3460 Pinehill Dr is the second home I purchased as an investment property but the first home I decide to completely renovate and “flip” or sale. It was a total disaster when I first entered the home. Roach infested, mold growing on the ceiling, a strong animal smell coming from the ripped up carpet… but to me it was the perfect buy! Cosmetically the home had a lot of things wrong with it. The washer machine connections were located in the kitchen with the dryer connections located in the enclosed attached garage to the right of the home. This property only had one bathroom. One bathroom homes are also very inconvenient for modern day living in the USA. On the exterior of the home the property had some interesting choices as well. Two driveways – one on each side of the property. The home was also oriented to the wrong direction. The land was very overgrown and not maintained. The exterior of the property was one of the most difficult things for me to wrap my head around.
In the end, with all of its quarks and problems, this house was the best buy on the block! I cleaned the property up doing minimal work, as in not gutting the place and moving plumbing, electrical etc. Then I rented the home out for about 2 years. My tenant destroyed the property again. Holes in the wall, A dog ruined the carpet again, The yard was never cleaned and overgrown. I blamed this on our property manager a bit. Like, this bitch clearly did not do anything but collect rent and his ‘management’ fee every month. lol
I lived in Colorado during the entire rental period. Once I decided to move back to Atlanta, Georgia, which just happened to coincide with the tenant leaving and me firing the property manager, it was time to renovate this place! My best friend from college introduced me to her roomates boyfriend (now husband) that started his on construction company. Parson’s Mission Construction is the company and it is the best introduction I could have received. He is an amazing contractor that I would highly recommend if you are in the Atlanta area. He did all the work himself and only hired out what he needed. He was affordable because he did not have a large over head, (mind you I said affordable… certainly not cheap!)
Nate and I formulated a plan and started working. He also helped me out a lot on this property because it was my first real renovation. He took the property to the studs. Literally replacing studs and cutting up cement slab to run new pipes and move a kitchen, etc. This property was challenging for myself as there was so many unknowns that kept popping up. For example the main sewer line on the home. The property now has two completely separate lines as there was no way to connect the bathroom on the left side of the home to the bathroom on the right side of the home.
Why could the plumbing lines not be connected: Georgia plumbing ordinance says something to the effect that the plumbing line must slope at a certain degree per linear foot. To connect the bathrooms to one main sewer line would have caused the pipes to go damn near 6 foot deep under the home and then once they connect, the main sewer line would continue to slope down towards the city main line. Impossible. Thus now a small 1500 square foot house has two sewer lines.
As the guts of the home were being put back together, I realized that my joy came from ‘needing’ to see the finished project come to life. I would learn this with all my projects. The desire to complete the home was what pushed me. The designing of the floor plan until midnight, the picking of the finishes, the colors, even the flower choices in the garden to make the house ‘pop’ gave me joy. It was less about the desirer to rent or ‘flip’ the home and more about the passion behind creating the perfect floor plan and home from what was already there. I have noticed my joy comes from perfecting a home that already exists. I have not found the same joy on designing a floor plan to a home that is completely new. Giving me a piece of raw land and a confined building size really just doesn’t do it for me the same was as renovating an older home.
The video at the top of this blog shows the homes renovation, floor plan changes, before and after photos, etc. Below are the after photos.
