Maximizing Home Value Through the Ivy Homes Design-Build Approach w/ Nick and Steve

Bella: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Ivy Homes podcast. I’m so excited to be here with you today. We have a very special episode for anyone who is looking to transform their home and really maximize its value. Today I’m joined by Nick and Steve from Ivy Homes. They are doing some amazing things in Connecticut, taking a completely different approach to home remodeling and design.

Nick, Steve, welcome. It’s so wonderful to have you here. First of all, how are you doing today?

Steve: Good. Good, Bella.

Bella: I’m so glad to hear that. Nick, Steve, before we start and dive into the details, could you share a little bit about yourself and the company? What would you like people to know about you, about Ivy Homes, and what’s your message as the owners to all the homeowners listening?

Nicholas: I’ll give you a little bit of background. Steve and I have been in business together for over 15 years. We both started in real estate as realtors. Steve’s still an active realtor, and we used to own a valuation company. Then we eventually started flipping homes together, and we originally started Ivy Homes because of all of the issues that we were having with contractors not understanding the level of vision that we were trying to bring to our projects and also the level of execution.

So, we started Ivy Homes as a way to bridge the gap between a homeowner and what they want and maximizing their space, the utility, the functionality, and the tradespeople who are actually completing the work and other general contractors. So we don’t like to give homeowners or clients ways that we can’t accomplish what they want; we try to figure out a way to accomplish the things that they’re looking to do.

Bella: Great. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that vision. It really sets the stage for what you do. So looking at our local area, a lot of families feel like they’ve simply outgrown their house, but trying to buy a new one right now is tough. In your experience, when does it make more financial sense for a family to add an addition to their current home rather than packing up and moving?

Steve: That’s a great question, Bella. Me still being in the real estate industry, I see that a lot. The interest rates are really high right now, and honestly, given the cost of everything, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to leave your house at all if there is room to expand. We can look at expanding the basement, finish the basement.

You know, on a lot of our projects we’ve actually converted basements into proper living space by creating egress windows and making formal, permit-approved bedrooms. We can expand the attic. If it’s a cape, we could dormer it to give you more square footage there. We can also make an addition off of the back or side of the house, assuming that there’s room there with the setbacks.

Nick, do you wanna chime in on-

Nicholas: Also

Steve: over the garage as well… yeah, over the garage as well.

Bella: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. It’s all about looking at what you already have. When you walk into a classic older home around here, like a 1970s raised ranch or a colonial, what are some of the hidden opportunities you look for to really maximize that property’s value?

Steve: So there’s a lot of things, and Nick and I have built our career on maximizing and bringing efficiencies that most people don’t think about. Something that we really enjoy is reinventing a space, adding square footage to a space in order to increase the overall value. One of the ways we do that is, for instance, a raised ranch. If the basement is not finished, we can finish that.

Specifically for a ranch, we can add a second floor to that property and turn it into a colonial. Mm-hmm. That’s doubling the footprint. That’s doubling the square footage. You’re able to build in immediate equity to where the project essentially will pay for itself in a lot of cases. If it’s a cape, we can dormer it, blow out the back of it to add more square footage there.

What else? What do you think?

Nicholas: We’ve even connected detached garages to an existing space and converted like a breezeway into a living space, and made a detached garage part of the existing structure and integrated it to the existing structure.

Steve: I’m glad you brought that up because that was one of the pivotal moments for us. We did that on a project of our own, and initially when we ran the concept by the contractor, he said we couldn’t do it. And I said, “Well, why? Why can’t we?” He said, “Oh, you can’t do that. The floor is down here and the garage floor is over here, and it’s just you can’t do it.”

And I was like, “Well, no, we can. There’s a way. We have to figure out what the way is.” And we are pushers, that’s what we do. And ultimately we were able to get what we wanted, maximize the square footage, maximize the value, and make it make a lot of sense for us.

Bella: That’s amazing. Yeah.

Nicholas: Yeah. Again, to add to that, so for that particular project, this was something that didn’t make sense for this particular project, but it’s something that we could do on another project that’s a similar style house, a similar cape with a detached garage. If you integrate the detached garage into the current living space, now you can also add additional square footage by building an addition over that garage as well.

