BACK TO NATIONAL! 5 ITEMS WE CONSIDER WHEN RENOVATING

Posted on April 4, 2021 by ourunbelievablejourney

Just as a reminder, National was our 2nd rental purchased and this home needed a complete transformation! Here we start with the living room and bedrooms! In addition, we’ll give some pointers of what we look for in a rental and our “go-tos” when renovating! You’ll notice greys & whites in almost all of our rentals. The contrast always gives a nice clean and crisp look.

When searching for rentals, we prefer smaller, 2 bedroom, 1 bath homes on concrete slabs!

Paint every surface! Ceilings, baseboards, walls, window frames. EVERYTHING!
- It is well worth the time and effort to fill any holes or cracks in the walls. You want to make the space as clean and “new” as possible. If you are also planning on painting over old wood paneling, just don’t. Oh and one other sin we never do is to paint over wallpaper. Just take the time to strip it off and do what needs to be done to make it look nice and new.

2. Change the outlets & switches to WHITE!

Does anyone like the almond colored outlets and switches? We think not! It may be a tedious task to change everything over to white, but the result is well worth the effort! Those tan outlets just look like they are dingy and dirty.

3. Replace the lighting.

Lighting is a big one. First off, no one gets excited to see a room that was recently painted but still has an 1985, brass chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A new fixture just makes the renovation look complete and shows that we didn’t miss any details. Secondly, we like to set our rentals up with LED lights in order to save our tenants money on their power bill, help do our part to lessen the impact on the environment, and lower maintenance responsibilities for us.

*After- Living Room with New Vinyl Flooring*

4. Replace carpet with vinyl flooring!

We like to pull the carpets out and install vinyl flooring because they look good, they’re durable, and they’re waterproof! The wood plank vinyl floors we install make the house look sleek, clean and en vogue.

5. Finish by caulking, putting new window fixtures up and cleaning.

Running new caulk lines on the trim work, around the window frames and door frames help to finish out the painting projects and make those lines look crisp and clean. We install nice, clean mini blinds on all of the windows for our tenants. Once the project list is done we give the place one last good clean, making sure to wipe all of the surfaces, clean the floors and completely tidy up!