Hi everyone, welcome to my first House Flipper blog post... This also means this is my first flip! Yay!
The selected property is Camping Bungalow, a relatively small home with less than 40sqm.
Let's transform this Small House into a Contemporary Office!
I generated a design brief specifically for one of the game's buyers: Dolan Trusk, the businessman.
This blog post will be organised as below:
Cleaning, Prepping, Zoning
I think the original layout offered the best use of space, therefore no demolition is required. Now get your hard hat on and start flipping!
I often start the design via architectural zoning.
In simple terms, it's identifying the rooms and assigning them to either the public, semi-public, or private zones.
The purpose of this exercise is to prevent cross-circulation. For instance, you wouldn't want guests to walk through your bedroom (private) just to access the living room (public).
According to the wiki page, Dolan only requires an office and a bedroom. Living room, kitchen, and dining are optional but let's be decent and give him at least a multi-functional room for his daily rewind after work.
The Office, a place for business.
I imagined he'd have clients coming to his house for all the potential business collaborations. This means the office is a public zone i.e. the closest to the main entry.
The main furniture of the office? The office desk, of course! Here I positioned the desk to allow Dolan to supervise the outside. Now he has a splendid view while working, but also eyes on the street to spot approaching clients!
P/S I feel like in-progress photos might explain my concept better than the end product. But let me know what you think!
Next up, bookshelves. I made use of the tall bookshelves to segregate the office from the rest of the property. This is because full-height walls would make a space even tighter than it already is, particularly for a small home like Camping Bungalow.
While trying to make space for a painting so that he looks expensive... I have a sudden idea. How about a reading corner?!
I chose a round armchair, a contrast to the surrounding geometric furniture to soften the hard edges. Then I found a carpet with a pattern and colour that matched the painting... Like a painting!
Hmm... What? It's a bad joke? Well uh... Moving on!
Bathroom, what a dilemma
I struggled with whether to classify the bathroom as a public or private zone.
On one side, it's a private area because that's where you shower.
On the other hand, the client may need to use the toilet too. You wouldn't want the client to see the mess of a shower either, such as the wet towel and hair clogging the drain (LOL and ewww).
It's illogical to have 2 bathrooms for a tiny real estate either... So the solution?
A powder room with direct access to shower!
A powder room consisted of only the hand basin and toilet. A sliding door is installed to access the shower. This way, Dolan can simply close the door during his work hours to hide all his shower mess!
Multi-functional Room, the Space after Work
Our next semi-public space is the multi-functional room. This is the place where Dolan rewinds after work, ie relaxes, eats, and does whatever he wishes to! That said, this is a mixture of living room, kitchen, dining, and hobby room.
The furniture is the bare minimum: a TV, armchair/sofa, kitchen sink and dining benchtop.
Long bench tops are my favourite. Since the game doesn't have one, I improvised by using long shelves! I stretched this "benchtop" from the kitchen sink as a dining "table", and lastly as a TV console.
I placed the dining chair directly in front of the window so that Dolan gets a view while eating! How lovely!
The Bedroom, the only private space in the house.
The typical design is to provide a bed and a wardrobe or dresser.
The purpose of design is to cater for the user's needs.
Dolan is a businessman wearing the typical suit and tie, meaning he needs hanging spaces. This leads to the obvious: he needs a large wardrobe. No dresser!
Put yourself in Dolan's expensive shoes. What's his daily routine like, after waking up?
Yup, he also needs a full-length mirror to get dressed for work. Appearances matter; first impression is key to securing lucrative business deals!
Now that the architectural bits are done...
Here comes Interior Design, the Sibling of Architecture
To be honest, not much to comment on here. Interior isn't my strong suit, though I have opinions on the following...
Accent walls. It's boring to have walls all of the same colour. A simple treatment to one of the walls is all it takes to detract the eyes from the plain surroundings.
This house is underwhelmed by Dolan's love for white walls. I created points of interest via a feature wall of brick wall lining.
I used the same material for every room's accent wall. This provides a sense of continuity in design ie each feature wall has the same brick material, both at the interior and exterior of the building!
To the Outdoors We Go!
Remember, we're transforming a tiny home into a modern office.
With this aesthetic in mind, I decided to clad the external walls with vertical metal sheeting, colour black. It matches the professional look, and matches the doors and windows!
There's part of the building that slightly steps in. I see such nooks as a potential for feature walls. Yup, you guessed it right... It's the same brick material!
A feature wall without any purpose is just another wall.
To give meaning to this brick wall, I envisioned this the weekend getaway nook: your typical Sunday of barbecue grill by the lounges.
Architecturally speaking, I think the building form is decent for a small real estate... except for the front. Why? It's flat. Like, LITERALLY FLAT. A building needs a form to accentuate the entrance, be it something that protrudes out or steps in.
After tablet shopping for millennia, I accidentally came across this pergola. Which is perfect to create "the form that protrudes out"!
Architectural facade design tip: asymmetrical to create interesting focal points.
Finally, let's dive into another sibling of architecture:
Garden and Landscape Design
Honestly? Landscape design isn't my strong suit either LOL. Looking at the game's garden types, I decided to go with the modern garden because... Apparently, it's the easiest one to score too? Bigger LOL!
Landscape comprised of hardscape and softscape. I created stepping stones from the front gate to the door and created a secondary path to the rest of the garden.
The site perimeter is lined with garden beds of gravel and decorative plants. I planted tall hedges to separate the public garden from Dolan's Sunday garden.
And... That's it, I guess? :P
Lessons Learned...
The office is a bit uncomfortable to manoeuvre around. In hindsight, I should be more generous with the floor area, considering this is the real estate's selling point.
If I could redo the design, I would reconfigure the multi-functional area and bedroom. These two rooms would benefit from more efficient use of space, particularly with the furniture placement.
Last but not least, I ignored the crux of House Flipper: radiators. I personally never see a radiator, let alone use one. Even though the buyers don't comment specifically about these appliances, they seem to pay more if you have radiators installed. So... Remember to incorporate radiators into your design!
Flipping, Selling and Profiting
Before selling to Dolan Trusk, I conducted quick research and as expected, small properties like this have a relatively low-profit margin.
My advice for flipping a small house for a profit? Spend your money on the garden! I tidied up the garden, installed the radiators... and it's ready. I pulled out my tablet to participate in the modern garden competition. Here's the result:
Not too bad for a first attempt, I suppose? 30% is pretty good! :P
Now, the dreaded moment... auctioning the house. Drum rolls, please...
Here's the evidence of why House Flipper players should put more effort into the landscape. Even though it's 13 thousand profit, 12 thousand of it is from the garden contest alone. I'll do the maths for you: that's a whopping lion's share of 92%!!
I tried negotiating with Dolan Trusk and... it's not successful LOL. So I'm changing Dolan's description:
He's all money at the front, stingy at the back and rude upfront.
For your convenience, below are his positive opinions of the design:
What's next?
I've recorded my flipping process and edited it to reflect most of the above. This video is uploaded to my YouTube channel, so feel free to watch, support and comment!
Thanks for reading and see you again!
Disclaimer:
All the published media are my in-game screenshots of House Flipper. Kindly contact mypassion.mythoughts should you wish to use any of the published media.