What We Learned…

  • Always put in a contingency for plumbing/electrical on these older homes. Once the walls are opened up, if there is knob and tube, you have to fix it.
  • Once walls or ceiling is opened up the inspector is going to want wired smoke detectors.
  • Get the architect and the city inspectors on board early, they can slow things down very easily.
  • All of the surprises and possible changes occur during the demo phase.
  • Once you open up a wall, you are responsible for all of the electrical in that wall being to code.
  • There will be no exterior painting our beautiful dark gray with white trim once winter sets in here in Michigan.  Buy brick exteriors for now!
  • The property is going to sell much faster if it is staged – let’s test that out.