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:
I feel like quite the artist as I transform an old workbench destined for the dump pile into a dual-purpose buffet and work table for my patio. See here how it all started and how it progressed. Here's the latest:
1. The table took on a nice patina when I got it sanded and covered with a few coats of water-based polyurethane. I didn't go crazy with the sanding or filling in nail holes as I wanted to retain the character it earned as a noble workshop table.
2. I could hardly wait to start applying the color chips, which are 2-by-3-inch samples from a laminate company. My vision was to apply them to the frame of the table just beneath the plywood top.
3. The process of selecting which color chip goes where is what I call the "yes-no." I love checking in with that little voice inside that says "yes" or "no" for a particular chip. I decided yes to chips with textures and no to chips with solid colors. I applied them with wood glue, clamping the ones that seemed to need it. Some laid flat, but some were a bit bowed. Thus, the clamps.
4. And then my magical inspiration! Upholstery tacks tapped into the holes. At first, I imagined putting decorative screws into the holes. Bill reminded me that in an application like this, screws can be difficult to screw in straight, and then you’ve got all these off-kilter screw heads making you nuts. Somehow I thought of something like this, but didn't even know what to call them. So I asked the guy at my local hardware store for "decorative brads” and he showed me a very nice selection of upholstery tacks. They were 99 cents for each pack of 25.
Final touch: Corner moldings for the frame, made from new wood aged to match the patina of the bench.
As fun as this is, I'm ready for the table to be done so I can start working on my bathroom remodel, which I dread and look forward to all at the same time.
The low-cost remodel of this 1948 Long Beach house has so many things going for it I don't know where to start.
While the hardwood floors were already in pretty good condition when Janet Foster bought this place, everything else you see is her doing, with the help of her dad.
Note the one red wall at the back of the living room, which is suspiciously like the red I just painted my house. The crown moldings that set it off were cut and installed by Janet and her dad.
I love the combination of the flat-screen TV attached to the wall and surrounded by shelves and cabinets. Janet ordered those pieces online, received them in a bundle on her front porch and assembled them herself.
The couches are cool too. While Janet works in Internet technology at a university, she took design classes at UCLA. There, she learned that she could design her own couches and have them made. And so she did.
In the kitchen, the wall between it and a laundry room was taken out to make the kitchen bigger.
As I launch into my own remodeling projects, I find people like Janet inspiring beyond words.
Here's what would make my life easier: if I could purchase all my green building materials at Home Depot.
I'm talking about:
• Tile for my counters made of post-consumer recycled glass • A vanity for my bathroom made with FSC-certified wood • Bamboo for my floors from an FSC-certified company • Plywood and dimensional wood from FSC-certified forests • Cool metal backsplash material made of recycled metal • Stone quarried from California and not China or India • And so on
It seems to me that every single aisle I walk down at Home Depot or Lowe's should have a large section devoted to green choices. Even if I had to pay 10% or 15% more, I would.
The reason I hammer so hard on Home Depot to carry these things is that I love the place. It's my "drug of choice." There's a sensation of unlimited creativity and possibilities when I walk into the cavernous store.
So why can't I buy my green stuff there? Why do I have to scour the Internet and drive all over town in a hit-and-miss fashion to find ecologically sensitive materials?
I've got a message out to the Home Depot folks asking these questions but I've not heard back. When I do, I'll let you know.
In the meantime, I want you to complete this sentence:
Do you have a project or remodel you'd like to share with the Pardon Our Dust community?
In preparation for my vacation from Nov. 30 to Dec. 9, I'm looking for a few home improvement enthusiasts who would like to be a guest blogger for a day or so.
All you'd have to do is e-mail me before and after photos, along with a few paragraphs about the project, and I'll arrange to have them posted while I'm gone.
It can be a project you did yourself, or one you hired out. What we all want to know is: Why did you choose to do that? What was your budget? What other things were you thinking of doing? How long did it take? How do you like it? What would you do differently if you could?
If you'd like to be a guest blogger, please let me know at podblog@aol.com. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
I've got plans set for transforming the workshop table on my patio. Thanks in part to the suggestions you offered here and here, this table won't end up in a dump pile, but will live on. It's an old work table my husband Bill built at some point, and it's the perfect size to use as a buffet table for entertaining and an occasional work table for me.
