At Home Guest Blog: Flip-It with a Conscience

Posted on 14 October 2009

Despite the economic downturn, we still hear about innovative businesses netting good results. Here’s one from the Renovation front:  A Fayetteville re-developer, Mark Zweig (just so happens he’s a lauded business consultant and professor as well), has been buying small, historic homes, giving them neighborhood-friendly updates and selling them for a profit. Here’s one example:

From Uninhabitable Wreck to Jewel of a Home!

This once well-crafted 1930’s, 1,300 square foot bungalow had fallen into great disrepair and languished on the market for more than four years. The exterior had suffered a fair amount of damage from being more than half-covered with ivy (the ivy literally penetrated the house  and was growing into the kitchen!), the yard was completely overgrown, the kitchen cabinets were caving in on each other and most of the appliances were broken, and the kitchen lights were strobing on and off quickly in a way that would have been sure to give any visitor to the house a seizure of some sort. I even literally fell through the floor while trying to  investigate one of the side bedrooms the first time I looked at it.

What the house did have was a great location, less than one block from Fayetteville’s famed Dickson Street, and a wonderful three-bedroom, two-bath split floor plan. A lot of work and a little more than $75,000 later, a house that was once dark and uninviting, both inside and out, is now a bright, clean and comfortable home for a young professional couple who relocated here from New Jersey.

Beginning with the main focal point of the house, the front steps, we systematically replaced or rebuilt all the original details. Restoring the front steps, rail system, door and porch; building a new dry-stacked stone retaining wall, removing the large amount of tree and vegetation overgrowth, putting in fresh sod and landscaping, repairing all the cracked stucco and implementing a totally new paint scheme, and reclaiming an enclosed sleeping porch with screens in place of bad plate glass windows gave the front of the house a completely different feel. Detailing was added to the front door, all broken window panes replaced and windows made operable, muntins were added to the windows that didn’t have them, new basement windows built, new beam extensions made to replace rotting ones on the gables, french doors installed in place of bad sliding doors and other broken doors, and new carriage doors built to replace the missing garage door. After rebuilding the front porch with new joists and floor,  adding a new roof, new gas fireplace, replacing all interior ceilings, going through countless gallons of paint, re-tiling the bath floors and tub walls, refinishing all hard wood floors, and updating the appliances, electrical, lighting, and HVAC, the house sold immediately–and it took only 59 days from start to finish, including the entire renovation and sale process! With an initial price of $118,500, the house  sold for $238,500.

After a complete interior  and exterior quality renovation, this downtown bungalow is now a landmark that everyone talks about in downtown Fayetteville. And to think that the  people we bought it from were surprised we didn’t tear it down!

Mark Zweig
Principal Owner and Designer
Mark Zweig, Inc.

To see an additional Mark Zweig renovation, click here:

http://www.athomearkansas.com/At-Home-Arkansas/November-2008/Diamond-in-the-Rough/