HOUSE FLIPPING & LIFE RENOVATION
I was an ad guy for 30 years.
Learned how to make people want things. Won an Emmy. Then quit and called a re-do. Bought a dingy little apartment and started to flip. Turns out the two jobs are a lot alike. Turning the ‘meh’ in to the ‘must-have.’
After 12 flips, here are my tips, tricks, deep dark secrets and wacky-ass stories about how to make things look expensive and fabulous even when they aren’t. And make good money doing it.
They say modern life is all about reinvention.
If I can do it, you can.
FLIP 01 CHICAGO
One Bedroom
High Rise Penthouse
The starter flip. A 60’s never-renovated one bedroom with a killer penthouse view of Lake Michigan and short walk to Wrigley Field. Before demo, sold original St. Charles metal cabinets for $2500 * To open it up removed kitchen walls by adding drop ceiling to run electrical above * Got Tile Guy to line up veining on all 24x48 porcelain tiles in shower so it looked like solid stone. He was not happy.
Four Bedroom Bungalow Logan Square
FLIP 02 CHICAGO
Sad one bedroom yellow brick ranch surrounded by glorious 4 bedroom Victorians in one of Chicago’s hottest neighborhoods. The goal was to offer a 4 bedroom house for under 600K (unheard of). Got shut down by the city for incorrect permits, used the time off to get my realtors’ license. Discovered lower level windows didn’t qualify as bedroom egresses, so we designed bookshelves that doubled as steps to reach windows. added three bedrooms and and full bath below to make it 4 bedroom 2 and half baths. Sold for $595 . It was Covid, the entire purchase from showings to walk through was over FaceTime. They never stepped foot in it until moving day.
Three Bedroom Mid Century Modern
FLIP 07 PALM SPRINGS
Went to Palm Springs to fulfill dream of renovating a midcentury modern and managed to find the only ranch in town with absolutely zero mid century modern to it. Had to import it all, glass sliders, horizontal slab front kitchen cabinets, feature walls, putting green, bocce court, block wall and planters and a complete rebuild of the leaky fiberglass pool.
FLIP 04 CHICAGO
Two Bedroom Lakefront High Rise
My favorite high rise job. Stunning harbor views. Galley kitchen removal to create open floor plan. Left one afternoon and demo guy took out wrong bathroom had to redo both. Sold in 2 weeks. Buyer was a charlatan grifter, creator of the original penis enlarger. Sold furniture to him separately but neglected to get check at closing, had to hire a sheriff to track him down in small claims court to collect.
FLIP 06 CHICAGO
Two Bedroom Mies van der Rohe High Rise
The ultimate view in chicago perched in an architectural masterpiece. When the HOA wouldn’t allow using the concrete floor (poor sound barrier) I had a subfloor put in and poured concrete on top. To give buyers an option I opened the wall between the living room and second bedroom with a sliding book shelf so it could be used as a den.
Five Bedroom Modern Single Family Home
FLIP 05 CHICAGO
The haunted house. Inherited from my reclusive aunt and uncle. He built 6 flats in the 60’s that all looked like dentist offices and coincidentally so did his house. Had to demo creepy childhood memories and my aunt’s ghost and somehow turn a yellow brick rectangle into a charming family home.
FLIP 9 PALM SPRINGS
Historic Mid Century Modern Two Bedroom
The Meth Den. The most stunning structure I ever worked on was also in the most tragic shape I’d ever seen a place. A drug addicted hoarder had spent the last 20 years in there chain smoking everything in sight that with his dozen feral cats. Just getting the thick yellow film off the walls and windows was a solid two week job. Loved the poured epoxy high gloss white floors.
About
Turns out what you can do for a box of Fruit Loops you can do for a 2500 square foot single family in Knoxville, TN or Rancho Cucamonga CA
That’s what I figured out after a beloved but exhausting career in advertising that almost killed me before I was lured away by the promises of an all-out HGTV life.
Turns out real house flipping is NOTHING like HGTV. It’s sooo much better.
Every flip is an unpredictable wild ride in a different old rusty beater you’re trying to wrestle down for body work and a shine. There’s no manual you don’t know how to drive stick. They’re a cross between a Masterclass and circus sideshow. You have to wait and see what secrets the place has to tell you. Not unlike a day at an ad agency.
I worked at Leo Burnett in Chicago for 25 years flying the friendly skies of United, getting people to be lovin’ it at McDoanld’s and caring enough to send the very best from Hallmark.
Then on to BBDO to keep the world addicted to Lay’s Potato Chips and nursing their aches and pains with every Bayer product for every body part.
After years in the C-Suites of America give me an afternoon with a butt-cracked plumber, a talented finish carpentar who brings his accordian to the job site or a tile guy who wants to talk you into installing a mini-Taj Mahal in the bathroom of your postage stamp apartment in Chicago.
The thing is, now you don’t have a boss or an angry client who’s wife doesn’t like the font you picked for the ad. It’s all you. Liberating, and scary as f at the same time.
No one threw their cap up at graduation and said whoo-hoo I can finally pursue my dream of flipping mid-century ranches in run down but up and coming neighborhoods across America.