As we’ve been telling people about our plans for The Hague House, a common response has been, “Oh, so you’re going to flip it.”

I’m quick to correct them. We are not flippers and we are not going to flip this house. We are restoring it. If I could live with any label to call myself, I’m a Restorer.

For example, look at what I’m doing with the kitchen floor. I’m breaking up the layer of hard linoleum with a hammer. Then I’m using a carefully calibrated circular saw to cut through small sections (2ft square) of the subfloor that has another layer of tile and another layer of subfloor and then another layer of tile on top of the hardwood. The saw cuts through to just before that final tile layer. Then, I have to peel up that final tile layer just to reveal a hardwood floor in need of a lot more work.

Flippers would do the quick and easy work of just throwing another layer of subfloor and/or tile on top of what’s existing. That’s what at least four other folks (my guess by counting the layers I’m removing) did before me.

I’m restoring the house. Bringing it back to its original humble grandeur.

This is the hard work. It’ll add days/weeks to the overall project. It’ll take at least a week or two of full days just to remove the layers of this single room’s floor. And that’s just the start. We’ll have to clean it up quite a bit to examine the condition. Likely, it’ll have to be sanded and finished.

This’ll be a small value add at the end of the day. It’ll level the kitchen floor with the rest of the house and, more importantly, just look damn good. It’ll add to the Wow! The payoff is not in the final selling price. The payoff comes from knowing I corrected years of people choosing fast/cheap/easy by choosing to do what is right.