Year: 2022

We are all but finished in the remodel of the first house and are moving forward to try to figure out what to do with the second one. The lot for the house is not that big, but the size of the house is not small, taking up the entire footprint of the property. We have started talking with an architect because we want to make sure to have a design the current house structure can support. In those discussions we have vacillated between two different styles. We are leaning toward a traditional/contemporary design whose outward appearance would be somewhat like the house on the bottom right in the images above. Lynn suggested we have the architect render the house also as a full blown contemporary style house of the type shown in the bottom left image. None of the interior of the house will be affected much but we want the outside to fit into the neighborhood and still have the kind of design that works for the way we want to use the place.

As for the first house, we are not sure what to do with it yet–we were thinking of keeping it and renting it out but we were approached by someone who wants to buy it from us. They are bringing us an offer in the next week or so. We will almost certainly sell it if it is a good offer because that will allow us to start in on another property.

This is the view from the apartments that are almost complete that are four or five blocks down the hill from the second house we bought and hope to remodel for ourselves. We were pretty amazed with the wonderful view. The following images are from inside the house. The unfinished box-looking things up on the walls are areas where mini-split air conditioners will be installed. The idea we have now is to keep the apartments for awhile. There are currently four of them but room for three more. Lynn said he would like to rent those out and let the income from the first floor finance the addition of the final three. We thought that was a great idea and is now our current plan.

Lynn gave Tio Lauro and Grandma Conchita a tour. The first image is of the opening between the two apartments on the second floor. The second is a similar view of the two apartments on the first floor. We were very surprised with how much natural light enters all of the apartments.

Lynn showed the apartment remodel to two potential purchasers last week with another one scheduled for the coming week. The floors are all in now with the shower heads, toilets, and painting to follow in the next week or two. We have decide to finish out the basement apartment before we sell and start soliciting renters as we believe having the place occupied will improve the price we can ask. We have had to go more slowly than would have been possible had we had more funding but are pleased with the progress. Lynn has his eye on some other properties that might work for our second project when (if) we get the thing sold. We will see how easy it is to attract renters soon–everyone with whom Lynn has spoken in the real estate world says there are insufficient rentals available in the area for apartments in our price range. We are hoping that is true.