You can turn it into a master en suite, an in-law, or just an office or an additional room to give you additional living space.

Steve: Finish square footage.

Nicholas: Mm-hmm. And it really makes sense in areas that have a high average price per square foot.

Steve: And that’s something that we do very differently than I think any other contractor, at least that I’ve encountered.

We’re looking at the whole picture. We’re not just looking at how do we get you your dream kitchen or bathroom or what have you. We’re looking at how do we maximize your investment, right? So if we can add value somewhere, if you have the smallest house on the block and there are houses twice the size that are worth twice as much, we could get you to that value and you’re not putting in the money to get there.

Bella: Mm-hmm. That’s so great, and that’s such a great perspective. Thank you so much. It was a great answer. Now, you and the team actually come from a real estate investing background, as you mentioned, and I want to ask, how does looking at a house through the eyes of an investor change the advice you give to a homeowner?

Nicholas: Okay. I’ll start with that one. So, the reason that it’s different from… for us, most of the time when a contract, especially a high-end contract with any contractor that’s gonna deliver the type of finish that we deliver to a client, they’re not looking at the return that the client is gonna get for the amount of money that they spend.

You know, so we will not advise a client to spend excessively, an excessive amount of money, for what the property is worth. So we won’t… if you spent $500,000 on a house and you want to embark on a $500,000 renovation, we’re gonna advise you against it if the most expensive homes in the area are $700,000, ’cause you’re gonna be over-improving that home for the area.

So we’ll give you suggestions on how you can scale back the renovation, how you can choose different finishes or different fixtures to make the amount of money that you spend be more in line with your neighborhood, so you’re not just throwing away money.

Steve: Yeah. And to that point, we definitely consider ourselves more consultants than contractors in that regard, because we really do wanna understand what their needs are and help guide them to make sure they make the best decision.

Nicholas: I can give you an example, for a past client. They were looking to do a bathroom and master closet renovation, and they had a strict budget of money that they had saved up to set aside for the renovation. And for what they wanted to do, that was gonna be outside of the budget that they had allocated.

They had the cash, and they only wanted to spend that amount of cash. So I suggested to them that they take out a home equity line, a line of credit with one of our banking partners, that would save them money, allow them to get the scale of renovation that they wanted, while being able to invest the actual cash that they had to make more money.

So that’s how… I gave them the preliminary terms of the home equity line and told them to run it by their financial advisor. They did, and their financial advisor said this makes much more sense than deploying all of your capital at this renovation project when you can take a 20-year loan and only be out of pocket $800 per month, and get exactly what you want.

Bella: That’s so good.

Steve: And reinvest the initial capital and make more money back so that you’re actually spending less on the renovation than you would’ve otherwise spent.

Bella: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. It makes perfect sense, and I was just going to ask for an example, but you just gave it to me, and thank you so much for that.

And I can understand it really is about seeing the big picture. Again, thank you so much for that. Yeah, as per the next question, I know it can be really hard for people to visualize a major remodel just from looking at a flat blueprint. Can you tell us how you use on-the-spot 3D scanning, and how that helps the homeowner actually see the final result before construction even starts?

Nicholas: Okay. Sure. So we use a software called Houzz Pro. It allows us to scan the entire property. It takes the floor plan, it takes the measurements, it notates windows, floors, doors, trim, all of those things, and allows us to edit the floor plan in the software and choose the finishes, the colors, the fixtures.

And now we’re able to present a 3D version of that rendering to the client before any type of construction begins. It also has an augmented reality function as well, where if you have an iPad or an iPhone, we can… if we’re on location, we can scan the area, and you can hold up the iPad or the phone and walk around the area, and you can see in real time what the space will look like once it’s completed, which is a great tool in helping the clients visualize what a space can be.

Because a lot of times it’s very hard to see the potential of a space when it’s demoed, or there’s… if you purchase a new home, there’s still other people’s furniture there, it’s very hard to see what the space could truly be, especially when there’s walls in the way and the space isn’t optimized.

