Low Ceilings - fixer upper

[Sarah Present]

Looking for insight from experienced fix-and-flippers or rehab-ers.  

We rent out a few properties at this point but recently have gotten approved for a home improvement loan, similar to that of a 203k.

We found a house in the right location - very old in a mountain town.  This house, being from such a long time ago, has some odd quirks about it.  Most of which do not frighten us but the low ceilings caught us off guard - they were not evident in the listing pictures.  Some of the house is fine, but the kitchen for example is ceiling of about 7 feet.  Noticeable but not a deal breaker.  There is a small room with the laundry machines that you have to go through in order to get to the bathroom and the other bedroom - i'm not kidding when i say this doorway sits at about 5 ft height and the room with laundry machines varies between 5 1/2 feet and 6 feet.  Definitely not comfortable for the average person.  We brought a contractor with us to the walk through per the advice of my mortgage guy.  He said there is no way of truly estimating the cost/extent of how to raise that ceiling and its costs until he pokes a few holes and looks.

I'm not sure i can actually do that until we've bid on the house.  So as a not experienced fixer upper at this point, i was hoping for some advice on the coordination of this - how can i estimate the costs in order to put in a bid, to get a more thorough inspection, etc.  Or would you say just estimate high and hope they accept our bid so we can go in and dig around?

Also - has anyone done this type of ceiling expansion?  there is no second level and its hard to tell by the roof and the age of house, if there was an expansion of part of the house at some point.  

Overall, i'm thrilled with the possibilities of this house and its location - and I really want to evaluate this thoroughly but not sure how to calculate this ceiling/roof situation.

Any thoughts?

Much appreciated!!

Sarah

[Todd Rasmussen]

Hi Sarah,

So I've done best case and worst case scenario's of what you are looking at. First off, I'd call a different contractor. If there is no second level on the home, a contractor should be able to walk and or crawl the attic to see how the ceiling joists are framed from above. There's no reason you can't get a bid for what you are asking for. What's lighting like in the kitchen? If it's the florescent light boxes those are usually framed as a sub structure and it should be relatively inexpensive. Just demo, new lighting and drywall. The more expensive situation would involve potentially having to reframe a portion of your roof/ceiling structure