Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah and Chayce Wilson.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Hannah and Chayce. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
We began our journey together early on in our lives, saying our vows at the age of eighteen and twenty-one; I had just completed high school and Chayce was finishing up college. At the time, we both lived in a small town and worked full-time jobs in order to make ends meet. After four years, Chayce built what we thought was our dream home and it looked like we were ready to settle in for the long haul. But pretty soon after we moved in, something didn’t feel right. Was this it? Were we ready to just hunker down and start cranking out babies? I remember the day Chayce came home, looked me in the eyes and said, “We’re too young for this, life’s too short. Let’s get the heck outta here!” Almost in the same breath, we had the house sold, along with most of our possessions, quit our jobs and moved to Nottingham, England! Huzzah! Pip pip, cheerio, and all that rot!
During that year, Chayce got his MA at the University of Nottingham and I continued my education through distance courses back home. Through our year abroad, we experienced multiple cultures, made lifelong friends and at one point traveled to 13 different countries in the span of twenty-five days (that’s basically a country every other day or so…yah, not for the faint of heart)! This was probably one of the most enlightening, enjoyable and exhausting years of our lives.
After returning home from ‘across the pond,’ we spent a brief three months in Malibu, California. Chayce had a full scholarship to get his second MA at Pepperdine, and we were intending to be there long term to build our real estate business—Chayce’s background was in land development and he had also been renovating homes since high school. However, due to life-altering circumstances, we returned to the place that holds our hearts most—the great state of Texas. We now reside in the wonderful city of Dallas. (Our brief few months in Cali were amazing and we hope to move back two years from now…)
And here we are today. Living in the bustling metropolis of D-town, where the temperatures are hot and the housing market is even hotter. We quit our jobs to pursue home renovation full time and Chayce is currently pursuing an MBA while I begin a second design degree (this time in architecture). Along with flipping houses, we also offer online design consultation for clients that may need a little help. One of the many things that we’ve learned through our 12 years of marriage is that life is too short not to do what you love—or at least not to attempt to do what you love.
There are certain things in life that just come naturally to you and just feel right; you don’t mind waking up early to pursue them and when you’re doing them, you lose track of time. These are what we call our passions, and when we are busy perfecting and cultivating them, we find true fulfillment and create some of our best work! For Chayce and I, we believe home renovation and designing creative spaces are a big part of that, and it took us over a decade of life together to figure that out. We take something bland, forgettable, even disgusting and breathe life back into it in order to create, sometimes from the ground up, something entirely new, beautiful and lasting. It’s kinda a good metaphor for life too… So that’s what we’re going to do. Just as we’ve done many times before, we left behind that which was comfortable, practical and what ‘made sense’ to see if we could find a different way–whatever happens, it’s sure to get interesting!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Fifteen years ago when Chayce flipped his first home as a senior in high school, we had yet to see the house flipping craze brought on by HGTV. There was a lot less competition, and discounted homes could easily be snatched up. Today, however, with the real-estate market as hot as it is (especially in Dallas) and the high prices for even starter homes, it has been challenging to find those discounted properties. You really have to have an edge in this game in order to be able to find good deals and jump on them before someone else does. This also means that you need to have a pretty robust and efficient capital structure to finance these deals quickly — in other words, you need lots of cash. Four years ago, we were new to the Dallas market and had to start building a reliable and trustworthy team of contractors from scratch. We definitely made our share of painful mistakes but hopefully, we’ve learned from these and are much further along today because of them. Those three issues — finding deals, having fast cash, and building quality team — have probably been the most challenging issues.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Blank Slate Renovations is home renovation company that specializes in full house remodels. My husband and I built this business from scratch and are continuing to scale each year. Although our main focus is on flipping houses, we’ve worked with many clients on smaller remodels and I utilize my skills as a designer by offering online design consultation services. Through the past four years, we’ve worked to up our social media game (specifically Instagram) and have gained business and had our projects shared on multiple platforms because of this. We strongly believe in the value and importance of social media and continue to pour much of our time and resources into this.
Although there are hundreds of investors and “flippers” out there doing things similar to us, we keep trying to develop and hone our edge. For one, we are both pretty young and yet have 15 plus years of experience (Chayce flipped his first home back in 2003 as a senior high school). Second, we’re sold out to this game; this isn’t a hobby or something we do on the side for extra income — it’s our future and we’ll do whatever it takes to make it work. Thirdly, due to Chayce’s experience as a realtor and contractor and my degree in interior design, we believe we’ve been able to take our business to the next level by keeping up with the current trends and leveraging social media to partner with bigger name companies.
What were you like growing up?
Me: I grew up in a large family with six brothers and two sisters…yah, you heard that right. There were nine of us! Although I have no desire raise an army of my own, I am forever grateful my parents were able to make it through because each and every one of my family members are truly by bestest friends. As a kid, I loved being outdoors, running, playing softball, horseback riding and creatively re-designing my room about every six months or so. My dad was a self-employed window treatment installer and I grew up going to work with him. Because of this, I was exposed to designers, workrooms and all things “residential design” from a young age. Although I’ve always had and love for creative spaces I had no idea I’d one day practice it as a profession. By the time I graduated high school, I worked in retail for another five years and l gained several more design skills through staging and merchandising product. In the end, it wasn’t until my late twenties when I decided to go back to school and get a degree in interior design. Through that process — as well as officially starting Blank Slate — I discovered by strongest passion was for architecture, so I am currently going BACK to school part-time in hopes of eventually getting licensed. At the end of the day, as long as I can practice creativity through interior or architectural design, it doesn’t matter where I go or who I work for, I’ll be a happy camper.
Chayce: Chayce grew up in a very entrepreneurial family and was heavily influenced by his dad, a real estate developer. From high school onwards, he was always dabbling in real estate as a side hustle, but it wasn’t until 2016, after our travels around the world, that he settled down and realized he wanted to do real estate investment full-time. He spent a bit of time previously in the wealth management field, which is something he’d like to continue to grow into — hence his current MBA pursuits at UTD.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.blankslatereno.com
- Email: hannahjoy08@yahoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blankslatereno/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blankslaterenovations/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/blankslatereno
- Other: https://www.blankslatereno.com/blog
Image Credit:
Mia Blessinger
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