I bought a house?!

After constantly scanning the market for good fixer-uppers in the Seattle area, I finally found the perfect one. A single family 1,400sq/ft home on an 8,000sq/ft lot in a quiet neighborhood for less than 600,00k? Anyone who knows the Seattle real estate market knows that is a crazy opportunity. The house was built in 1940 but had a really nice foundation, so I knew pretty much everything had to go, but at least the foundation was solid; it had good bones, as they say. I have always wanted to build my own house, even back when I was a little kiddo dreaming of being an architect. While I’m not completely building all of it, it will be pretty much a brand new house, and I will be doing most of the work myself with the help of a great general contractor. There was some mold evident, water damage, and rats in the attic, EW so we decided to take everything down to the studs, just start with a clean slate. The house actually already had permitted plans for an interior remodel since the previous owners were investors who bought it and overextended themselves, so it was nice getting to skip that part of the process. I did end up needing a permit revision to move a few things around and make it more of my own since it kind of felt like the investors were just trying to maximize profit. They had the space with 4 bedrooms: 3 downstairs and the one primary suite upstairs, and 3 bathrooms: one tiny powder room off the kitchen, one upstairs, and one in the basement. Check out their plans:

So I decided to just change a few things around to make it feel a little more spacious and practical for my needs. I felt like 3 bedrooms in the basement was just too cramped, like then the entire basement is just bedrooms. Also, removing one of the bedrooms actually helped decrease the price of the renovation a lot since it means one less window well and egress window to cut out and install. Upstairs, I decided that the powder room off the kitchen felt a little forced; also, nobody wants to use the bathroom in the middle of the kitchen. The house is so small we had very little storage, so I wanted to make that space a pantry, so now there is enough space for a truly fully stocked kitchen. Then I just made a few little tweaks to the primary suite. Check out my plans:

After working as a finish carpenter for about a year I had gained quite a bit of knowledge and improved my skills but I still have so much to learn. I am thankful for my contractor, Corey, who is making sure everything goes smoothly and gets built according to code. While I got great building experience as a carpenter, it has been so helpful and educational working with someone who knows everything about the processes, like permitting, and has great suppliers and subcontractors for the work I can’t really do myself. The big-ticket things I refuse to do because I definitely believe in people having specializations are: plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and roofing. These are so important, and I don’t want any liability, so I really admire the homeowners who do everything themselves, but I’m definitely happy to stick to all the carpentry (maybe some tiling) and let them handle those. Plus I know they will be like 10x faster than I would be, and I do want to move into my house at some point. So hopefully we can get in there by 2027, fingers crossed! I’ll update ya along the way :)