Bella: Yeah. Amazing. That technology sounds incredible. Steve, would you like to add something or?

Steve: No, I think Nick pretty much summed it up. We have gone through this process ourselves, in renovating properties over the last several years, and we’ve always made our own very primitive designs and sketches in order to convey what we are trying to get to the contractor.

And we absolutely realized the necessity to be able to show our clients exactly what they’re gonna get prior to beginning the project. It streamlines the process. It cuts down on their stress, their worries, and it ultimately just makes for a better customer experience.

Nicholas: Also, it really helps once they start seeing the finished project, product unfold, and they’re seeing the similarities between what they saw in the rendering. Yeah.

Or the pictures, and now they start to see it come to life, and it looks exactly like the rendering. It’s also a great tool for the tradespeople. It’s one thing seeing something in a 2D blueprint and seeing where things are supposed to be. It’s very different when you get to see a colored 3D version of what the space is supposed to look like so you have an overall idea of what is happening.

‘Cause sometimes some of those little things get lost in a 2D blueprint versus being able to see what the whole space is supposed to look like. So it also enables a level of foresight that always isn’t there in a regular blueprint.

Bella: Exactly. That technology is really incredible.

It must give people so much comfort. I liked it. Okay, great. Our next question. We are seeing a ton of interest right now in accessory dwelling units, like in-law suites or multi-family conversions. The town zoning for that can be pretty complex. How do you guys step in and handle that whole permitting process for the client?

Nicholas: Okay, so we have an ecosystem set up to handle that entire process from beginning, from concept to completion. We’ve done several of these projects for clients, and we started… we realized that it’s a very difficult process for the average person to navigate, and it would take a ton of research, a ton of time to be able to navigate this on your own, to figure out who you need to talk to because government, municipalities are very disjointed, and things are very compartmentalized.

So if you don’t, there’s usually not one department that can give you an overarching idea of every little thing that needs to be done in order to get from your idea to the project being completed. So from having done this process before, we understand the entire scope, which what you need, to be able to present to your lenders, to be able to get the funding to complete the project, the requirements the zoning needs to be submitted to them before they can give you an initial stamp of approval, before those things can go to the fire marshal, before they can go to the sewer commission, before they can go to WPCA, before ultimately you get to be able to apply for a building permit to do a conversion, to do a change of use.

So these are things that we’re very well-versed in, and we handle it from start. If you give us an idea of what you’re trying to accomplish, we show you the best way to do it. An example of that is we had a client who had a three-family property, and he had a double lot. He wanted to build an additional three family units on his property.

So we had a consultation with him, figured out what was his true goal in doing the project. He just was… his primary mission was to maximize what he could do and the level of income and the value appreciation of his property. So once we looked at all the zoning regulations, the setbacks, what could be done with limited variances and city pushback, we determined that in the zone that he was in, he could actually build 12 units.

So we suggested to him that instead of just building an additional three-family, we convert his existing three-unit to a 12-unit. And because we were creating so much equity in the property, he could get the entire project funded. Oh. With only getting, paying for the approvals, the permits, and architectural plans.

Bella: Oh, wow. You’re saying 12.

Nicholas: Yes.

Steve: Yeah.

Bella: That’s… Wow, that’s interesting.

Steve: And because of the value on the back end, because we look at the financial side as well, because of the value on the back end, he essentially is getting this project done for free. We’re leveraging the equity that he’s gaining through the project to finance the project.

Mm-hmm. So he pays for the soft costs up front, and that’s it.

Bella: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, wow, that’s great. And regarding the answer, taking that heavy burden off the homeowner’s shoulders is really huge. Okay. Well, that was interesting. And regarding the next question, a common thought process for homeowners is, “I need to hire an architect first and then go find a builder.”

Can you explain why having a unified design-build team from day one is usually a much smoother experience?

Nicholas: So, it’s usually a much smoother experience because we have all of those people in-house. We have a surveyor that we work with. We have an architect that we work with. We have the people that draw plans, and we have a permitting and municipality consultant that we work with.

