrooms to open up the floor plan.

Bed Rooms

My favorite thing about the bedrooms in this house is that each room upstairs has its own little nook. They are perfect for a reading space, walk-in closet, or small office. We kept things simple and clean and painted everything white. We painted the doors a dark grey to give contrast and dimension to the rooms.

Extra spaces

The Laundry room ended up being the most knock out room with the plaster and exposed brick combo. I told G that I didn’t like it at first, he should just make it clean and remove all the plaster. He knew what he was doing, and after everything was put together, I finally saw how amazing it was! (you heard me G, I said you were right ) upstairs there was another fun living area complete with hardwood floors and a little nook!

She’s a Fixer-upper: Exterior

Few! That was a lot of work! We’re not done yet!

There was a lot to do out side as well.

• New siding
• Replace or fix damaged wood
• New porch railing and floor
• Paint
• Acid wash brick
• Power wash brick
• Sand brick
• New garage door
• New driveway
• Trim trees
• Install sprinklers
• Plant grass, flowers, and bushes

If you haven’t already read the amazing story behind this home, click here.

Old Home renavation: Not a lost cause

We were so thrilled to see how amazing this house turned out! Sometimes it can be hard to see the potential behind something that seems like it is lost. Sometimes we think it may be better to just tear something down and call it a lost cause.

When you take a look at these pictures and see the before and after, I hope you can internalize this metaphor to yourself. At times we may feel that we are worthless and that there is nothing that can save us. Remember, there is a wise master carpenter of our souls (Jesus Christ) who can see your potential. Some may want to tear you down and say that you are not good enough, but Christ knows what you are meant to be. Know that you have worth and that your soul is great, child of God! Just like with this house, it took a community to save it. Reach out to others around you if you are feeling hopeless, you will find that there are people there waiting to fight for you and save you too!

It will take work, It won’t be easy, but in the end, it will be worth it! See yourself the way others who genuinely love you, love yourself and love those around you!

We really had a great time working on this historic craftsman home restoration! I hope you enjoyed looking at it, and that you feel inspired to tackle a project that you lost hope on! If you need help, always feel free to give us a call or send an email, I would be happy to provide you with advice or to come out to see how we can help!

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The post Downtown Ogden Historic Home Restoration: Before and After appeared first on Tzunun Homes.

Can you believe that our 3-year-old son, Gabe nicknamed this beautiful house, “the scary house”? Well, let me tell you, this house was definitely scary! When flipping homes in Ogden, Utah you can expect a bad apple or two, but this house was something else… When we went in to check it out, I didn’t even want to go inside!! I knew it would take a lot of work to restore this historic home, but after talking a five-minute tour I could see some great potential!

The starting of this story involves the community getting together to save a historic home. Our good friend and local real estate agent, Jeremy Peterson, posted this online:

After seeing this post, a few people in the community voiced their opinion to Ogden, to save this historic home! Ogden originally bought this house intending to fix it up and sell it at a fair price. After having contractors come in and give them bids for the project, they decided that it would cost too much to restore the historic home and that it would be cheaper to tear it down and build a new home.

After receiving feedback from the community, Ogden city decided that they would not tear the house down! But they didn’t want to be in charge of the renovations either. They agreed that they would sell it to someone else and let them deal with it.

Jeremy Peterson advocated for the house to be restored by someone who had experience with restoration and woodwork. He brought our name to Ogden city and showed them some of our past projects. After talking with Jeremy, Ogden city decided to offer the home to us; they had seen the fantastic woodworking skills G has done. I guess hard work pays off.

A Flipping gold mine

They sold it to us at a very affordable price. They wanted to ensure that we would have a budget to redo just about everything. All new electrical, plumbing, HVAC, insulation, sprinklers, all wood to be restored, and a new driveway were on the list of things they wanted to fix. Also, they wanted to see a high-end kitchen and bathrooms.

It had been a while since we had the chance to flip a home in Ogden, so we were pretty excited! We were so grateful for the opportunity to fix this home up. Our graditude for Jeremey and all the work he has done for Ogden and this neighborhood can not be measured. We are thrilled that he fought for us to do this project and that Ogden city chose us to fix it up! The low sales price allowed us to go all out on this house; we did not need to hold back anywhere! We were able to make the home beautiful and functional!

Flipping a downtown ogden home

| The project

The list of things to fix on this house seemed endless. The house was being used as a six-plex, so there were many added walls, kitchens, and bathrooms that were not original to the home.

One of the biggest things we had to tackle was demo/ junk removal.

There was not that much junk to deal with, but we demoed just about everything, including cabinets, toilets, and even walls and doors. Like other homes we have flipped in Ogden, there were some issues with the property. One big problem with this house was that it was abandoned, Which meant that nature started to reclaim it. Animals were living in the house and yard. Transient people were also living in the yard, garage, and basement. G spent a significant amount of time cleaning the property and tackling issues with smell.

After demoing out all the extra walls the space opened up and made planning much easier. I had not entered the home again until this point. The house was so nasty; I just preferred to not go in it. G took out a lot of added walls and restored the home closer to its original floor plan.

After demo the real work could begin

From Scary to Stunning

A little home Renivation can go a long way…

We kept as much as the original beauty of the home that we could. Thankfully the staircase was salvageable. A lot of love and sanding brought it back to life. The hardwood floors were surprisingly saved as well! The leaded glass windows needed some repair, but G works with stained glass too. We brought out some original hidden features in the home: the brick. In my opinion, the exposed brick walls were the star of this home! G added other elements to complement the home’s history while trying to keep a new modern look.

Take a look at how the house turned out. If you would like to see before and after pictures click here.

Kitchen

Living room

Stairs

Bathrooms

 

 

Bed Rooms

Basement

Exterior

Everybody wants one

We were a little bit nervous about listing this house. With everything going on with the COVID 19, things felt uncertain. We thought the house would maybe sell for $280,000- $300,000. After looking at similar homes that sold recently, we realized that the market was still pretty healthy! We listed the house for $320,000, thinking maybe it would take some time to sell, but we would be patient.

After being on the market for four days, we had over 40 people come in to look at it and 10 offers!! We also received multiple letters from the buyers letting us know how much they wanted our house! Never have we received such positive feedback before! It felt terrible that we had to let so many people down, but we were happy to see that everyone liked it.

We ended up choosing a family that gave a great offer, and we felt like they would be an excellent fit for the house and the community.

Heres to flipping anotherrestored historic Ogden home!

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If you are interested in investing in real estate, contact us! If you have a house you need to sell that needs a little TLC, contact us, and we can see what we can do for you!

The post Flipping homes with Tzunun Homes: Downtown Ogden Restoration appeared first on Tzunun Homes.