My goal is to retain the workshop vibe of it, while cleaning it up and giving it an unexpected flair, which I'll explain below. My plan is to:
1. Top: Sand the top of the table to reveal more of the plywood grain, and sand the legs and frame to clean them up a little. The sander I'm using is a nifty sander/vacuum combination. Some orbital sanders have a little bag on the end to collect the sawdust. This one is attached to a shop vac via a hose. When you squeeze the trigger on the sander, the vac goes on. Bill spent a lot of his life building things and he told me that earlier in life his body could process more dust. Now, though, if he doesn't provide himself with serious dust protection (and this sander/vacuum combination is an example of that), he will find his head stuffed up in a hour or so.
2. Legs: Though the legs have some water damage, I'm going to leave them intact for now. I just don't feel like replacing them. This isn't the Taj Mahal. If the table turns out great, I can do that down the line. For now, I'll use this clear Liquid Wood concoction to add strength where the wood has become weak and spongy.
3. Sealing: When the sanding is done and the legs are shored up, I'll put several coats of water-based polyurethane all over. However, I won't seal the bottom of the plywood top as I want to provide a way for moisture in the plywood to escape. As we found from using a moisture meter on the wood, the water content is very high. Rather than letting it sit in the sun to dry out for a week or so, I will be safe as long as I don't seal the whole piece of wood. If I did seal the moisture in, the sealer would crack, flake and fail, as the force of water to go from a higher concentration (in the wood) to a lower concentration (in the air) is very strong.
4. Final flair: When that is all done, I will add the flair, which will come by way of this string of sample chips of laminates like you'd choose for a countertop or cabinet facing. I've had this colorful string of chips for years and have been trying to find a special place for them. I decided to glue them flat, side-by-side, onto the 2-by-4 frame just under the table top. The overhang of the table top will protect them from the weather, and I will see them often as I sit on the patio with my laptop.
So that's my plan, and now it's a matter of getting down to it.
When it comes to green building, some professions and industries get it, and some don't (yet).
Those who get it are architects and manufacturers. Those who are playing catch-up are suppliers and retailers, and most contractors and subcontractors.
So if you can get those who get it -- architects and manufacturers -- into one room, mix them up with an enlightened builder and entrepreneurial type, and ask them to create green homes, you can then train or hire the people to put them together.
That's the idea behind green prefab homes, built in a factory and delivered to your site. One company, Details, makes them in a former aerospace facility (which is using a green practice, to reuse existing space) in the Sacramento area.
Homes by Details are designed by architects and use green, healthy and energy- and resource- efficient products made by companies such as Kohler, Andersen and GE Monogram, as well as super insulation, tankless water heaters, and amazingly efficient HVAC systems.
According to vice president Bruce Evans, the total cost for one of these homes is from $115 to $215 per square foot, which includes site preparation, delivery and set-up. Some of the designs are pretty small, around 1,150 square feet (the Egret, shown here), which is again a green principle, to have a not-so-big house.
I've always known my 85-year-old mother-in-law was pretty cool, but still I wasn't sure how she would react to my new house colors: barn red with green trim.
After all, Jody once owned this house, bought with her now-deceased husband in 1986 as a place for them to retire. And it was she who painted the house its previous light gray with dark gray trim some 20 years ago. So how would she react to the new red scheme, which she saw for the first time yesterday?
The top photo of her was snapped 20 to 25 years ago, about the time she first bought this house. You can see she feels pretty strong. And nothing has changed in that respect! In the bottom photo, you can see her on the left last Christmas in Yosemite. See the ramrod posture?
Jody's strength gave her a mighty life as an Army nurse in World War II, a school nurse and teacher, an emergency-room nurse for 30 years, proprietor of a bed-and-breakfast inn and now the landlady of a 100-year-old Victorian in Santa Barbara that she has filled with college students and their dogs to keep her company.
So when Jody came over yesterday for Bill's birthday, I wondered how she would react to my house. The way she has lived her life gives me respect for her opinion.
"Who picked the color?" she said.
"I did," I said, waiting for whatever was to come.
Pause. "I love it," she gushed, launching into descriptions of a few other houses near hers with the same color and how much she loves those houses and how very good our place looks.
