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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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 As the deep of winter descends here in Southern California (it's what today? 70 degrees?), I thought I'd share some distinctly SoCal fireplaces I've had the pleasure of visiting (click on images to enlarge):
Top left: Jay Falamaki shows off the plaster fireplace surround he created in his L.A. condo. The embellishments include ceramic tiles and upholstery tacks pressed into the wet material.
Center left: This L.A. fireplace would not be used (the owners don't like fires in the house) and so it was turned into a sculpture with a bed of smooth black stones.
Bottom left: This vintage fireplace in an Anaheim Craftsman was restored after indignities suffered in the 1970s when bland tan tiles once set the tone.
Top right: Of all the fireplaces shown here, this outdoor beauty in the Conejo Valley is by far the most expensive. There is no metal firebox hidden beneath the real stacked stone. It's masonry all the way.
Bottom right: This outdoor pizza oven was built by the late music attorney Martin Cohen on his Hollywood Hills mini-farm and is now lovingly maintained by his widow, Trish.
Do you have a distinctively SoCal fireplace? Please send digital pics to me at PODBlog@aol.com and I'll post them on this blog.
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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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 A Good Housekeeping article titled A Cleaning Routine for Busy Women may be discriminatory. What about busy men? Do they not deserve a cleaning routine?
But that's beside the point of this post, which is: How do you keep your house clean during remodeling? And if your house is like my house, there are projects going on all the time. So the question is, how do you keep your house clean, period.
The Good Housekeeping piece suggests these strategies: Establish priorities, set time limits, delegate and finish tasks.
But, I've come up with another solution, which I think is a marriage enhancer: Pay an expert to clean your house.
I didn't know how to do this (my own mother was the stay-at-home type) until I did some publishing work with a woman in her Santa Monica home and she had a housekeeper a few days a week. I learned during this time how to talk to a housekeeper, how to stay out of a housekeeper's way so the work can get done and how to show appreciation.
My own program is modest: My friend Candy comes by every other Monday from noon to 5 p.m. and does her magic, for which we pay her $85. I pay one time, and my husband pays the next. She dusts, and does the floors and bathrooms and kitchen, and she even does windows when time permits. Most of all, she has organized our stuff -- luggage in one closet, camping stuff in another. Who knew?
And even though our house is in a constant state of improvement and upheaval, we always feel an emotional lift when Candy has been there. And I don't spend my days thinking I'm supposed to be cleaning the house. That's Candy's job.
So, how does it work for you? How do you keep your house clean, with or without a remodeling project going on?
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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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Here are a few of my favorite kitchens, which happen to be red and green, the colors of the holiday season.
Top left: Kathleen Schaaf and her brother Kevin bought a 1923 Long Beach duplex. She took over the top, he the bottom. Her kitchen turned out green, his didn't. Read the story on how these two siblings remodeled in radically different ways.
Bottom left: Richard Gomez built his contemporary Long Beach home for only $80 per square foot, including the land! Part of his cost-cutting strategy was buying economical red enamel kitchen cabinets from Ikea. Read the story.
Top right: Some visitors to this blog didn't appreciate Ann Lippincott's stunning Santa Barbara condo kitchen. But I did. I was there and I'm telling you, people, it was gorgeous. This tile backsplash shows the beauty. Read the story.
Bottom right: I love this kitchen in Whitley Heights, an historic Hollywood neighborhood, for its simplicity and economy. The cabinets are from Ikea, where the owners got help with the layout. I also love the green tile, which is new but replaces historic tile that was literally falling off the walls and ceiling. The laminate butcher-block counters are cute too.
And a few more: A kitchen with green tiles of varied hues, a Santa Monica kitchen with a bunch of red in it, and a Dana Point kitchen with sage green cabinet boxes with oak doors.
And finally: For a little change of pace, an all-white Long Beach kitchen that was remodeled on a shoestring, and a tiny yet sharp Westwood kitchen in white and black.
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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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 A story in the New York Post says actor Orlando Bloom painted his newly purchased, $2.7-million Hollywood Hills house black and that some actresses who live nearby are upset.
But . . . I'm not sure it's really black. Seems more like dark gray to me. And anyway it looks cool. And would these talented young women spend their time worrying about the color of someone else's house? And really, who's business is it? Isn't that why you live in the Hollywood Hills? To do your own thing?
What do you think?
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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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Reader Shaun Rogers sends along this request:
"Hello. I'm looking for the names of qualified, trustworthy remodeling contractors who do work in Orange County. Any advice other bloggers could pass along would be appreciated. I don't have a way to take and pass along pictures but the work would consist of popcorn ceiling removal, bath and kitchen, flooring, plumbing, electrical and painting. Thank you.
Any O.C. recommendations for Shaun?
