The Story of Home

If you’ve ever made changes to your home, you know that it can feel like a giant hairball. The process of buying and then renovating my first time was hard.

The decisions were endless. And not just decisions, but judgment calls. What needs to happen first, which expert to trust, where to save vs. splurge, when to say no, when to say go: all those questions buzzed in my head while trying to get the work done on time and within budget. Plunging in to learn through trial and error, I took deep dives into niche industries and applied the knowledge – then rinsed and repeated.

I thought to myself – how do people do this just once and not totally lose their s&%t?

I started a business with my husband, Chris, about 10 years ago investing in residential real estate, then renovating it and re-selling it. 

I’ve learned a lot of things, but here’s the biggest one: when those renovation realities obscure the big goal, it’s easy to forget why you’re there in the first place. But you’ve got to remember that it’s all about the story.  The story of home, where people meet place.

We found our way to real estate development through our own home search. We were looking for all those factors that make the Venn diagram of HOME – town, schools, cost, transportation, urban vs. suburban, walkability, neighborhood and The House.

Chris and I are both crazy about houses. We wanted to know the history of the house, the neighborhood, its context, and why certain types of houses were built in this particular place at this particular time. We looked in just about every town within 495 in Boston, and quite a few outside it. We were intrepid open-housers, daytripping here and there, even once witnessing a very slow police chase on foot lumber past my pregnant belly (I said we were thorough). Material and labor costs started to interest us because we saw so many places that had been fixed up badly. We wondered: how hard can it be to do this better?

We were soon to find out. The answer was: pretty hard. Our first property was a University of Renovation including courses on real estate agents, flooding, finishes, contractors, designers, cabinetmakers, tile, zoning, neighbors, timelines and poverty. We also had two little kids.  

Picking up our scrappy lessons we moved on to one project and another. 

Flash forward to about 10 projects later (and one more kid). We started answering questions here and there, giving advice about aspects of the planning, investment, renovation and design. It seemed like the obvious move to make putting homeowners in the driver’s seat official, and Perch was born.

Some of those questions people have for me:

► Can we buy this house and afford the renovation it needs?

► What do you mean, what’s my budget – how much will it cost?

► Do I need an architect?

► What should I do to prepare for selling this house? And what’s that going to take?

► Why is this contractor’s bid so different from the other one?

The same thing is true now – all that information we’ve earned over the years can help with that darn story. The story of home, where people meet place.