All this is important because I want Jody to feel that she can come live here if circumstances in her health make that necessary. She's resisted that idea, of course, because moving in with your kids is often the beginning of the end. So yesterday I was surprised when she began a sentence with: "When I come to live here . . . "
I don't know if it's the new paint that's drawing her to this place or the fact that she's got no more projects left to do on her Victorian (except for the picket fence out front) and she sees this place as a fresh palette.
As soon I can, I'll get myself over to her Victorian and snap photos of the various projects she's done there. Bill gave her a tile saw for her 82nd birthday, and I think you'll be impressed with what she's done with it.
Remodeling contractors can be infuriating, especially when they stand in your house and respond to your ideas by saying things such as: "That's really going to cost you." Or: "There's going to be maintenance issues with that."
You might reply with a simple: "Thanks for stopping by," but what you're really screaming inside is: "You're supposed to help me realize my dreams, not kill them!"
But after reading "Affordable Remodel," a new Taunton Press book by general contractor and Fine Homebuilding magazine contributor Fernando Pagés Ruiz, it seems more clear to me that many contractors have, as a result of their years in the field, a unique intelligence about what makes economical sense in a remodel and what doesn't.
For instance, adding 6 feet of kitchen space onto the end of the house is monumentally, ridiculously expensive when you consider the grading, foundation, walls and roof that are required. So many tradesmen, so much coordination, so little benefit.
The far more economical way to get a larger kitchen, he explains, is to borrow existing interior square footage from an adjacent space, such as a laundry room or an infrequently used dining room.
Or perhaps you can add a charming bay window, which will give the impression of more space by cantilevering the bay out past the existing foundation.
You can also create the feeling of more space by punching the ceiling up into the attic, which is mostly wasted space here in Southern California.
One idea I really like is capturing the 3 1/2-inch-deep space between wall studs for use as nooks for books, artworks and photos. By installing a wood ledge that extends 2 more inches past the wall, you've got a nice little shelf.
I love the look of this stainless steel countertop and sink, which I found in today's Real Estate section. Looking for cleaner kitchen surfaces explains how homeowners worried about bacteria choose this and other counter products for their antibacterial properties.
Other materials mentioned include glass, copper and quartz composites like Silestone. Some of these products even have chemicals embedded into them to fight bacteria.
Of course natural stone counters take a hit, as do tile and grout. And butcher block? Forget about it.
But I wonder if we're taking this bacteria thing a little far. I read a fascinating book, "The Dispossessed," about people who have multiple chemical sensitivities who have to live in stainless steel rooms. Are we headed there? And an article in today's Washington Post asks: Are antimicrobial soaps breeding tougher bugs?
That article quotes Stuart Levy, a microbiologist at Tufts University School of Medicine, who questions why antibacterial ingredients are increasingly used in healthy households with no demonstrated benefits. The article continues:
That's happening, Levy says, despite several "potential negative consequences" of these products, including weakening the immune system, which could lead to a greater chance of allergies in children, and their possible link to the emergence of antibiotic resistance -- the very problem that is making some diseases, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, so difficult to treat.
What do you think? Are we taking this too far? Or not far enough?
The story you are about to hear is shocking, so don't fall off your chair when I tell you:
The remodel of this 1948 Hawthorne home was designed by a 16-year-old, David, and built by him and his father Norbert, a schoolteacher, during a summer break.
Since then, David has been accepted into the respected architecture program at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. And you can see why. The original post-war home had minimal design. The front stoop is not exactly a grand entrance. And, it led straight into the living room.
David's parents had lived in the house nearly three decades when David decided his mom Linda needed the new kitchen she had been talking about for years. He started sketching out his ideas, and eventually she was convinced he could do it. Part of the plan included pushing the right side of the house toward the street to create a dining room. That would place the front door in the center of the facade and would create an actual front porch.
David also wanted to add a Craftsman flair to the house, which he did with lap siding, thick moldings and highlighted gable ends. Notice how the roofline on the addition matches the other two peaks? That's a good eye.
And moving the kitchen window, on the left, to sit directly under the peak of the roof, added balance. His mom was worried about losing her corner view from the kitchen, but he added a larger window on the side (not seen in this photo) and she was actually happier with that.
