I’ve only completed one cosmetic fixer rehabber and it went so well, everyone is telling me I had beginner’s luck. At some point, I want to do a second one and perhaps more, as my level of success could be a fraction of the first one and it would still be worth doing. But I’m wondering how well I can combine this work with parenthood.
For those of you who are rehabbers and who are also parents of young children, how does your daily life look? My children are usually in preschool from 9 am to 4 pm and I’m wondering if I would need to be on site at the rehab earlier than that or later that that.
I did read a nice story about a mom rehabber who always buys playground equipment for each fixer house and her children use it until the house sells and then she leaves it for the purchasers since her target demographic is families with young children. That sounded somewhat appealing but I would worry that my curious four year old would try to get into everything and that might cause a safety issue.
It’s not easy, I can tell you that for sure!! We are working on fixing up a new purchase to keep as a rental. Our kids are 7, 5, 3, & 15 months. We do not have TV at home so when we have a big project like the one we have now we bring a small tv and DVD player. We cleaned up the living room so it was decent enough for them to hang out. We put in a movie for the older ones and my little guy gets stuck in the playpen with toys. We went upstainrs and spent the day ripping out carpet from every room and pulling all the tacks andstaples up. The kids stay glued to the tv since it is a rare treat for them. This weekend we will be sanding the floors to refinish them and I don’t want the kids in the house. Luckily this place has a fenced yard and nice big deck so we will make them stay outside to play… if they are not behaving we will fall back on the DVD plan and plug that in on the deck, they can have a picknick party or something.
We do not do rehabbing as a full time job, so this works ok for us since it’s not an everyday type of thing. But it is very hard to keep them out of everything. Everyone wants to help paint and use tools ect… I’m pretty much pulling my hair out this week and wishing for the day that its done!! I also worry about them being inside some of these places that are so filthy and I don’t want them to touch anything… and them when your doing some of the rehab work I always worry about lead pait issues.
I guess I don’t have any sort of great plan to pass along to you, but at least I can say that you are not the only one out there that has the kiddos with you!
Okay , so you have 9am to 4pm,
Plenty of time. If you are hiring contractors then hire one more…a baby sitter. I have taken and still do take my 5 year old on the job site. I also have a couple guys that work directly as my employee’s. I have one that is responsible for my son’s well being all day long. Yes, it is my job but he becomes responsible for my son as soon as my attention is needed elswhere. I import some of my labor and also have one of the guys bring their wife and she gets kid duty. It’s a win win for all.
Darin
I have to say HOORAY FOR YOU for doing it despite how incredibly difficult it is to do it with kids! You’re an inspiration!
I’m real happy to see other parents making a go of it. I haven’t done my first rehab yet. I am a SAHM and spend late nights, early mornings and any other time I get working on getting my business (of rehabbing)going and getting that first property purchased.
When I get my first house, I was planning on puting my 2.5 year old daughter in daycare 2-3 days a week which would be good for her to be around other kids more (and bringing her with me the other days). I also like God Wnz’s idea of hiring a nanny a few/several days a week and just having them come with me. Wonder if I could find “providers” on both the daycare/nanny end and do both (2-3 days daycare and 2-3 days nanny) Hmmm!
I know we can all make this work. I need it to work, so it will. Go get em!