So everyone works in tandem, so you don’t have to wait for… You don’t have to do the follow-up, the calls between the architect and get the drawings from the architect to give to the surveyor so he can incorporate the plot plans onto the building plans. We handle all of it in-house, and all of our people work together all of the time.

So it streamlines the process and makes the submission and the responses from the municipalities much faster.

Steve: Mm-hmm. And also because we are builders as well. We have a little bit more foresight than I think the average architect might have. We are boots on the ground. We are working with the tradesmen to execute on all of these things at the same time.

So we are literally seeing the project from the very, very beginning to the very end. And typically, an architect would do their part, an engineer would do their part, an expediter would do their part. Because it’s all in-house, we can move it all along, and if things are derailing, going off course, not looking the way they were supposed to look, we control the whole process, right?

So we just keep it moving.

Bella: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds much easier when everyone is on the exact same page, and one unified team is a huge convenience. Okay. Let’s talk about kitchens for a moment, because they are obviously the heart of the home and a major investment. How do you guide a homeowner to design a high-end kitchen that looks amazing but also adds real long-term value to the house?

Nicholas: Before we start construction on the kitchen, I like to have a long in-depth conversation with the homeowner and just understand what their needs are, how they live their life, what their cooking habits are, and just what they value in the kitchen and what their ultimate goal is. Once I get those answers, I make the kitchen design around those things. So if a homeowner loves to cook, I try to incorporate things that make their life easier in the kitchen. So we incorporate spice racks, and cookie sheet cabinets on either side of the range. We try to make sure that we can get a larger range, either 36 or 48 inches, in that kitchen if they’re an avid cook.

If they don’t like clutter, we try to incorporate pantries or appliance garages, or deep drawer-based cabinets so that they can store pots and pans, store appliances, store things that make their kitchen cluttered so they can put them out of the way. So-

Bella: Mm-hmm…

Steve: And as far as long-term value, we always wanna make sure that we are giving them the foresight to say, “You shouldn’t do this because it’s super specific to you.”

Right? Mm-hmm. If they want something like three refrigerators in their kitchen, for whatever reason they may want that, understand that this is going to be a problem when you go to sell your house. So I wanna know that you’re not gonna be trying to sell your house soon, or we should figure out a way to accomplish your goals, but also conceal the refrigerators.

So we just try to think as far ahead as possible, in everything we do, not just kitchens, to retain value and make sure that the client is making the best financial choice as well as aesthetic choice possible.

Nicholas: Mm-hmm. So all of our kitchen designs, we try to design them with a purpose.

We try to maximize functionality. A kitchen serves you no true purpose if it just looks really pretty, but you can’t function in it, you can’t cook in it, you can’t turn around, you can’t move, you can’t store any of the items that you use on a daily basis without them getting in the way.

We try to maximize the space for their real life, for their real-life use.

Bella: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it’s all about what they need, and this background helps a lot, I’m sure. I can see that right now. As for the next question, taking down walls to open up an older compartmentalized house is super popular right now. What is the secret to making sure that a new open concept layout flows perfectly with the rest of the home?

Nicholas: The first thing you have to do is really assess the area and assess what walls that people are trying to remove.

And one, you have to make sure that if a wall that you’re moving in a home, especially an older home that has a lot of additions, we’ve seen homes that have four or five additions on the home, but you would never know it until you start opening up walls, and then now you find an exterior wall that has brick behind it.

So that takes another level of structural support in order to secure the home and make sure that it’s structurally sound. So you just have to have foresight to know these things and to plan accordingly. So we’ve had homes where we open up the walls and it was a previous exterior wall, and you have the main plumbing line for the main plumbing stack for the house running through the wall that the client wants removed.

We’ve had them where the main electrical line from the house is running through that same wall as well. A lot of times there’s duct work in these walls. There’s other plumbing that are in these walls that have to be relocated. So you have to have the foresight to allocate budget for these things, for removing all of these plumbing, electrical, and house system functions.

You have to account for being able to move them and where they’re gonna go in the future once the entire space is open. So you have to have the foresight to know, to have a place for those things to be rerouted to. We had a client that wanted his entire first floor of his house completely open and with no walls, except the exterior walls, where there were previously three additions, and there were exterior walls of the house present.