Tom M. of Pacific Palisades needs our design help.
Tom's planning a remodel where several walls will be removed to open up the kitchen to an adjacent office and family room.
Because of structural issues, there will be a supporting post in the middle of the space that has to stay. (See the black square in this drawing? Click on the image to see it bigger.)
Tom's idea is to install a swivel flat-screen TV on that post. Not only will that highlight the post and keep people from running into it, but it will also make the TV available for each of the spaces. The post is in a nice central location for that, and it beats having TVs in each room.
Tom is going for a sleek, contemporary look, so he's open to sheathing the post in a metallic look. He's planning on bringing the power for the TV down from the ceiling.
What ideas do you have for Tom? Is this a good idea? Any thoughts on the hardware he would use?
Question: My wife and I are getting ready to remodel our master bath. However it's small and our options are limited. We can get a better look and use out of a huge walk-in shower, but I'm fearful a bath/shower combo may be better for resale. Any expert thoughts out there would be appreciated.
"A home’s master bath can be a major selling point or a deal breaker. If you create a space too specific to your taste, potential buyers will deduct the cost to re-do the room from the price they offer, if they make an offer at all.
"To qualify as a full bath, there must be a toilet, sink and tub. If there is only a shower and no tub, the bathroom is considered a three-quarters bath. Most buyers expect a bathtub in the master bath. While a walk-in shower tends to get the most use and is practical, you still need the tub for optimal resale.
"There are several ways to create a tub and shower combo that gives you the best of both worlds. By adding a glass shower enclosure to a large soaking tub, you will create the feeling of a walk-in shower while retaining the tub. Or you can build in the tub and use a tile or marble surround that encases the tub. This will tie it into the overall design of the bathroom and create a more custom look."
My Take: Even though I'm a bath devotee, I was rooting for you to get the huge shower. As I found out in a poll titled "Shower or Bath Most Important?," the votes were overwhelmingly in favor of the shower, versus the bath. While a hardy 56 voters stuck with me on the importance of the bath, 195 said showers reign supreme.
I think it depends on how long you will be in the house. Why deny yourself a huge walk-in shower if you'll be in the house for five to seven years or longer? If you're going to sell next summer, fine. But for years of use, gosh, get what you want. And maybe when you go to sell, it will be a seller's market (remember those good old days) and you'll get multiple offers no matter what you've done.
Or, consider these before-and-after photos of a bath remodel in Palm Springs. This is a sunken shower and bath combination. It looks like a very uncomfortable bath to me, but you still get to say there's a bathtub in the room and you also get a walk-in shower. Obviously, this would require more work than just placing a shower or bathtub at floor level, and may not even be possible.
I need to re-roof my wood shake canyon home in Los Angeles. We are considering Japanese ceramic tile, and that requires an engineering certification. What's a good source for engineers who will do this work in L.A. We've contacted a couple who "refuse" L.A. jobs. Thanks.
I'm looking for a new attitude for this table project and all projects to come. Up until now, my favorite parts of a project have been the moment I decide to do it, and the moment it's done.
I want to learn how to savor the process, that stuff in between.
For this table (yes it will be saved, thanks for the feedback), I wanted to use it a buffet table on my patio, and do a tile job on the top as a practice for my future bathroom and kitchen projects.
However, after spraying it off with a hose and conferring with Bill, I have three qualms:
1. Heaviness: This is something Bill pointed out, that the table is already heavy with the 1-inch-thick plywood top, and putting tile on it will make it even heavier. Who wants a table that two strong people will have a hard time moving?
2. My future workshop: In fact, this old workshop table would be perfect for the workshop I am going to create for myself. More about this later, but I can't keep my growing collection of tools in the closet, on my desk and in the corner of my office. I need my own workshop space now that we're fixing up the house. This table would be perfect for that.
3. Damaged legs: If I do use it in my future workshop space, I won't have to repair the bottom of the legs, which have water damage from being on the back patio so long. It turns out you should never put exposed wood on concrete as concrete is porous and soaks up water, and the wood does that also. In my future workshop, the floor will be wood, so the legs should stop degrading.
So I'm still mulling it over and trying to enjoy this part of the process as well.
