Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Rental House Face Lift

Ahhh, the rental house. So many little things that I didn't think of. The list of repairs and maintenance is long. Besides painting and flooring, the rest are minor (I think) and I can do most myself.

replace missing door handle
replace missing glass on light fixture
replace light bulbs
replace batteries in smoke detectors
replace 3 wood slats in gate
replace A/C filter
call A/C maintenance guy for routine maintenance
replace a few mini blinds
prune shrubs and trees
scrub driveway stains
buy rekeyable deadbolts
replace door in master bedroom
repair hole in wall from door knob
buy can of Kilz paint for garage
replace kitchen faucet

There are other little things but that's all I can think of now. Some of these are from the current tenant and will be deducted from the deposit, others were quick fixes gone wrong (like the hole from the doorknob) from the previous tenant. The Kilz paint is to cover the flames that I painted on the garage wall and never painted over.

The painter starts Monday and then I can coordinate with Home Depot since I decided to re-carpet the bedrooms. They say they only need 3 days notice. Then the wood laminate for the living room/hall and vinyl for the kitchen/dining and master bath. At least the second bathroom still looks good.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

So are you sold on the vinyl for the wet areas?? ;) It is super easy to install, my hubby and I installed ours by ourselves, so I will give you these tips....
1. Make sure you vacuum really, really well before and during install. Little pieces of junk, or scraps from cutting the vinyl will be noticable as little bumps in the floor. You cant really see them, but you will sometimes feel them as your walking around. We had 3 boys running thru the house during our install, so this was no easy task.
2. Make sure you rent the roller thing from home depot ($40)when you are done. It presses out all the air bubbles in the glued edges, and insures that it sticks to each other really well.

Lizzie @ her homeworld said...

So much to do and so much expense. You do make money from this house at some point though? I was quite fancying a rental house so its probably just as well you opened my eyes.

Daizy said...

Kim, it sounds great. I totally want in my mobile home now too. I was just talking to a coworker and she is re-doing her kitchen and mentioned it too. Too bad she lives in another state because I want to go over and see it.

Daizy said...

Lizzie, well, last year I seems that I collected 6 months of rent for the mortgage and 6 months for upgrades. As long as I don't have to upgrade every year, I should make a profit this year...if it is rented.

Unknown said...

Daizy, if you ever happen to be in the buckeye area, you are more than welcome to come by and see ours!! It is a perfect solution for mobiles, ours is a double wide that we fixed up 2 yrs ago. Well I should say we 'started' anyways ;)