Interview: Dani Widell of Widell Renovations

My mother and I attended the bi-annual Brady Heights Neighborhood home tour in October.  Next to the Designer Showcase, it’s one of our favorite Tulsa events.  This fall, as we made our way from home to home, we heard repeated reference to someone named Dani.  They were referring to Ms. Dani Widell of Widell Renovations.  I later learned that Dani has restored/remodeled close to twenty homes in Tulsa neighborhoods.  I thought, I’ve got to meet his woman!   Shortly after, I reached out to her for an interview.  I was thrilled she agreed.  We met up on an overcast, cold Sunday afternoon at Hodge’s Bend.   Over warm drinks I listened and asked some questions.

This interview has been edited for flow and clarity.

Dani has a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s in Business Administration- so I was very interested in learning how she got into renovation/remodeling business.          

How did this venture begin?

When my husband and I got together, we were at different stages in our lives.  I was working full time in accounting for oil and gas, and getting my masters to further my career.  He was a successful private practice attorney.  After the economic downturn in ’08-’09, he pulled money out of the stock market and let it sit in his bank account; thinking of investing in real estate one day.  When I was busy in the evenings in classes, he started digging into real estate.  Then he started looking at areas he liked and thinking about why they might be a good long-term investment.  He did the initial research.  He is the “thinker”.  Finally, it got down to certain areas…University of Tulsa (TU) area and the areas adjacent to downtown.  At the time, we lived downtown in the Tribune Lofts and downtown was growing and growing and growing.  Guthrie Green was being built, the Brady Arts District was happening and we decided the areas adjacent were going to benefit from that.  We put our eyes on the TU area, Owen Park, Brady Heights and Crosby Heights.  He would find a house and think about it for weeks, articulate why it was a good price, why we should buy it.  He would sell me on it.  Then I’d call…and it would be under contract.  This happened over and over.  So finally, I said, “I’m taking over.  You can’t think about it for three weeks, we have to decide.  We have to look at a house the very first day, and then we decide, there is no sleeping on it for week.

Then they looked at every single house for sale in all three areas in one weekend.  By that time, they were well versed on what homes were selling for at every level of condition. 

The first house we bought was in Owen Park; a small bungalow that had been semi-updated.  But it still had the character we liked, built-ins [bookcases] next to the fireplace.  It was our first rental and we still have it. We decided quickly that we needed to be buying a house that needed some love.  Our strategy turned into “The best street with the worst house.”  We picked our favorite streets.  When a house came up for sale that was a major fixer-upper, we had to make an offer that day.  We made lots of offers that weren’t accepted ‘cause that’s the way things roll.  We’re making conservative offers because we want a good deal.  The second house we bought was in Reservoir Hill; a steep gingerbread [Common small bungalow style in Tulsa].  It was for sale for $40,000.  It needed lots of love.  New heat and air, floors refinished, new kitchen and bathroom.  Fortunately, it was brick, it was cute, and it had a garage which was nice. We offered $20,000 expecting to get it for $30,000 and they accepted our $20,000 offer.  I did most of the work myself.  I hired out the heat and air and electrical.  I turned a breakfast nook into a utility room which was previously in the basement.  The basement stairs were really steep, it was really small.  I did the tile, the backsplash and set kitchen cabinets. 

How did you know how to do those things?  I didn’t, but I Googled things and I was determined.  I refinished the floors myself.  But I’ve never done that again because I only saved a couple hundred dollars doing it myself.  My floor guy is so efficient.  I have to rent the machines for a couple days, but he has his own machines. I learned the value of sweat equity on that one.  The floors turned out beautiful; the kitchen and bathroom are tiled.  It is a large two bedroom, 1350 square feet.  We have had it for years and we have great renters. We got a couple rentals first.  We were renting downtown in the Tribune Lofts, but wanted to move into either Brady Heights or Owen Park.  We kind of thought we would end up in Owen Park, because there are more houses, but fewer two-story houses. 