So we had to bring in three 40-foot steel beams to recess them into the ceiling and actually create the open concept in the house. So all the plumbing in the house had to be rerouted. All the electrical had to be rerouted. All the HVAC ducts had to be rerouted to give him that open concept that he was looking for.

Bella: Mm-hmm. Good. That’s good. Steve, do you have something to add?

Steve: I think Nick pretty much covered it. It’s something that we’re very passionate about. We’ve always liked the idea of open concept. Mm-hmm. And we’ve had a lot of experience, as per Nick’s answer, with navigating the potential challenges that will come up when you wanna go open concept.

Bella: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Good, good. Thanks. Thanks a lot. And the flow really changes the whole energy of a house. And also I’m a big fan of that open concept.

Nicholas: I want Steve to expand upon the open concept and the sight lines. Like, how you were gonna go before, the value of it and how it perception-wise changes the feel of a house from a realtor’s perspective.

Like, when people walk into the house, the resale value.

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Nicholas: Even vaulting ceilings as well.

Steve: There’s definitely a lot of value to opening the floor plan. One, it makes the house feel larger. Mm-hmm.

Bella: That’s

Steve: by default. Two, it’s what everyone wants.

It began as maybe a trend, but it doesn’t seem to be going away. Everyone wants an open concept house. I’ve yet to find a client who wants a compartmentalized house. We always go into projects looking at how we can open up a wall to see from front to back. That just opens up the whole flow.

It allows you to walk into the house, walk all the way through to the back of the house. We always like to add large doors to exit the property in the back. You know, Mm-hmm… a six-foot slider is great, but if we can go 8 or 10 or 12, that’s even better. Mm-hmm. We like to vault the ceilings when at all possible because, again, it just gives that perception of openness.

You can have a small space with a very high ceiling, and it feels much bigger. So, Yeah… functionally, aesthetically, it just makes sense to do if it can be done.

Bella: Yeah. And it looks amazing, and it’s so refreshing. I love it so much. Okay. Now, without getting into specific numbers since every single house is different, how does your upfront planning process help give homeowners true peace of mind and predictability when it comes to their overall budget?

Nicholas: We’re never gonna be the cheapest bid because we’re thinking about all of the things that you don’t know to think about.

So we’re accounting for so many things that most other contractors aren’t gonna charge, that aren’t gonna either think about or let you know that these are things that you need to think about. Because most of the time they’re gonna just charge you for these things down the line with a numerous amount of change orders, and they’re gonna give you very slight allocations for materials that don’t align with your vision, right?

So we have an in-depth discussion with the client to see what their tastes are, what they want, and what their ideal level of finishes are so that we can create a comprehensive bid from the beginning that truly aligns with their values and what they want. And we’re always accounting for the unknown variables that most other people either aren’t accounting for or, again, are waiting for them to arise so that they can upcharge you at that point.

Steve: Mm-hmm.

Nicholas: So we like to give healthy allocations for finishes, for finished material, and fixtures that align with the client’s vision and their overall goal and lifestyle. Mm-hmm. So we try to account for every little unknown or variable upfront so that you don’t have a sticker shock later when you get into the project and now you have to come up with another 50, $60,000 to get to completion.

We’ve seen many a project, Mm… that happened like that, and we’ve seen many a customer that’s arrived, especially with 203k loans, when they purchase a house and they’ve gotten into a situation with a contractor who didn’t plan for all of the things that could go wrong in a project.

And so the client’s initial budget gets exhausted way before any of the finishes are done, and now they’re just left with an unfinished house that they’re living in that they don’t have the funds to complete because no one had the foresight to tell them what the true cost of the things that they wanted to do were gonna cost them.

They gave them a very generic, Oh, yeah… empty bid in the beginning to get the job. Just for the job. Yeah. And then they just leave the homeowner hanging. We’ve seen it many times.

Bella: Oh, I know. But that approach is very handy for the homeowners, and it’s so convenient, and peace of mind is absolutely priceless when it comes to budgets.

