Ahh, the Sunnyside house. This thing was a complete wreck that needed a heavy rehab. My friend and partner Bud called me on this one and we teamed up. We purchased directly from the owner, at the dining room table, on a hand written one page contract. We used a little bit of cash and a little bit of private financing in a first trust deed position with title insurance and an escrow company like any normal mortgage transaction. My personal favorite thing about this house is that Bud and I are literally the second owners of a home built in 1951 which is amazing.
The home had good bones as it was copper re-piped, texture coated on the exterior, had a new HVAC unit and new 30 year comp roof. The bad is that this home was occupied by the original owners and had 50+ years of neglect in the form of original paint, zero interior maintenance etc. Fortunately the original doors, cabinets, wood closets etc were in remarkably good shape other then decades of grunge. The yards were a disaster and after they sold to us we needed two giant trash dumpsters to get rid of everything left, the trash and yard waste.
As the rehab guy in the partnership I was very excited to work on the home and worked to keep the original character. All the original doors and such were repaired and I went so far as to track down an era piece O’Keefe and Merit black and chrome stove. I had it refurbished and was blown away at how great it turned out and how awesome it looked in the right kitchen. The other cool thing about this project was that I felt we needed a dishwasher somewhere however I was worried about disturbing the period look of the kitchen. What we ended up doing was removing a lower cabinet from the wall. We then framed an opening into the wall, dry walled it, ran our plumbing lines and installed the dishwasher. We then modified the original base cabinet a little bit to accept the dishwasher, retained the original wood and ended up with a custom install. The beauty is that when the cabinet doors are closed the kitchen looks exactly as it would have when the home was built new, however the new owners will have the modern amenity of a dishwasher.
All in all this was probably my favorite rehab so far. About 90% through the project Bud and I found a buyer ourselves and the home is currently in escrow and should be closing in about 35 days from now.
This video was shot prior to completion:
Sunnyside home looks great and cheerful from bhadra patel on Vimeo.
