Why I didn’t blog from March-August (off topic… a little)

Some of you who follow Elegant Code, as well as some of the Elegant Coders may have wondered why my blog went dark for a while this last year.

Well, sometimes life just kicks you in the balls.

Lets rewind to January of 2009. My wife Katy and I own 3 properties, one we live in, one was on the market for sale (wife’s old condo), and one was being rented. (all of them upside down, go economy! woo!)

On January 25th we found the one that was vacant flooded! The line that was connected to the icemaker had broken off the fridge and had been running for 3 weeks. It ruined the house, nearly 40k worth of damage. Luckily insurance covered the repairs, but what a timesuck mess, and we are still fixing things today (we live there now).

If that isn’t bad enough, we get a call in late February from the police that the tenants in our rental house have been arrested for drugs! After evicting them and viewing the property, we were in shock. The house was completely thrashed! Full of trash, holes in walls & doors, urine soaked carpets, counter tops burnt and chipped. Since this was strike 2,  PARK PLACE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT IN BOISE IDAHO WAS SO FIRED!

The house needed renovating, and we couldn’t afford to hire someone. So we did it ourselves. Katy made this cool slideshow, so I thought I would share it with you.

Here is what we did (more or less)

• Ripped out carpet, treated sub-floor for odor
• Replaces 3 doors, including front door (door installer, I salute you!)
• Tiled countertops
• Spray all cabinets and trim
• Paint entire interior, including ceiling & doors
• Re-grout shower/bathtub tile
• Replace all interior light fixtures
• Replace bathroom vanity
• Replace fridge main board & shelving
• Install new sink & faucet
• Install new dishwasher
• Install new oven/range
• All new carpet & vinyl installed
• Have driveway poured on side of house to meet parking reqs (city violated us) 
• Have new fence in backyard installed for privacy
• Had some electrical brought to code
• Installed new smoke detector system

Probably some more stuff, but you get the idea, a complete flip.

The house came out amazing and is currently rented by a small family who really likes the place. All of this cost us about 12k, and nearly 6 mos of every weekend and 2-3 weeknights per week. (I took off a weekend for Boise code camp!)

It really was a test of all tests. Katy and I look back and still cant believe we did it, 2 engineers at that. Most people I think would have quit, given the house(es) back to the bank. We are not most people 🙂

… and for the encore, I quit my day job and started my own company.