Dani and her husband bought 1132 N Cheyenne and renovated it for themselves.  That helped them get started and she began flipping one house at a time.  
I got my feet wet.  Turns out I had a good knack for working with old houses.  I started out just doing one at a time, and then for the entire year of 2016 I had at least two houses going at once.  I had to work up to that.  I definitely could not have handled that in the beginning. 

After they got settled in their first home in Brady Heights and had several rentals under belts…

We decided we are going to dig into real estate. We are doing it.  This is our plan, but eventually, it was too stressful for me to do both: working full time and overseeing the real estate.  We started thinking maybe I should start being self-employed.  We switched.  He got a job and then I became self-employed.  It was weird.  It was never a plan of mine.  But my husband said, “I saw how hard you worked for everyone else. I knew you could do it.”  He had all the faith in the world that I could do it and I didn’t.  I said I was unemployed for a year before I said I was self-employed.  I wasn’t confident yet.  I’m a numbers girl; So occasionally I would do the numbers.  If I had my salary for this amount of time, and I flipped this house, or created this much in equity: which was better?  Did I make a good decision?  Should I change my mind? 

On their partnership:

Our rule of thumb is that we have to agree to buy a house or we can’t buy it.  If one does not agree, there is a reason for that, and we just have to go by that.  He might see something I don’t see…Actually, we might have moved past that rule, but it was in place for a long time.  I’ve looked at a house and had the contract ready, just to show him it was a formality, “just sign here, we are buying a house”.

On her approach to restoration/renovation:

Some people will make a pretty kitchen but not address the infrastructure issues.  But I do both, I make a pretty kitchen and address issues.  My houses have updated plumbing and electrical.  Because I want someone to feel comfortable. There are some things I am really particular about…like back splashes.  They are right at eye level. I want them to be perfect, so I do that myself.  I’m also particular about the height of mirrors being hung.  It’s easier for me to do it.  I hung mirrors yesterday in a bathroom.  I’m particular about pulls in cabinets.

What are some of the challenges you face working with these old houses?

Old houses all have the same problems.  It’s like… laundry can be an issue, closets are always an issue, sometimes flow is an issue and the bathrooms can be an issue, so you just got to start with those basics.  Before I buy a house, I list all the problems and figure out if it is within my budget to solve them. And if it is, I can do it and I buy the house.  It boils down to the budget, and it boils down to making a house that someone wants, because obviously, they all have problems.  Sometimes, it’s a weird tradeoff.  If I can’t make a coat closet like I want to, it doesn’t work.  I’ll do this built-in bench and some hooks, and make a little mud room.  It’s not walled in so you can’t hide your umbrella, but it’s a place to put your umbrellas. I’ve gotten pretty good at making, if not the traditional solution, a solution.  Nobody wants laundry in a basement, but nobody wants to see their laundry either, so I’ve done doors that enclose a washer/dryer but I have a butcher blocker block counter top so you still have a counter top space for extra space if you are having a party.

All the houses she has renovated are listed by ‘names’ on her website.  My family always names our homes so I was very interested in how the naming came about. 

Have you always named your houses and how do they get named?  
I didn’t in the beginning.  The first house we bought, that was kind of updated already, we called it the Xenophon House for the street it is on.  I didn’t do much work on it, so the street name just stuck.  I do name the houses I remodel.  For me, and from an accounting standpoint, it’s the numbers.  But I’ve worked on a lot of houses on Denver and Cheyenne so the numbers alone don’t always work.  Some of them, I didn’t name but I took on someone else’s name.  Like one of my rental properties is called the Meteor House, and one of my neighbor’s sons, he is about 10 years old, called it that “cause it had a lot of holes in it”.  My husband and I called it the ‘falling down house’, or the ‘barely a house’ in the beginning.  It needed a lot, new siding, new windows, decking, new kitchen, new HVAC but the one thing it had was original wood floors throughout the entire house.  That is 25 thousand dollars.  I’m buying it for 10K.  I’m basically buying it for the land.  The neighbor told me her son called it the meteor house, like a meteor shower hit it, and I said done.  We can call it that.

