Could you do a flip? Unless you’re living off the grid, you know that flipping houses is a trend that’s swept the nation. You’ve probably even watched an episode (or 20). From Flip or Flop to Zombie House Flipping, these shows feature rehabbers purchasing an underpriced, sorry-looking home; fixing and upgrading it; and then selling it, hopefully quickly and for a tidy profit, while buyers marvel at the new look. The story is told neatly in under an hour.
You start to feel even you could flip a house. But could you? Follow the stories of two local couples who decided they could.
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Photography by Madeline Isabella Photography
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Photography by Madeline Isabella Photography
Hooked on Home Design
For the Beilers, it wasn’t an intended career trajectory. Chris was a draftsman in solar energy and Claudia, a bus driver. Both Mennonite, they were active at the local youth center in Honey Brook, Pennsylvania. What got them started was their first home. Chris had purchased it, and he and a few other bachelors lived there. After he proposed to Claudia, the couple began to remodel the gross (actually bat-infested) attic for themselves. The plan was to move into it after their honeymoon. Eventually they’d move downstairs.
“We designed the attic to be a place of refuge, of hospitality, where people can live with us if they need to,” says Claudia. Being new to the whole rehab deal, they’d underestimated the time it would take to remodel, especially when their ideas got a little too awesome. While this added beauty, it also added time. Their relatives rushed in to help, and the occupancy permit arrived the day before the wedding.
Despite the stress, they were hooked. “When we saw what we’d accomplished,” explains Claudia, “something burst in our hearts. It just came out of our minds; back then we didn’t even know about Pinterest.” They knew they were onto something when Urban Outfitters came and did a photoshoot there.
Claudia began staging some of the homes Chris was working on with her father. She had to be resourceful; her “$5 budget” was a joke, but it wasn’t that far off. She and Chris went “Goodwilling” and began to see a future where design would be integral to their eventual brand. Enter the Chris & Claude Co. (thechrisandclaudeco.com, on Instagram @thechrisandclaudeco). Claudia sourced home products, designed flipper interiors, and helped Chris find homes with interesting architectural elements to flip, which he was now doing full-time. The company’s first flip was in “a pretty sketchy neighborhood” and took a long nine months, but they saw what the house could become and persevered.
Soon people began asking Claudia to furnish their entire homes. “Because I have no schooling, I feel like I’m still coming up with my philosophy,” admits Claudia. “As I go into the house, I try to let it tell the story.” Whether it’s styled a la the 40s or has original wallpaper or an unusual color scheme, to Claudia these clues are a sacred part of the home, and she wants to honor the original builders and owners. In the Louise Street (Lancaster) home they flipped, Claudia managed to transform the maroon sink and toilet into fun elements by surrounding them with a fresh, spare color scheme.
So far they’ve flipped seven houses with their own crew, mostly in Lancaster City. They diversified, with Chris joining Kingsway Realty as a realty agent. Chris and Claudia now do all of the design, and their crew does everything except for mechanicals like electrical and plumbing.
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Photography by Kinna Shaffer
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A Head Start
In the past seven years, Jeff and Sarah Inch have flipped about 100 houses. But you could say their launch began ahead of the starting line, with some solid York building roots.
Jeff and his brother have owned Inch & Co., a construction company, since 2012. Their grandfather was a custom home builder. Sarah’s father is a carpenter who builds custom kitchens, which helped develop her eye for design early on. But with a degree in marketing, she thought she’d found her career…until Inch & Co. hired her to design their interiors. It was such a good match, six months later she and Jeff were married.
This new exposure to the trades inspired Sarah all over again. Jeff says, “Sarah had a whole portfolio of ideas in her head that she always wanted to put in houses.” When Sarah opened Gray Apple Design, Inch & Co. became one of her first clients (grayapplemarket.com, or on Instagram @grayappledesign). She calls Jeff “the guy who took my passion and made it an LLC.”
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Photography by Kinna Shaffer
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What sped up Gray Apple Design’s flipping business was their in-house crew. They do every single thing. Their typical flip is an efficient 6-8 weeks, shorter than most. And that counts taking a house down to the studs inside and out and rebuilding everything—insulation, drywall, lighting, kitchen, bathroom, porch, roof. Because they do only one or two projects at a time, they put the whole crew on one house whenever possible.
Sarah’s other clients vie for her time too; some want her design input before they even begin building their houses. Because clients were always asking where she’d found certain pieces, it felt natural to open her own retail shop: the adorable Gray Apple Market, just north of York. Now she’s opening a second store, Gray Apple East. Both shops open for the season on March 1, and both reflect Sarah’s trademark modern farmhouse style.
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Photography by Melody Rose Photography
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Doing Life Together
Since their attic flooded once when they were out of town, leaking into every floor, Chris and Claudia remodeled the rest of their home and moved downstairs. They now rent the attic on Airbnb and continue to flip houses. What they love now is that they don’t just see each other in the evenings. “We get to do life together,” says Chris, “and the kids are included. It’s hard to keep work boundaries, but there’s a really fun aspect about doing life with your wife and your family.”
That doesn’t mean it’s without hitches. Once, the boys were in the backyard while the couple was in a meeting. When they went to check on them, they realized the kids had been pouring paint from each can into the other paint cans.
The reward came when their homes began to serve unanticipated purposes: people wanted to use them to teach a class, put on a floral show, or do a lifestyle shoot. “We had over 20 different artists use the Louise Street house,” marvels Claudia. “We don’t want to be just house flippers. We want to build community and spur creativity and beauty.”
The Inches have also found photographers like to use their store and homes for photoshoots, and they’ve discovered their own benefits. Jeff loves working with Sarah: “We laugh a lot and joke around. It does provide a living, but we can work together and spend time as a family.” Their 6-year-old thought up the company name and helps stage the homes. Along with her cousins, she’s opening a kids’ stand: their own mini-Gray Apple called Seedlings. Asked if they would consider being a Chip-and-Joanna-type couple on TV, Jeff and Sarah both said “yes.” (Jeff’s already picked out a potential name: Inch by Inch.)
Chris and Claudia already had their chance. Asked to audition for a flipping show, they made it almost all the way to the pilot. Now, with three boys and an expanded business model, Chris says they’re glad it didn’t work out. “If we had tried to do that on top of everything else, we might have lost our whole business. And besides, Chip & Jo [of HGTV’s Fixer Upper] hit it out of the park.”