Steve: Yeah. Something else that we take heed of that a lot of contractors that we’ve dealt with in the past don’t, to Nick’s point, every little detail, like down to the outlet. What is your, which one do you want? Do you want standard or do you want one, two, three levels above standard? A lot of times the homeowner will be midway through a renovation and say, “Oh, I didn’t think about the recessed lights.

I actually think I want this style instead of that style,” or, “the fan in the bathroom, I actually think I want this style versus that style.” Not only do we give them a healthy allocation, we express to them, “These are the things that you don’t know you don’t know you’re gonna have to make a decision about.”

That’s right.

Bella: Yeah. So

Steve: start thinking about those things now so that, Mm-hmm… you’re not shocked later, and understand that this is the standard. This is what comes with this, and if you want something else, this is what it’s gonna look like.

Bella: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Helps with that

Steve: as well. And then the 3D rendering also helps with that as well, because now you’re seeing what the project, Right, is going to look like and, “Oh, I don’t like the way that light fixture looks. Can we do something else?” Now we’re getting that handled on the front end and not in the middle of the project.

Bella: Yes, that’s good. That’s very good.

Okay. Okay. A steady timeline is also important for keeping the excitement alive during a big remodel. How does having a single team manage everything from start to finish keep the project moving quickly and smoothly?

Nicholas: Having a single team handle everything keeps the trades and the project aligned because now, as a homeowner, you aren’t functioning as the liaison between the different trades.

You don’t have to figure out when the electrician is gonna be done so that the plumber can come in, so that the drywall,

Steve: The insulation can come

Nicholas: in. The insulation come… exactly… the

Steve: paint can come in.

Nicholas: So you’re not at the forefront of making those decisions and lining those people up, and lining those different trades up, because you lose a lot of time trying to coordinate those things.

And when the crews aren’t working together, who aren’t used to, don’t know each other and aren’t on the same team, there are a lot of things that, a lot of foresight gets missed. Mm-hmm. When an electrician that doesn’t work with the drywallers and doesn’t know them is running his wires for light switches or outlets, he’s much more likely to be careless with the cuts that he makes, where he punches the holes, if he doesn’t know the people that are gonna come in to do the compounding, drywalling, and patching later on.

He’s not gonna be cognizant of what would make their life easier. Mm-hmm. But if it’s a cohesive team that works together, you’re much more likely to cut down on those errors, those mishaps, and those delays that are caused by lack of communication and cohesion.

Steve: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. And something

Bella: to take

Steve: into consideration, when you’re working with a group like ours, we’re a team, right? Our drywall person might be very good friends with the electrician. They may speak outside of this project. That communication matters so much because they can have an open conversation, “Hey, I’m on this job.

I’m not sure about this light fixture. What do you want me to do? Where should I put the nailer?” That open line of communication doesn’t exist if you’re not working with a team that always works together.

Bella: Mm-hmm. And yeah, that harmony is something else, absolutely, and that must be such a relief for the families that you work with.

Steve: Yeah. It’s a relief for us, too. Mm-hmm. You know, it makes

Bella: Yeah… it makes it. That’s, that’s

Nicholas: true… easier. Well, but a lot of times they don’t know to appreciate that, because unless you’ve experienced something different, you don’t know that it could be much different. So a lot of times they don’t actually realize that it is something that’s valuable and that they should appreciate.

Mm-hmm.

Bella: Mm-hmm. Now they do know.

Nicholas: Now they know. Yeah.

Bella: Okay, next question. We always like to share a bit of insider advice with our listeners. What is the biggest piece of advice you’d give a homeowner who is just starting to daydream about a major home transformation?

Nicholas: I can give one, or two, or three.

If you triple the timeline that you think it’s gonna take, if you think this should take two months, anticipate that it should take six. Understand that living through a renovation is messy. You’re gonna hate your life, it’s going to suck. Be prepared for that. It’s gonna be loud. It’s not gonna be convenient.

If you’re getting your kitchen done, and especially if you’re slow at making decisions, you’re gonna be spending a lot of money on Uber Eats and eating out, and it won’t be fast. So just be prepared to be uncomfortable. Get comfortable with the thought of being uncomfortable.

