Author: Jeff Fox

2018 Year In Review

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This is the time of year where we get to look back and reflect on all that has happened in the past year including our triumphs, our challenges and our blessings.  First, I a grateful to God for my health, my amazing family, and for a community of friends that I get to work alongside and share life with.  I don’t take these things for granted, and I look forward to another year serving and having adventures with the community I have been blessed with.  I love my life, my family, and am thankful for our journey!  Its not always perfect, or easy, but life does not promise a path without obstacles and challenges.  My family is learning that our only true anchor is our faith in Christ, with whom our only true peace can be found.  It would not trade any part of this journey, and I look forward to what is ahead with great excitement.

I have truly enjoyed growing my real estate team The Fox Group this year!  We gained two awesome agents this year in Susanne Reh and Jamie Patrick.  Both women are incredibly gifted and have a way of caring for their clients that is so rare.  Now as a team of 4 (with Tripp Howell and I as well), we love how our different gifts balance each other out and bring out the best in us!  We also have a lot of fun together, which makes work a blast!  We worked with 53 buyers and sellers this year helping them meet their goals and pursue their dreams!  We continually feel it is about the people we serve, and we strive to continually focus how we can truly meet needs in our community.  Its amazing as we serve with an open heart, how it comes back to us in numerous ways.

Its been fun to continue to give back as well.  Some of the key organizations we have supported financially this year include The Neighborhood Rehab Project, Rocky Mountain Police Chaplaincy, Leadership Golden, Emmanne Ministries, FCA at School of Mines, Solid Rock Foundation in the Dominican Republic, World Vision and more…  Giving is a driver for all of us and helps fill in the “why” behind what we do on a daily basis.

As far as personal adventures and goals, its been a fun one.  I got to travel to Kenya again in Feb to continue our work with an orphanage there called The Emmanne Children’s Home.  We were finally able to build a permanent home for our kids, which will also help us house more orphans in the community in the coming years as well!! We have also have begun to help in the schools resourcing and equipping teachers (Thank you Jill Fortney), and helping with economic development and job creation in the community of Theri.  I will head back again this Jan to continue this work with my friend and American director Matthew Bachali.

 

 

In March, I was able to knock of a bucket list item by skiing The Grand Traverse Ski Race from Crested Butte, CO to Aspen, CO.  Its a 40 mile backcountry ski race over the Elk Mountains.  My ski buddy Zach and I finished strong, though the race had to be diverted due to avalanche danger.  I will be doing this race again this year with my brother in law Jeff Dykstra.

 

In September, Leslie and I finished our fixer upper we called the FOXERUPPER in downtown Golden.  We bought an old run down historic home in the heart of Golden and spent a year fixing it up and bringing it back to life.  If was a really fun project for us and we love how it turned out!!

 

In May I completed a year long Leadership Golden course in the city of Golden.  It was an awesome way to learn about all the little details in how a city runs and serves its people.   I am currently now on the steering committee for Leadership Golden helping plan and organize future classes.

In October I knocked off another bucket list adventure by running the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim with my brother in law Jeff Dykstra and friend Dave Chase.  It was a brutal 22 miles, with about 6k feet of decent and 7k feet of climbing back out, but we loved every minute of it!!

Looking forward to what this year holds!!!  Bring it on 2019!

 

 

Classy 3-4 Bedroom Arvada Home

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11941 W 60th Ave  Arvada, CO  MLS#5794804  $459,900

11941 WEST 60TH AVENUE Arvada-large-003-3-Exterior Front Entry-1500x1000-72dpiThis home is a well cared for 4 bedroom home with den on a beautiful lot in great condition! This home has lots of living space including a large family room addition with vaulted ceilings, fireplace and wet bar. The kitchen has granite countertops, wood floors and spacious eating space. The living room includes a wood burning fireplace and opens to a den.

See Virtual Tour

The upstairs has 3 large bedrooms with wood floors, with dormers in two bedrooms and a full bath. The finished basement has one non-conforming bedroom or craft room, living space and laundry room. Crown moulding, custom woodwork and more. The beautiful landscaped yard has a trex patio area and room to roam. The expanded garage has electric baseboard heat, cabinets, storage and more.   Updated electrical panel, newer furnace, hot water heater, with new sewer line in 2015. Close to schools, parks, shopping and more in a great central Arvada location. 

Foxer-Upper: The Grand Reveal

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After a year of planning, permits, reviews, demo and reconstruction, we have finally finished our Foxer-Upper project.  This has truly been a labor of love. Not only are we thrilled with the final product, but we had a blast working with so many great people in Golden along the way!!  We want to give a shout out to DT Construct and Ewers Architecture for their leadership and visionary thinking in making this project happen.

 

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We are also grateful for all the sub-contractors who were so vital to the success of this renovation. We personally want to thank Eric Olricksen with Sovoco Hydronics who did all of our plumbing, Tony Ortiz with Community Mechanical for HVAC, Bryan Vandenbark of Basic Electric who did all of our electrical work, Jared Robinson and Sons Flooring for their amazing work restoring our old wood floors, Ozzie and RJI for siding and roofing and Denver Concrete for the concrete work.

We are also grateful to so many friends for their help along the way, from hauling bags of trash into dumpsters, to demo work, to painting, flooring, or barn doors. This was truly a community effort.

The best part of the last two months of work was seeing many of the old parts of the house come back to life, from the old doors, to the exposed  brick to the flooring, to all the old wood we put back into the home that we removed in Demo.

The relationships formed with our contractors as we worked along side them was a highlight, as well as the countless conversations with neighbors who stopped by and wanted to chat about the transformation.

There were a few days we were not sure this day would come, but how fulfilling to see how it all came together in the end. We are grateful!

Off to our next adventure.  Peace out 912 Arapahoe!

Jeff and Leslie Fox

Foxerupper-Rebuilding

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Now that the permits are in place, the rebuilding can begin!  We first had to continue to demo the structure and take off the old roof and ceiling as well as make some improvements to the foundation to support a second story.  This is where is crucial for us to hire a professional contractor and architect that knew how to deal with historic homes.  Ewers Architecture and DT Construct were masterful at putting the plans together to rebuild correctly.

It was fun to see the old wood and original lines of the home as we tore off the roof.  We also found even more brick than we thought.

Basically brick was added in the addition of the home in the late 1800’s, with the original cabin being just timber.  Usually its the opposite so it was a unique find.  Much of the old timber was local, as the railroad was not fully in place when construction began in 1867.

As the ceiling was rebuilt and the second story grew, it was fun to see how many of the windows incorporated Golden views perfectly.  The second story basically added a bedroom,  office, walk in closet, and master bathroom along with a porch of the master overlooking the foothills.  Most of the window frames had to be rebuilt as well in the downstairs during this phase as well.  The old insulation was removed, the walls were reinforced and prepared for new siding.  Patios were poured, and the back laundry addition and master suite patio were put in place.

Both the plumbing and electrical had to be torn out and started over as well.  The home had old nob and tube wiring, along with sawdust for insulation.  Talk about a fire hazard!  We also had brick masons in to restore certain areas of the brick in the kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms.  We love the brick and are excited to see how it comes together when everything is finally complete.

We are  now heading into the final faze.  Siding is being put on, drywall is going up, floors are being restored…

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The next blog and video will show the final steps to completion.  What a fun project.

Jeff Fox

Foxerupper-Demolition

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Once we got the home cleaned out, we began to meet with an Architect (Ewers Architecture) and a contractor (DT Construct) to draw up plans for the future of 912 Arapahoe.

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Once we had initial plans, we set up a meeting with the historic board in Golden.  Because our home was 150 years old, and fell within the historic district, we had to get the approval of the historic board before we could move forward.  Thankfully, the historic board accepted our plans and we were able to move forward.  We then submitted the detailed plans to the city of Golden.  Once we got approval, work began in earnest.

We recruited as many friends and family we could and began the dirty work of demo.  Considering the age and condition of the home there was a lot to do.  We took down walls, removed the old kitchen, ripped out lots of lath and plaster, peeled up old flooring, exposed the old plumbing and electrical, tore down the old back porch etc.

It was fun to see what was behind the walls and in the attic of this old home!  The next phase will be starting the rebuild process!!

 

Foxerupper “The Vision”

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Last October we stumbled upon an opportunity we could not pass up.  We call it our Foxer-Upper because our last name is Fox, and it is also the name of my real estate team, The Fox Group.  DSC_0346As things go in Golden, you have to jump if an opportunity presents itself, as they are few and far between.  We love downtown Golden and have been on the hunt for something in the historic district where we would have easy access to downtown, Clear Creek, and all the fun trails Golden has to offer.

We purchased a property right off 10th St. and Arapahoe.  It was in rough shape to put it nicely.  My wife would not even go inside at first, but as we talked it though, this was our best chance to get into downtown Golden.  The home was in poor shape, had lots of stuff left inside.

We got some friends together and went to town cleaning out the inside of the home.  Three 30 yard dumpsters later, the house was finally empty and we could begin to envision what its future looked like.

As we began to do some research, we first confirmed that the original home was indeed 150 years old, with an addition put on about 10 years after that.  The foundation was actually in great shape, and the home had a decent basement space as well.  As we began to dig into walls, we quickly discovered that there was brick on the back half of the home, and even in the kitchen.

This was a delightful  surprise, as we had had no idea at the time of purchase.  At the same time, it became clear that this would need to be a full gut job.  We needed new electric, plumbing, drywall, window framing and much more.  We did discover the wood floors that were about 80 years old, that we thought we could salvage as well.

In the blog to come, we will describe the steps we have taken to bring this home back to life, from demolition, to re-visioning, to the remodel phase, and finally the finished product.  We have documented it all with pictures and video in order to capture as much of the process as we could.  We are excited to tell the story.

Jeff Fox

Building Relationships of Trust

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We know that it is an intimidating process to find a good real estate agent.  Its hard to know where to start.  We struggle too with how to best market ourselves so our new clients truly see who we really are.  Though we have highly successful agents, we are not a numbers focused team.  We feel that it sends to wrong message to brag about how many houses we sell.  We want to be focused on relationships.  This is a people business first, and our clients are people we want to get to know and serve.  They are not a number to us.  So, we take pride in getting to know you, your goals, your dreams, and your priorities.  We want you to feel listened to, and we feel that is the key to success.  If we know you, we can most effectively serve you!  Its a win win.  Feel free to reach out to us at The Fox Group for more info on how we can help you with your real estate goals.  720-891-5751.