Home Improvement Articles and Remodeling Ideas

Learning How to Restore Old Homes as a Business Venture

By Ben from Charlottesville, VA on October 11, 2005
Category: Restoration

Hi,
My name is Ben and I live in Charlottesville, Va. and am right now attending Piedmont Virginia Community College. I have always loved to watch tv shows about restoring old homes and reselling them. I love architecture and design. I am also very interested in interior and exterior design as well as landscaping design. I am very creative and dedicated to what i love. I spend my weekends going to open houses and love HGTV. Until recently I never took restoring old homes as a living into consideration, but it now seems as though its the perfect dream job. My parents had a house built here in Charlottesville and I was able to see the steps to creating a house and although i was not attracted to the "hard manual labor" done by the workman, I would really love to get into the business. Even though I do love the creative idea of restoring or even bettering an existing several year old home and then reselling it i have no clue about many things. For example, real estate, owning a home and or property, building permits, passing inspection, problems that can arise in an old home, the price of fixing, the price of kitchen and bathroom items, time and effort put in, contracters, pluming, electrical, taxes, hiring people to help, etc. The list just goes on and it seems so much yet I have heard stories of people who have come into money, bought a house, fixed it up and sold it and made a huge profit. Most say the experience is well worth it as well as the money. I would love to make this into a career. I probably would start out with a small house and redo the bathrooms and the kitchen completely. Add crown molding, and paint the rooms. If there is an unfinished basement and or attic area, create that into more living space. Replace some doors, and maybe the lamps and ceiling fans in the house. Even buying bookshelves and adding them to the walls could potentially at charm and worth to the house. I would do a lot to the outside property and add a garden or several trees. I could create an outside patio or even add or work on an existing porch. I would not want a too old of a house to begin with and I would want for the first several years to have to do the "simplest of changes" such as redoing the kitchen, redecorating by painting, adding bookshelves, crown molding, carpeting, and working on the outside of the house. I at first don't want to deal with rotting porches, foundation problems, staining 60 year old wooden floors, redoing all plumbing, (although I know at any time I could run into any of these problems.) I want to work up and save and make money until I have enough to start to hire many others to help me in my quest to better and restore the homes of america and then I would like to work toward other harder projects. But basically, I would like to know how I can find out all the information I need to get started in doing thins. I probably will not start till after college, but what classes would I need, where would I find the information I need? How can I prepare myself to do such a long and self rewarding job? Do you have any advice or can help me in any way?

Thanks for listening,
Ben

Just getting started

Ben,

I read your posting from October 2005. You asked many of the questions I am asking to learn how to begin this business venture of restore old homes. Can you tell me anything you learned as far as where to begin? Is this developing into a career for you?

Any help is much appreciated.

Thank you,

Matt Allen

By Matt Allen from Suwanee,GA on March 29, 2007 | Reply |

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