Bella: Okay, that’s a relief.

Nicholas: I like to throw

Bella: people for. I’ve

Nicholas: been imagining… so that they… so they can be pleasantly surprised later, but I like to

Bella: Yeah… like to

Nicholas: give them the hard reality first.

Bella: Uh-huh. But I suppose bathrooms are easier because in homes there are two or three of them, but when it comes to the kitchen, you only have one kitchen, Yes, for you to use. And what do you think? What’s the number one when it comes to the hardest? Would you say kitchens or adding something, like add-ons or in-law suites or something else?

What… for example, what is the top three?

Nicholas: I think the most difficult… if you are starting from scratch, I think the most difficult would be a property conversion, Uh-huh… because you have to go through so many channels, Steps… to get the job done, and there’s so few people that understand the entire process.

There’s a lot of people that can do a kitchen for you, there’s a lot of people that can do a bathroom for you. There’s not nearly as many people that can handle the entire process of getting your permit, getting your plans, getting your approval, getting your architectural drawings, going before a zoning variance board to get a variance for something that you want to do.

That’s by far, I think,

Steve: Helping with the financing…

Nicholas: yeah, helping with the financing, yeah, and navigating that process is definitely the hardest. Mm-hmm… we’ve done it, so it’s not hard anymore for us, but if you were just coming in from off the street, it’s gonna be a much, much more difficult process.

Mm-hmm… one other thing that I was gonna say as a tip for homeowners that are looking to undergo a renovation process is take the time and make all the selections and pick out exactly what you want before you start demo. I’ve had a lot of clients that have been impatient and wanted to just see something done or see the project move, and start demo without figuring out exactly what they want, what type of finishes they want, not knowing the direction that they want the project to go in.

And that vastly extends the timeline for your project. If you figure out everything that you want and all your finishes before, the project’s gonna go much faster, much smoother. Don’t be in a rush in the beginning. Take the time in the beginning to figure out exactly what you want, because that’s just gonna give you less downtime.

Wait until you figure everything out and then demo. But a lot of times people just want the project to move forward, and they just want you to come do the demo. And then they take an extended amount of time to pick their finishes, so now the downtime and the length of the construction feels so much longer because you’re, Mm-hmm, in the demo space. But pick out everything you want first. Figure out exactly how you want it done, the layout. Go back and forth with your designer or your contractor and nail down all of the variable things that are gonna come up in the project. Do that first before any demo takes place.

Bella: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. That’s good advice. Do you have one for us, Steve, or do we have both from you?

Steve: It is challenging to answer your most recent question.

Bella: Yeah.

Steve: I would say the biggest challenge that we face is renovating, doing a full gut renovation on a house, as opposed to new construction or just doing a kitchen or just doing a bathroom.

And the reason is you oftentimes run into things that can make the job a little bit more tricky than what we initially may have expected. We now know to allocate for those things, but the client expectation is hard for them to wrap their head around, right? And we can tell them all day long that this house is existing, and this

Nicholas: And

Steve: it’s 100 years old, is this, 100 years old. And we may run into this, and we may run into that. But it is always the case that when we run into an issue, or we’re doing a kitchen, and the ceiling’s not level. That’s probably the hardest thing, doing kitchens in very, very old homes. Because we’re not just gonna throw cabinets up on the wall. We need them to be flush.

We need them to be level. That may mean we need to level the ceiling. That may mean we have to level the floor. That may mean we have to level a window, Mm-hmm… so that everything sits flush, and all of the corners are 90 degrees, and everything is plumb and square. That’s something we take a lot of pride in, and we will walk the job at the beginning, in the middle, towards the end and just make sure that things are falling into place and being executed at the highest level.

Bella: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steve: And

Bella: when there’s

Steve: these variables like floors and walls and ceilings that are not plumb at all, it’s tricky, so. Mm-hmm.

Bella: Correct. Correct.

Steve: Sometimes clients, it takes longer and they don’t necessarily understand why, and it’s hard to explain that this is a your house problem, not a us problem, but we get it done.

