Today's guest blogger is Peggy Olearczuk, who shares her experiences retaining the vintage flavor of her Burbank cottage. She writes:
I always wanted an old, Spanish-style house, because I fondly remember my grandmother’s home. I got my wish, but our 1920s-era Burbank house, although potentially charming, had so many problems that we didn’t know where to begin.
For instance, we knew we needed to replace our leaking windows, and knew we didn’t want cheap vinyl, but beyond that, we had no idea what to do. We were considering Pella windows until we found Mark Bethanis, a general contractor in Burbank who specializes in restoring vintage homes.
Mark told us that we could make the windows look just like they did when the house was new (for much less than Pella) and make them energy-saving as well. He also taught us the importance of things like preserving the bullnosing on both interior and exterior (the thicker Pella windows, he said, would have meant using flat frames on the interior) and how a triple window we were told to rip out might actually be holding up the roof!
Bethanis Inc. replaced the sashes (using dual-pane glass), re-used the old hardware, added weather stripping and even more amazingly, was able to restore the old sills, which we thought were completely unsalvageable.
The window project took about five weeks and cost $15,000. Staining and painting of the windows was included in exterior painting of the house (cost: $12,000) and interior painting of the living room, dining room and bathroom (cost: $4,425) and took place during the same five weeks.
The exterior paint may seem expensive, but consider this: Our house and freestanding garage hadn't been painted in over 20 years, so the job required extensive prep work, including water blasting to get rid of loose stucco and paint, stucco patching (matching the old-fashioned pattern of the existing stucco), and repairing and restaining our existing front door.
Also, all of the window frames and sills were in terrible condition and needed to be cleaned, stripped, sanded and repaired before two coats of primer and two coats of paint were applied. The stucco also required two coats of primer and two coats of paint.
There was lots of detail work, like painting the little round vents on the sides of the house red to match the tile roof and removing and painting existing hardware (window latches, "speakeasy" door, mailbox) to restore the original wrought-iron look. The $12,000 also included interior staining of living room and dining room windows and interior priming of all other windows.
Also, since we replaced all 30 window sashes at the same time, the painters had to follow the carpenter as he worked, painting the exterior and priming or staining the interior of each sash (to keep the new wood from warping).
The four other bids we got ran anywhere from $4,900 to $11,500, but because they were painting companies, none of them seemed able to handle such a complicated job; they could do the painting but were vague about the prep work and wanted us to find someone else to do other parts of the project (like staining the living room and dining room windows and patching the stucco). We really liked the idea of having one company take care of everything for us.
We’ll paint the rest of the window interiors when we remodel our kitchen and add a master suite early next year.
I'm awfully proud of myself and thought I'd take this opportunity to brag a little.
The boasting has to do with some 3-inch long wooden corners I wanted to create for my refurbished workshop table. After I added the little pieces of laminate samples around the frame under the tabletop, it occurred to me that where those pieces meet on each corner would look tacky without something to hide the joint.
It was Bill's idea to get wooden corner molding. But I realized the new wood of the molding I found at the hardware store (for two bucks!) would look really dumb near the aged patina of the table. And I didn't want to wait 4 or 5 years for the corners to age naturally. So I set out to age them by hand.
Actually, I already knew how to do this, as I wrote about the process in a book (no longer in print) I wrote with Kitty Bartholomew. For her house, she bought some new drapery rods and finials that she wanted to age, and I watched a master at work. First, she beat up the new wood with a chain belt and a garden cultivator. Then she poured coffee over the fresh, absorbent wood, and after that ground gravel and dirt into it. After wiping off the dirt, she applied several coats of tinted Briwax. You can see her creation in the photo on the bottom left.
So I was a little intimidated as I set out to age my own wood. Even though I saw her do it, I realize it still felt like hocus-pocus magic. But I went forward anyway. And isn't that the definition of courage? To feel the fear and do it anyway?
Rather than using a chain belt, I took the long pieces of molding (before I cut them) and beat them against a rock wall. Then I used a cultivator. It was all very satisfying. I cut my pieces on a table saw and then soaked them in coffee. I wanted to make sure the ends got the full treatment. I sanded the cut corners a bit, then ground dirt into the pieces. That was also fun, and a 2-year-old who was visiting for Thanksgiving stopped by my patio to help with the dirt rubbing. She announced "I'm helping you" and then "I wuv you."