First Love

1132 N Cheyenne

The first house we put a contract on had been for sale for about three hours.  It needed a kitchen and bathroom.  It didn’t scare me because I could handle the kitchen and go from there.  We weren’t going to live there during the work. The hardwood floors were nice, it needed a little paint, but the rooms were nice, the layout was nice, it felt open.  The staircase was painted, so we did refinish the stairs. I opened up space between kitchen and dining room with a large cased opening.    We hired everything out because I was working and it was our personal home, but I am a little ocd so I would come in the morning, sometimes a lunch and in the afternoon I would check on in it.  Eventually, it was driving me a little crazy.  It got finished and it was good. We said we were never going to leave-we loved that house.

The Piano House

1140 N Cheyenne

The front porch columns were missing at the Piano House.  Parts of them were in the basement so I knew the size and dimension.  I could replicate them because I had templates.  But the porch was being held up by temporary posts with finish nails, so if you would have leaned on them they would have collapsed.  We didn’t know that initially.  We had to add bracing and get the columns up.  There were still brick bases, but I had to get approval for the replication of the columns.  They needed the exact measurements and I just had pieces. 

Take-Two

1151 North Cheyenne

Take Two was the second house we lived in and had planned to keep.  When we bought this one, it was the worst on the block.  It went up for sale for $120,000.  I could see there was a lot there- it was on a double lot, had a garage apartment- so I said, “let’s go look at it”.  We did…it was missing some flooring and the bathrooms were not functional, there was standing water in the basement.  Someone had attempted to fix a basement wall that was collapsing and had accidentally gotten some pieces of concrete in the floor drain- so the basement was holding water.  (I fixed all of these problems) But it was really bad.  You could be in the basement and see the sky through the second story.  My husband said absolutely not, but I loved it.   It had coffered ceilings, it was still a duplex, the upstairs had remnants of a kitchen.  I combined what was a small kitchen and bathroom to make a master bedroom.  There was a wall separating the upstairs from the downstairs.  The stairs had to be repaired because they had been chopped off.  Over a year, the price went to 100, 90, 80 and when it got to 80 I said if it gets to 60 we’re offering 55 cash.  Three months later...it dropped to 60, I called him and said I’m going to buy a house for 55k today.  So we did.  We were just going to flip it. It was labor of love to save a house.  In a couple of years, it would have collapsed.  Someone had had the house under contract, they were going to do a construction loan but the whole thing got everyone nervous.  It got the bank nervous and they were going to require even more money down and so they just painfully had to back out. Getting a new roof stopped the bleeding, because it was raining inside the house, killing the floors. As the project progressed, my husband fell in love with the house.  He said “I really want to move into that house, I just love it”.  We put our house for sale by owner to test the waters.   That would help us decide if that would be good decision for us.  We had only lived in our house a year and half and had put about 35 grand cash into that house.  I said “If we can’t get our money back and more, it doesn’t make sense too”.  He definitely got a scolding, I said next time we get a house we are going to talk about why we are or aren’t going to move into the house.   Because if we live in the house there are definitely things we would have done differently.  

(In Take-two they installed “crazy awesome surround sound” throughout the house.  But in doing so, they had to tear out the kitchen ceiling after it was finished.) 
We sold our house in four days.  We did a long closing, so it was ready for use to move in.  Since then, we have come to the realization though that we probably aren’t completely married to a house, and I love all old houses, so it kind of easy for me to re-fall in love with a house.

On The Ballroom House

1140 N. Denver

The house we just moved into we owned nine months to a year before I started it.  I was backlogged.   I fell in love with it thirty seconds after I walked in the door.  We didn’t even make it to the second floor or the basement and I said, “I’m pretty sure we are buying a house today.”  It is the most original house I’ve ever seen.  It’s a craftsman style, built post-depression when oil and gas was booming.  It was built by an oil and gas company.  It is grand, with a gorgeous sun room, original butler’s pantry, and a back porch with original ice box delivery door.  We fell in love with it, beautiful coffered ceilings, the original upstairs bathroom, swirled textured walls.   Every single window in the entire house is original.  I added a restored 1920’s chandelier. 