Nicholas: Yeah. Another thing with that is, this also ties into the advice piece. If you have an older home that has cast iron pipes, that has ABS pipes, we see this all the time, especially with multifamily properties, when someone gets a two-family or three-family renovated and they have…

the house was built in 1900 and it has cast iron plumbing throughout, and then we come, Mm-hmm… in and renovate the bathrooms. And so you tie the plumbing into the existing cast iron drain that runs through the entire house. Once you put new plumbing onto existing drains, it’s bound to cause that…

eventually it’s gonna cause that 125-year-old cast iron pipe to break, right? Because, Mm-hmm… the pipe is old, it’s rusted, and now you have higher pressure new systems, Pressure… being integrated into this older pipe. So a lot of times the homeowners think that it’s your fault that the pipe for the entire home is breaking, but it’s 125 years old and it’s bound…

it’s going to happen. So we try to have the foresight to tell them, “Your pipe is going to burst. The pressure caused by these new plumbing fixtures is going to make this 125-year-old pipe leak, and our suggestion is to replace the entire pipe now before that happens so you don’t have any water damage.”

But the sticker shock, Mm-hmm… of that, most of the time for investors, it’s like, “No, no, no, I’m not gonna do that.” So they choose to delay that process and then in a couple months, it happens, and then we get the call back and we have to let them know that’s not something that we did.

That’s something that is going to happen inevitably.

Bella: Mm-hmm, and now it costs more for them.

Nicholas: Yes. Now it’s gonna cost more. Yes.

Bella: Yeah. Okay. Thank you for that. And we have one question remaining, so this will be the final question for today. So here it is. After the planning and 3D scans and the actual construction, what is that ultimate feeling or reaction you are looking for when you finally hand the keys back to the family?

Nicholas: If they don’t say, “Wow,” and like, “Oh my God, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” I feel like I haven’t done my job. Like, I feel like it’s my personal mission to wow you once you see the finished product, and if I don’t get that reaction, I kinda feel like a failure.

Did the keys

Bella: back? Yeah.

Nicholas: The lady, she’s

Steve: like that. She over

Nicholas: there. Oh, a kitchen that we’re finishing up now, well, it was more than a kitchen. It was basically a complete transformation of a house. So this particular home, it was a… It’s a barn. Like, the entire house is a barn

from the 1800s, and it was acquired by some Yale architects in 1955, and everything in the home before we started was either original to the 1800s or to 1955. And the homeowner had a lot of contractors come in there, and they all said no, that they would not take on the project.

The house is extremely unlevel. Everything is crooked. There’s no insulation between the inside of the house and the outside of the house, so we basically reframed the entire interior of the house, created a kitchen, created a laundry room, created a new office space, created like an entry area for her, leveled a lot of the existing floor out, transformed the space.

And when I gave her the render and she loved the render and the concept, because I moved a lot of walls, I completely changed the entire dynamics and flow of the home, and she was like, “Wow, this is really nice.” She loved it, and now she’s seeing it come into reality, and when I met her there a couple of days ago, she almost started crying.

She was like, “This isn’t just a kitchen. This is my dream kitchen. Like, I couldn’t imagine that my space would ever look like this.” And so to get that type of reaction from a client is very, very fulfilling.

Bella: Oh, that’s beautiful. That’s so nice. And it’s truly a rewarding experience, I’m sure.

Yes. Okay. Well, thank you so much for today, Nick, Steve. This has been such a wonderful conversation. Before we wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to add or share with our audience?

Nicholas: Got anything, Steve?

Steve: Yeah. I think, when you’re ready to get anything done regarding your home, give us a call.

Bella: That’s right.

Thank you so much, Nick, Steve, again for being here, sharing your time and your expertise with us. It was a true pleasure to have you. For everyone watching or listening, if you want to learn more about Nick, Steve, their amazing team, and the beautiful work they do at Ivy Homes, please check out the description below.

You will find a direct link to their website right there so you can contact, connect with them. Thank you so much for joining us today. Remember to dream big for your homes, and we will see you in the next episode. Take care and see you soon.

Steve: Thanks, Bellal. Thanks, Bella.