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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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 This gorgeous (and expensive-looking) powder room in an Encinitas home won a design award from the National Kitchen and Bath Assn. Here's the design statement for what the judges call a "New Mexican masterpiece":
"The home was totally gutted and remodeled in a New Mexican design style. All materials were reclaimed where possible and the color theme throughout is earthy and natural. The powder room is located off the hall opposite the kitchen, in close proximity to the living and dining areas.
"The door to the powder room incorporates hand-carved Guatemalan panels. The sink furniture was designed with carved motifs introducing a bowed front and suspended off the floor. The semi-submerged vessel sink is made of onyx and illuminated from underneath. To highlight this beauty, a wooden top was selected to match the carved fascia. The toilet sits opposite the sink and features a wooden stained seat to compliment the other wood in the space. The flooring is reclaimed European terra cotta pavers set in a herringbone pattern.
"The room towers up to a 16-foot skylight. To bring a more human quality into the space, vigas were installed at eight feet."
Designer
Cheryl Hamilton-Gray, CKD, Hamilton-Gray Design, Encinitas
Products
Cabinets: La Puerta Originals
Countertops: La Puerta Originals
Flooring: Walker Zanger
Fixtures/Fitting: Doralfe
Sink: Stone Forest
Toilet: Kohler
Other: Custom door and vigas by La Puerta Originals
(Photo: Scott McKay)
You like?
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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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 I'm loving my new solar-powered fountain, which gives me the soothing sounds of water outside my office window without running up my electric bill. And I feel connected to nature, as the fountain begins running in the morning only after the sun comes up. Because it has a 6-volt battery that gets charged up during the day, it runs far into the night or early next morning before running out of steam.
(When you live in Southern California, you can buy a solar-powered fountain with winter coming on and no one will think you're loony.)
But gosh this fountain was hard to find. Once I decided I had to have a solar fountain, I checked at four local garden shops and OSH. Everyone I spoke with thought a solar-powered fountain was a dandy idea, but no one carried them. Online, I found a nice-looking one at Gaiam, but as I dug deeper into the Internet, the reviews by other purchasers of that style weren't very glowing.
Finally, I stumbled across the fountain at my local Home Depot. It was sitting dry and dejected off to the side, and it turns out it was special-ordered for a customer who never picked it up. The 6-by-10-inch solar panel caught my eye, and I got the garden staff to fill the fountain with water to test it out. The panel had been sitting in the sun for who knows how long, and so was fully charged, and the water started gurgling immediately. It seemed like magic.
I bought the 30-inch-high, granite-looking resin thing for $220 (way too much!), with the guarantee that I could bring it back if it didn't work out right. But it has no label, no box, no instruction manual, no nothing. I can't find it anywhere on the Internet.
If you know of a good source for solar-powered fountains, please comment below.
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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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 Today's Guest Blogger is Colleen, a stay-at-home mom from Lake Forest, who finally gave in to my pleading for Guest Bloggers. (Was it the praying cat that put her over the edge?)
Here's her story:
When we bought our Lake Forest townhouse, everything was perfect except the kitchen.
It was beige laminate everywhere (applied over the original 1979 faux-wood particleboard cabinets and the countertop), and the sink cabinet had so much water damage that we couldn't keep a cabinet door bolted in place; the screws would rip out. There was a pass-through window from the kitchen to the dining room, but it was blocked by cabinets that hung down, so I would have to bend over to converse with my family and guests while I was in the kitchen.
So after almost four years of beige, we put together a tight budget and figured out what we could do.
We knew we would be keeping the shape and layout intact, since the kitchen worked well — it was just ugly and old and damaged. We wanted Ikea cabinets, but they come in only so many sizes and we couldn't make them work in our dimensions. We got quotes from big-box stores, but the prices were high enough to threaten the budget.
So we went to Chino Cabinets, which made and installed my parents' and uncles' cabinets, and it quoted us a very competitive price of about $5,000 for custom paint-grade maple cabinets.
I should note that the quote was for unfinished wood. They have finishers they recommend, but we did it ourselves. The only problem we had was our own fault for not being crystal clear enough about a change we ordered. Continue reading . . .
Continue reading "Guest Blogger: Colleen jazzes up her kitchen for less than $10,000" »
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Click to see the latest on Kathy's Remodeling Blog
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 So you got a downtown loft, or you created a loft-like space, and now what?
Crave a little privacy? Wish you had a little separation of spaces without all those pesky solid walls?
A story in the Home section addresses just that dilemma.
In the photo shown here, Douglas Westmoreland of West Hollywood rotates what he calls the “AV wall,” which was designed by Space International. This wall, which pivots on ball bearings and is held in place with magnets in the ceiling — divides the bedroom from the living area. This way, the TV can be seen from either room.
Other solutions in the story include sliding doors, movable wall panels and glass partitions.
Check out the article for more clever answers to the open-space quandary.
(Photo: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)
Continue reading "Cures for the open loft" »
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As the deep of winter descends here in Southern California (it's what today? 70 degrees?), I thought I'd share some distinctly SoCal fireplaces I've had the pleasure of visiting (click on images to enlarge):