You don’t have a design background, but your houses are beautiful- where do you get your inspiration?

I go on-line; Pintrest is great, Houzz is okay, I know a lot of people love Houzz but I think it is for more modern style.  Often I just google 1920’s bathroom and just look at images.  My approach to design has always been to keep with the bones of the house and to be period appropriate.  Ninety percent of my bathrooms are going to have hexagon tile or marble basket weave tile because, in 20 years, it’s still going to fit the house.  If someone else buys the house and they get older and they are not able to update it, it’s still going to look ok. It’s almost neutral.  Yes, if it doesn’t stand out to you, you have nailed it.  The look should be cohesive.  The same thing in my kitchens, I always, always, always do a shaker style kitchen cabinet.  It’s been cycled in and out of use for 100 years and so it is timeless. It is like a little black dress for your house. 

On subway tile…

I love white subway tile, it’s classic, its timeless and simple.  I have done a glass subway tile to mix it up, but I love the white subway tile.

What about the grout?  I used to use pearl gray for a long time.  The last few years I’ve gone to charcoal- the black version.  It just really pops. The other thing is that grout- you should seal it every few years, but not everybody knows that- so from a long-term stand point, it’s always going to look black.  Like, if you think of a commercial bathroom and if it had brown grout, and the path where people walk it, it is black.  If you just start with black, it’s always going to look black.  I try to think about the fact that not everyone is good with maintenance, so I try to make it work as well as new construction can.

What is it like renovating/restoring old homes in a neighborhood that has a historic preservation overlay?

It’s a challenge.  I support having the historic preservation (hp) commission and the logic behind it.  It is protecting our houses; however, the commission changes.  Two of the positions are appointed by the mayor and then there’s different disciplines, a real estate professional, an architect, engineer, landscaper and a general contractor.  My frustration with it is that the guidelines are very left open to interpretation, so depending on the day, or who showed up to that meeting...  Now keep in mind I’ve been very successful at getting things approved, but sometimes they’d beat me up before they approved me. I’m thankful it’s there because it does keep people from doing something that would ruin the historic character of the neighborhood.  The commission is mostly concerned with the exterior of the house, what can you see from the street.  They don’t govern detached structures like carriage houses or garages.  There are lots of rules.  I haven’t read them word for word but I know them pretty well.  You can’t paint unpainted brick or stone, because you are removing that original character.  If it’s been painted already, paint away.  I’ve had houses where the brick was painted, it was blue, and I repainted it a red brick color.  I tried to play up on what the original look would have been. 

Are there any Tulsa homes that intrigue you? 

I absolutely love big old mansions.  When the Brady Mansion came up for sale, my realtor said we have got to go see it.  We did a preview.  It’s the coolest house…so many different sitting rooms, lots of formal spaces, beautiful staircase…

Do you watch HGTV?

Oh yes, I love it!  There are certain things I’m like, I feel their pain!  There are other things where I’m like, that’s totally not how that happens!  I appreciate and make fun of it. Rehab Addict was my favorite, everything about what she did was so real, so true, so accurate.  I loved that.  I also really love the Property Brothers.  I like that the Property Brothers do so many different of houses.  Even if I don’t do modern, I like to see what they use.  I know a lot of people really love Chip and Joanna Gaines show.  Joanna’s style is always consistent, but I know people say that about me too.  I have a style, if you do not like my style…..

Are you going to keep doing this?  
Yes and no. I plan to sit for the certified public accountant(cpa) exam at some point.  I don’t want to lose my first career skills.  Eventually I want a little bit of both.  I can’t flip houses for the rest of my life.  It’s physical, I cut my finger and get splinters all the time.  My plan eventually is to go back into public accounting, but I’d like to flip a house a year.  In the beginning I didn’t have as much knowledge, relationships, and all the houses under my belt.  Now I have all these good relationships with guys that know exactly how I do things.  I have a house under contract south of piano house.  It’s a hot mess.  It has some title issues, so I’m working on that right now.

Photography credit to Widell Renovations, Tulsa People

Editing credit to Walter Foddis and P. Casey Morgan.