The Rustic Renovations Before and After
The Rustic at Lake Wenatchee was also purchased in 2017. At the end of that year my operations out in Leavenworth had grown so large that I needed to leave my corporate job in Kirkland working for US Bancorp and move to Leavenworth from Bothell so that I could take care of running what had become an extensive business. Fortunately I had completed massive renovations on the Bothell property (having bought the worst house in the nicest neighborhood, which had been woefully neglected) and the property had risen dramatically in value. When I sold the property after two years of ownership it had gone up nearly 80-90% and I was able to use that money to buy this property. The Rustic had great bones also but it needed a lot of work. It had been built in 1977 and had been turned into a long term rental for years and years. This property needed everything. It was a $180,000 endeavor that lasted for almost 6 months.
With the Rustic we gutted the kitchens and bathrooms, all things equal, everything needed to be painted inside and out, we turned the loft bedroom into a private bedroom by adding walls and a door, all of the flooring was redone, we swapped out all the metal doors for doors with windows, we added a ton of windows, we swapped out all of the light fixtures, swapped out all of the appliances and we completely reconstructed the downstairs, adding a more private sleeping space and then we also expanded into the garage adding a small, cozy living room, loft sleeping space with a King bed and a lower bedroom with privacy. Again we did everything that we could to make this place as nice as we could. This property has some interesting quirks but we love it. We also spent $11,000 cleaning up the entire acre of property. We took out some 50 Alders that had completely taken over the property, we kept all the pine trees of which there are plenty, we re-graveled the driveway, painted the exterior, repaired the decks leading to the home, we laid down bark and wildflowers and to this day we have a ton of firewood left over for the outside firepit. All things considered there wasn’t a part of this property that went untouched and we do love it and we hope you will too.
It’s hard to say where all of this is going to land but we are glad that we are able to give you the whole Leavenworth experience at a price point that we find reasonable.
We purchased The Rustic for $305,000 in 2017 (which might have been the last good deal that Leavenworth would ever have to offer, we invested over $200,000 in renovations and the property has recently appraised for close to $700,000 although a lesser home just sold down the street for over $800,000 (which left us a bit flabbergasted to be honest).
On a side note, property in Leavenworth has skyrocketed, there were only 1800 or some homes in Leavenworth to begin with. A good half of them are simply vacation homes that aren’t rented out to people. They mostly sit empty most of the time. Leavenworth continues to grow and grow. The local economy continues to grow, the demand for housing is exploding and due to COVID interest in the area has also grown triple digits.
Before picture of the house. In the spring all the trim and decks were painted. And anything that was not a pine was firewood. We also cleaned up the landscape.
Kitchen renovation – we had to take out the big cabinet to fit a dishwasher in. We added new appliances, paint, tile, and flooring.
We worked from 8 am to midnight most days, as you can see this is closing in on midnight.
Living room renovation – new paint, new tile under stove, refurbished stove. Beautiful!
Bedroom before and after
This is the downstairs rental, until we ripped a hole in that wall into the garage and then remodeled the garage. Next picture is the same room after the portal to remodeled garage with barn door. I love a good barn door. We turned a bedroom in to the dining room.
Downstairs kitchen of old rental – we added new paint, new flooring, new stove, new tile, new subway tile backsplash. Wanted to go up a few more levels but my tile guys got sleepy.
The bathroom before had a clawfoot tub with a leaky shower, This was never going to work for a vacation rental. The house was built in 1978 when Mexican tile was the way to go. It was a challenge removing it, but now, no more leaks. We love the big tile!
The old garage before, we closed off the old entry, tore out the stairs, prepped, mudded, taped, textured, painted, blasted 1×3’s into the cement with a 22 caliber nail gun and then covered it with a lot of spendy pine. Came out nice.
What was once a garage is now a cozy living room, bedroom and loft sleeping area.