On a related note: The new red house paint has made the back patio an unexpectedly pleasant place to be. When I asked Bill to come out and evaluate the table, he was amazed at how good it felt out there. Previously, the north-facing wall was painted gray, and when you add that to the gray of the patio, and the fact that there's barely any sun out there in the winter, it all added up to a cold, bleak environment. With the red wall, though, it feels like the place to be. Who knew? However, I would not recommend this color scheme for a south-facing wall in a hot climate. You would fry, or would feel like you were frying.
I'm a hypocrite when it comes to the "dump pile" out behind Bill's workshop. While I've been critical of that pile over the years, and begged Bill to get rid of it, I also have no trouble adding to it.
And it came to pass that I wanted to toss this table in the pile.
I can't even recall where this table came from -- probably something Bill built at some point -- but I do know that it ended up against the wall outside my office. I used it for a gardening table, loading it up with pots and soil and bird seed and fertilizer.
So as I was moving things away from the house to ready it for painting, I decided this table needed to die in the junk pile. And if I could have lifted it myself, it would be there now.
But my thinking shifted during the days of the house painting when I glanced over at this table and wondered:
What is it about this table that bugs me? Well, it's dirty, I thought. And has a plywood top. And the legs splay together. But then I asked another question:
What does this table have going for it? The plywood top is 1 inch thick. And it's a nice shape, 2 feet wide and about 7 feet long. And the table's a nice height, like a buffet table, and just the type of table I'd like to have out there as I start entertaining more now that we're fixing up the house.
So it occurred to me that maybe I could save this table, and live a green life rather than just talk about it. Why should this wood end up at the landfill? Why should Bill's labor be lost? As a bonus, if I cover this table with tile, it will be good practice for the bathroom and kitchen tile I want to install.
I am a little worried about water damage to the bottom of the legs. Tomorrow I'll ask Bill his opinion. If he gives the project a thumb's up, I'm gonna save this table.
Pie Town Productions is currently casting fun and energetic homeowners for an exciting new HGTV series, called Rate My Space.
Rate My Space is based on a popular online community for do-it-yourself home designers, on www.hgtv.com. It’s a website where people go to share photos of the rooms they’ve designed with their peers across the country. Based on a five-star rating system, users of the site assign a star rating for each room posted. While some people upload their pictures to show off their design prowess, others are looking for feedback on ways they can improve their design plan.
To be a candidate for the show you must have attempted a specific design style that you can put a name to (i.e. Traditional, Classic, Tuscan, Moroccan, Shabby Chic, etc) However, if you don’t know what your style is but have tried to implement a new look into your dcor, you are still eligible to apply.
Our designer has a significant makeover budget, plus a team of carpenters to advance the style direction that you are ALREADY heading in, NOT to change it to something else.
If selected for the show we will need approximately two weeks to do the makeover. During this time we will need access to your home for any construction, painting, and design work. During this two week period we ask that you put aside five to six days of your time for shooting purposes.
If you are interested, please contact us at the number and email listed below. We look forward to hearing from you!
Email pictures of yourself and the space to: ratemyspace@pietown.tv or call (818) 255-9158.
Be sure to include your name and contact information.
The producer says they have 26 episodes to book, and production begins in January. If your schedule is tough, they can book you as far in advance as Spring 2008.
Thanks for all the advice on my exterior paint. I feel much better about the weird green trim. And by that I mean: I know I can change it and it's not the end of the world. I appreciate your kindness!
Here's what I did right:
• Contractor: I hired a painting contractor who was referred by a trusted person (my son-in-law) and who is someone I like personally. This is most important for me: a trusted guy with a reputation and history in the community.
• Cost: We got a budget-priced job ($2,000), partly by letting the contractor know that we are not picky people and aren't looking for the paint job of the century. Bill wants to replace the siding some day, so this paint won't be on here forever.
• Research: I found a house whose colors I love. I put a lot of time into finding the right color. That paid off, as I love the house color! It's not for everyone, but it's for me. My family loves it too.
• Landscaping: Or rather, lack of it. I deliberately did not tune up the landscaping close to the house before the painting crews arrived. And it's a good thing! When guys are working fast to get your budget job done, they're not being super careful with your shrubbery. The higher-priced guys do that.