My final touch was applying the coats of Briwax. What an amazing product that is. It's a little pricey at about $15 a can, but it makes everything glow.
In the end, I was amazed at how good my aged wood looked (which you can see applied to the table at the top left, and drying on a bench on the top right, with one piece left new).
I do not think I reached the artistry of the master, but my work looks pretty darn good to me!
We hope our remodels will beautify our homes, not pollute them.
But that's exactly what happens when the various glues, paints, fabric finishes, formaldehyde and other marvels of manufacturing start outgassing from the new remodel and into our lungs, skin, eyes and mouths. With its new focus on leaded toys from China, I'm pretty sure the Consumer Product Safety Commission does not have time to rigorously test the effect of each of these outgassing remodeling goods on our bodies, much less their cumulative effects. So it's a case of buyer beware.
I was reminded of this in a review of the W Los Angeles-Westwood Hotel's new remodel in the newspaper. While the hotel is swank and stylish, the reviewer's experience was diminished by the "air pollution, inside and out" caused by outgassing carpeting glues, among other toxins. Happily, she had an operable window (rare in upscale hotels, which is why I prefer camping in my conversion van whenever possible) so she could bring a tiny bit of fresh air into her $339-a-night hotel room.
But can you imagine a baby or child in a room with new carpeting or cabinets or furniture who could not arrange for that open window? Imagine the crankiness and discomfort that would have no apparent cause.
Not too long ago, I wrote about a couple who created their Santa Barbara remodel with the health of their children in mind. They didn't like the idea of their new baby sucking up formaldehyde fumes from the out-gassing cabinets, and so they didn't include formaldehyde in their remodel. And they used paints with fewer toxins and included a superior whole-house ventilation system.
After all, remodeling should lift us up, not bring us down. Right?
I've often suspected that the house I live in (built in the 1970s?) was made from "found materials."
We have ceiling beams of different thicknesses, various kinds of siding and window sizes that make no sense other than that's what someone found cheap or free.
But what I'm happy the original builders found was a whole bunch of tongue-and-groove cedar boards, which they used liberally inside the house, including this bathroom, the home's main bathroom.
(A second bathroom was added about 20 years ago in the basement area, and it's an awful, cobbled-together mess. More on that later. Much later.)
This bathroom is a bare 5 1/2 feet wide and 6 1/2 feet deep. Unless something major happens in that downstairs bathroom, this will be the size of my bathroom for many long years to come, maybe through the end of my days. There's just no way to make this bathroom bigger, as the bedrooms on either side of it are not large enough to borrow space from.
And so I think we'll adopt the "not-so-big-house" philosophy here and enjoy this modest space. For me, as long as I have a bathtub, I'm happy and healthy.
You can see the challenges:
1. Horrible stainless-steel mirror-light combination. 2. Bad, cheap tile on the wall. 3. Molded sink-countertop with peeling paint (yes, it's been painted), rust and mineral stains. 4. Cheap, style-free vanity. 5. Ten-dollar sink fixture that failed about five years ago. 6. Molded shower-tub surround topped with a cover that blocks most natural light. 7. Shower and bath fixtures have failed. 8. No natural air flow (high window is fixed glass) and the exhaust fan has failed. Unless you leave the door ajar during a bath, you will be frantic for oxygen in about three minutes. 9. Cheap vinyl floor that's worn and torn.
And, oh yeah, there's probably some water damage behind the shower surround on account of the broken fixtures. On the positive side, the toilet seems to be fine.
So, isn't this a dandy challenge? I've been ashamed of this bathroom for years and cringed when Bill invited people to come and stay. But now that we're fixing up the house, I'm happy to expose my misery.
What do you think? Any ideas that don't involve dynamite or a moving van?
I was chatting not too long ago with an acquaintance who is a flooring contractor, known heretofore as "Flooring Guy."
So Flooring Guy had some recent client experiences that compelled him to explain to me the four types of clients he encounters:
1. First of all, there are what Flooring Guy calls the rats.These folks are cheap, miserable and borderline immoral when it comes to getting more than their dollars justify. Whatever is done for them, Flooring Guy said, they are unhappy because they have decided to be unhappy. There's no winning with people like that, and contractors run a risk of being ripped off by them.
2. Second are the regular folks who work hard for their money and are frugally trying to get a good deal but do not cross over the morality line to do it. They do their research and get their job done and have reasonable expectations about the quality they are paying for. Most clients are of this type.
3. The third and fourth type of clients, according to Flooring Guy, are "rich people" who have buckets of money to pour into their homes. And that's a good thing for the trades.
However, one of these rich types is miserable because they have decided to be miserable and are unhappy with most of what happens. These are the people who will get down on their knees with a flashlight shining underneath a cabinet and point out a slight imperfection where the sun never shines. And of course they want it redone. Now. You kind of wonder if that shift between ages 2 and 3, where most of us start accepting a few things about life, never occurred.
4. The last type, Flooring Guy says, are the rich people who are both demanding in their standards (with the money to back it up) and also very appreciative of the work done for them, and respectful of the people who do it. They will not accept bad work, but if there is a slight imperfection deep under a recess that no living human being will ever see, they are jiggy with it. They are happy, Flooring Guys says, because they have decided to be. And here's the kicker: These happy folks tend to get the best work done.
What do you think? Is Flooring Guy on the mark? Did he leave anyone out?
The table is done and I'm blown away. In the words of Bernie Van De Yacht, who said the same thing about his North Hollywood kitchen remodel, "I can't stop looking at it."
You can see from the photo on the bottom right what I started out with: an old workbench that had been out in the weather for more years than any of us can recall. I pulled it away from the wall to get the house painted, and decided the old table needed to go to the dump pile.
But wait! I blogged about it, and several kind readers said the table should live on. I decided to turn it into a combination outdoor buffet table and work table and to retain its workbench personality.
My creative inspiration was adding the color chips, which are samples of laminate material for counters and cabinets that came strung together on a chain. I topped them off with bronze-colored furniture tacks.
What I did right:
• Saving the table from the dump pile.
• Getting input from others (you all, especially).
• Taking the time to sand the table, but not too much, and giving it several coats of polyurethane.
• Using the laminate chips, thus saving them from the landfill, was green brilliance.
• Adding the upholstery tacks, my husband Bill said, made the table.
• The final touch, adding a coat of tinted Briwax, gave it a wonderful sheen.
What I did wrong:
• At first I used wood glue to attach the chips, but it took a long time to set and I had to use a lot of clamps to hold the chips on. When I switched to hot-melt glue, things got easier.
• When I went to the hardware store to get more upholstery tacks, I got brown instead of bronze. So the ones on the back of the table have a little duller finish.
• I started to put color chips in a band around the leg braces, but they looked tacky, not classy, so I peeled them off.
Other than that, I'm thrilled with my creation. What do you think?
Should you add square footage with your own hands, hire subcontractors to do it or pay a licensed contractor to oversee the project?
The upside to doing it yourself, as evidenced by this Westchester addition designed and built by an aerospace engineer and his brother, is that you get a bunch of new space for a lot less money.
The downsides come when you don't do it according to code and don't get permits. This engineer did all that correctly, as engineers are apt to do, but other types of homeowners may forgo those details.
If you do an addition without a permit or not to code, or both, here are some dangers, according to a story today at CNN.com:
- The structure could be unsafe for your family and future families. - Unpermitted space could stop or delay a sale. - You might have to tear down or expensively retrofit out-of-code upgrades later on.
But if your new house burns down, and your insurer finds out it included unpermitted space, "they have a way to get out of any of their obligation as an insurance company," Brick said.
What do you think? Is unpermitted space a good idea? Would your insurance company use that as an excuse not to pay a fire claim?
Now you can also see the gorgeous home, which rose from the ground after the 2003 Grand Prix Fire, as seen on MSNBC with weatherman Fritz Coleman. Check this out:
Kathy Price-Robinson has written about remodeling for 17 years, focusing both on the process of home improvement, as well as the product. She writes for both consumer and contractor magazines, and her award-winning series, Pardon Our Dust, has appeared in the print edition of the Real Estate section of The Times since 1997. This blog is a spin-off of that column. Kathy lives in a house with good bones and a lot of potential, and shares her life with one husband, one dog, two horses and three quite exceptional stepdaughters.
Today's guest blogger is Peggy Olearczuk, who shares her experiences retaining the vintage flavor of her Burbank cottage. She writes:
