When I was attending college in Cupertino 20 years ago, I was renting a room guest room in a single family home for $550~$650/month with utilities included. The house was shared with 3 other tenants and the landlord. I believed I lived through at least 5 of these setups. Fast forward 5 years later, my sister and I moved into another SFR in Los Angeles that was also shared with landlord and tenants. However, the landlord cleverly segregated the SFR into 3 separate units with each of its own private entrances, bathrooms, and kitchenette. We rented a 2B/1B with a tiny kitchenette area for $980/month and utilities included. The whole space is probably less than 300 SF, which comfortably accommodated 2 people at that time.
In the back of my head, I somehow need to do this in the future.
Fast forward 8 years later, I finally bought a condo in LA. I retained the tenant since he was already leasing the guest ensuite, which helped me transition to house hacking smoothly. The monthly helped to offset the high HOA cost at that time. However, there were also inconveniences room-mating with non-family members: refrigerator arrangement, utility bills, noises, parking, and cleanliness. As I grew older, my need for personal space became top of my list; I never had the luxury to enjoy it through college and early stage of my career. Once I sold my condo, I began to work on SFH house hacking with private space. The next house I bought had 1000SF of interior space with 2B/1B setup. I thought the 1000SF was overkilled for a 2B/1B setup. Here's the original layout:
My goal was to design 3 separate guest suites with 3 private entrances, while living in one of them. Here is the checklist:
3 x Bathrooms
3 x Private Entrances
3 x Guest Suites
1 x Kitchen
The existing layout already had 2 entrances leading to kitchen and living room. Therefore, we just needed one more entrance. I re-designed the layout without touching structuring engineering and capitalized on existing layout:
We added the following:
French window door for the private entrance (red circle)
One new bathroom in the living room
New walls with doors to separate the 3 guest suites (green circle)
Make sure to use exterior doors and interior wall insulation to sound proof
Three mini splits HVAC installed for each room
It took us about 4 months to renovate the project. Once the project is said and done, I lived in the living room unit as I am more used to open studios. In this setup, everyone gets their own private suites and private entrances, which is great! I didn't have to deal with common space issue as each area has their own appliances such as mini frig, microwave, and cooktop. Based on this setup, I was able to generate $2000~$2200 a month from the other 2 suites to cover my mortgage at that time.
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