• Timing: My goal was to get the house painted before Thanksgiving. And that happened!
Here's what I did wrong:
• Color testing: I already knew green was a difficult color, but I forgot! I was so wrapped up in the red house color that I spaced out on the green. If I had it to do over again, I would get some small cans of the various greens I was considering, paint some large cardboard pieces with the colors and observe them for a few days. (Again, I knew this.)
The way it happened, the contractor showed up on the day the job started with a can of green paint for me to approve. He didn't pressure me at all, one way or the other. But approving a color out on the driveway when I'd been running around all morning to get the house ready was not the right method for me. I make my best decisions in quiet, in contemplation, with time.
The good news is that I ABSOLUTELY love my red walls. And I have time to do exactly what I should have done in the first place to choose my trim color. I may wait until Bill replaces the windows (part of our grand plan), and adds the thicker moldings we want. And then, I'll haul out the ladders and redo the trim myself.
Until then, I joked to Bill, let's just start referring to it as "The Christmas House."
This Pacific Palisades house, a rebuild designed by L.A. architect John Sofio, is pretty good-looking, don't you think? I love the boxy shapes, banks of windows and the way he brought natural light into that stairwell.
But, I wonder what the neighbors think. If you study the top photo, you can see that the house to the right has a Craftsman look with a pitched roof, lap siding and thick moldings. The house to the left has a shake roof. So this new house, it seems, is a bit out of place.
What the neighbors think about contemporary architecture inserted into neighborhoods of traditional architecture is the topic of an article in Sunday's L.A. Times: In historic district, a conflict builds.
The article revolves around the contemporary plans of one homeowner in an area of Santa Monica full of beloved historic homes. But the bigger question is how much should we consider our neighbors when designing our homes and additions?
Even if the law allows it, would you feel OK about creating a house or addition that looks totally out of place in your neighborhood? And how would you feel about a neighbor doing that in your neighborhood?
A friend sent me a link this morning from TMZ showing (supposedly) the interior of Phil Spector's home, sometimes referred to as "The Castle."
What's eerie to note is that the predominant interior color in his house (maroon) seems to be the same color I painted the exterior of my house. My color is called Rusted Nail by the Frazee paint company, and I like to call it Barn Red, as I see so many barns painted this color.
But since I got the color up on my walls I've recalled other maroon moments in my life. As a teenager, I won $100 in a contest from rock radio station KHJ (anyone remember those days?) and I bought a maroon Schwinn bicycle. Those were good days of emerging adulthood and freedom.
Today, I notice the corner of my office where I do most of my work is flooded with maroon.
But now I've got the Spector specter added to my box of maroon memories. It shouldn't matter, though, because my house Barn Red, not maroon. Right?
Hi, I just read an old article of yours in the L.A. Times about green remodeling. I was wondering if you have any referrals for green contractors to do a remodel in Orange County.
Here's the deal: The Times doesn't want me making referrals to contractors. But YOU could. So I'll throw this out there: Do you know of any good green remodeling contractors in O.C.? If so, please comment below.
Just for fun, I did a simple Google search on these terms: "Orange County," green, remodel and contractor.
One of the first websites to pop up was for Dad's Construction in Lake Forest.
Here's how I evaluated this website to determine if this is a good green contractor:
• The website gives the company's contractor's license number as 802617. I plug that number into the Contractors State License Board and discover the license was issued some years ago, not last month. That's a good sign. I see the president of the company is Daniel Arnold Derkum (thus the company's name: DAD's) and that the company carries the proper bonding and workers' compensation insurance. I also did not see any complaints or suspensions of this license. All good.
• Next, I read through the testimonials. These are flowery but generally worthless. Anyone could have written these. What I'm looking for are names so I can contact these folks and ask a few questions, or at least determine if these are real people. The only full name I find is Gordon Sykes of Lake Forest. A Google search on his name confirms that he is a real person, as evidenced by the Lake Forest Homeowners Assn. Village News, which announces that Gordon's home won "House of the Quarter" in 2004 for "high standards of excellence." That kind of client bodes well for this remodeling company.
