Darby Stanchfield invested in real estate for financial support during early acting career

Actress Darby Stanchfield studied contractor work and invested in real estate to keep herself afloat financially before making it as an actress.
The Scandal star explains her father was supportive of her acting dreams, but he wanted her to also have a back-up plan, and Darby quickly found her niche as a property princess.
“I got into real estate,” she told U.S. breakfast show Live! with Kelly and Michael on Monday (04Apr16). “I bought a four unit apartment building. I started to make a little bit of money doing commercials and I could have started to go on nice trips or bought designer shoes, but I just saved a bunch of money and I bought a dilapidated four-unit building in Los Angeles and I gutted the whole thing and made the units nicer.”
Darby contracted a lot of the improvement work out, but she did her research before hiring construction workers in a bid to prevent herself from being screwed.
“I learned all about plumbing and how the electrical system worked,” she continued. “When I actually interviewed general contractors there was a guy who said, ‘Ma’am, you need new copper plumbing’, and I’m like, ‘Actually there is copper plumbing, so…’ I knew what I was talking about, so he was like, ‘Oh, OK, so we can’t just pull the wool over her (eyes)’.”
She did take on some off the work herself, but it led to a painful situation.
“I did teach myself how to tile,” she added. “So I tiled one of the units, the one I lived in for a little while. The bathrooms, the showers, the floors, the kitchen. Only I didn’t realise that you were supposed to wear gloves with the grout and I lost an entire layer of skin, so I decided to have other people do the other three units.”