• Also, I see in the testimonials (which I start to trust as authentic) that clients refer to Dan often, and this is a good sign. That means the owner is involved in the company, and that this is not just a front for some scam artist. And I notice all the words on the site are spelled correctly. Good.
After all that, I take a look at photos of the projects the company has done. They look nice (a bathroom is pictured above).
To me, this looks like a good green remodeling company. I've never heard of this company or written about it or talked with anyone who has used Dad's. But if I were looking for a good green contractor in Orange County, this is the kind of company I would call for a chat.
The red I've chosen for my house is absolutely awesome. Perfect. Fills me with joy.
But the green trim? I'm not sure it's the perfect color. But there's something I like about it, love it actually, but in limited amounts.
Here are the three scenarios we're considering:
1. Lots of green, on the fascia, around the windows in the gable end, as well as the wide band below the windows, plus highlighting the beams under the eaves.
2. Less green, on the fascia, highlighting the beams, on the corners, and a narrow band below the gable end.
3. Green only on the fascia.
I feel kind of goofy asking this, but: Which do you like better?
Here's the history on my thinking: This green is not the green I asked the painting contractor to match. But when he brought it over, I could not figure out which other green to choose, so I stayed with this one. (I say "I" but it was a family decision, with me in the lead.)
When the green trim went up, it was shocking.
The painting contractor's dad, who was also a painting contractor back in the day, has an interesting philosophy: He says one should paint the house color first, get used to it over a period of time, and then choose the trim color. I think that's a great idea!
But in the spirit of green building and not wasting what we've already got, here we are with three scenarios and the painters coming back in a few days to finish. I am surprised how much I like the red all by itself, with green only on the fascia (3). I was not aiming for a contemporary, sophisticated, hip look, but the scenario with most red looks kinda hip to me.
So, if you have an opinion about this, I'd like to hear it.
If you have a deserving DIY-er on your holiday gift list, one of these new small cordless screw guns is a cool way to go. Bosch came out with its little 10.8-volt Pocket Drive powerhouse less than two years ago. Designed to fit in a construction worker's tool belt, it will drive 300 3-inch screws on one charge, the company claims. As one reviewer wrote, it's got: Lotsa Guts in a Small Package.
I used this one to take down gadgets from my house in preparation for a paint job, and I found myself wishing I had more screws to remove. At less than 2 pounds, this drill feels like nothing in your hand. At around $110 to $130, it will cost more than your typical home handyman screw gun.
You can read an opinion of the driver from Consumer Reports. If you want pro tools — such as Makita, DeWalt, Hitachi, Porter-Cable, Bosch, Skil, Milwaukee — you generally find them at a tool store.
But if pro tools are too pricey, you can certainly find nonprofessional and less expensive screw guns at Sears, Lowe's or Home Depot. But first, go to your local tool store and hold one of these Bosch minis in your hand. Let me know how it feels.
In the days or weeks between the time you choose your house colors and the day the paint goes on, doubt can creep in.
"Oh, man, that's bright," the painting contractor thought when he visited the house with the colors I wanted him to match.
"It looks like clown colors," his lead man told him.
After my stepdaughter Amy saw the house I wanted to match, she drove me around town to see some other reds and greens she liked better.
Only my husband Bill gave me comfort: "Just go for it," he said. "Be bold."
When the grayish-green primer went on, my own resolve weakened. "That's a nice color," I told Bill. "It's safe." He reiterated his view: "Go for what you wanted."
The turning point came when the lead man, Brandon, painted patches of the two colors onto the primed wall (which you can see on the bottom right in this photo). Hey, that red's not bad, he said. And the green? Amy and I looked through the color fan the contractor had brought, pulling leaves from various plants to see how they would blend with various paint hues. Finally, we decided the original green I wanted would probably be fine.
I'm thankful I didn't have to run my colors past the board of a homeowners association. These were enough opinions for me to deal with in one day.
What's the deal with ivy? It climbs where it's not wanted, chokes and kills most other greenery in its path and harbors bugs and spiders. Why would anybody plant this stuff?
These are my thoughts as I work to get my home ready for painting. I practically need a crowbar to get ivy "ropes" out of the grooves in my exterior walls. And
Today's guest blogger is Peggy Olearczuk, who shares her experiences retaining the vintage flavor of her Burbank cottage. She writes:
