I want to let you know about the Pardon Our Dust feature coming up Sunday in the Real Estate section. It's about two bathrooms that were gutted and redone in 14 days. But I also want to share with you something that did not fit in my article but that touched me personally as I reported and wrote the story.
As you'll read on Sunday, Meg Moreta, a mother of two small daughters, was diagnosed with Stage 3 cervical cancer, and then breast cancer, while still in her 30s. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but after what she had gone through, she really needed a fresh start with her bathrooms, which were reminding her of bad times.
While I sat and talked with Meg at her pretty and peaceful Los Angeles home (her two daughters were on a play date), I was astonished at what she had gone through. And what she continues to go through. Late-stage cancer, chemotherapy and radiation really take a toll on a body.
Talking to Meg reminded me of how important it is that we all stay on top of our healthcare. Meg's advice to readers: Request your medical reports. Read them and ask questions. And keep your records in a binder. In other words, take charge of your own health.
Gigi, an administrator with the Glendora Unified School District who lives in Claremont, told me she found the headboard (which is really a footboard) for $5 on closeout at a Pier One Imports store. That was the starting point for the room.
To make reading in bed more enjoyable, Gigi's husband, Don, a professor in the technology department at Cal State L.A., mounted the headboard at an angle. He joked about spending more on the lumber to mount the headboard than the headboard cost.
I love what Gigi did with the "canopy" treatment. It looks so cozy, but it's really just two rods sticking out of the wall with a piece of fabric hanging from each, and tied back at the wall. (Click on the photos for a larger view of this.) And the starfish hanging overhead came right from the beach just beyond the condo patio.
On the floor are ceramic tiles that look like slate; this tile is found throughout the house. To the right, you see a small table and chairs that might not seem in sync with the rest of the room. Those pieces were not bought new (as were most of the pieces for the remodel) but hold great memories for Gigi: The table is where she wrote her PhD dissertation.
Just above the table, the curtains — with seashells tied onto them — are quite in tune with the sound of the ocean waves just outside the window.
The nice thing about remodeling an older home in a neighborhood of such homes is that you need simply walk around the area with your eyes open to find ideas for exterior architectural details.
That's what Aaron Raymond did when he remodeled his 1942 French Normandy home in the Windsor Hills area of Los Angeles. While previous owners had taken off the decorative corbels on the front porch, Aaron noticed them on other homes in the neighborhood that had similar architecture. So he asked his carpenters to re-create them.
He used a similar tactic when thinking about his second-story addition. In other homes of likewise vintage, he noticed the second story hung over the first by several feet, with decorative corbels visually tying the two together. See that here.
We're not all lucky enough to live in neighborhoods with older homes, but if we are so fortunate, the homes themselves can be a great inspiration.
I guess I'm not a competent matchmaker, as I seem to have violated a major principle in the art form: timing. (Or, as comedian Steve Martin pronounced it in one of his routines, ti-MING.)
My gaffe was in telling the story about bachelor Aaron Raymond, seen here showing off the travertine backsplash he had installed in his kitchen, but not checking up on his dating status just prior to the article running last Sunday in the Real Estate section.
Funny thing is, an editor suggested that because I was making such a big deal in the article about Aaron expanding his home to accommodate a future wife and family, that I should contact him and check on his singlehood situation. I rejected that idea as I didn't want to embarrass him, but in hindsight it would have been wise.
After getting several inquires from professional women about Aaron's status, including a homeowner who said she wanted to throw her hat into the ring, I decided it was time to ask Aaron: Are you seeing anyone?
Brace yourself ladies: he is. Between the time I interviewed him for the story and the time it ran, he had resumed dating a former girlfriend. And although he's very flattered and intrigued by the attention he’s getting from others, he wants to give this a chance. That's what decent guys do.
If other bachelors reading this post wonder how to attract quality women, I'd say a whole-house remodel and second-story addition with about 100 square feet of empty closet space is a good place to start.
• The kitchen remodel in this 1971 Northridge tract house cost $20,000 and was done in three weeks. (Click on the photos to get a larger view) • Homeowner Dani Taylor did none of the work herself, but hired a contractor well known in the neighborhood. • Dani had many years to imagine how she would improve her kitchen as other remodeling projects and additions to the house took priority. • Rather than investing in new cabinets, Dani had her cabinet boxes refaced and got new doors and drawer fronts. • She added an amazing amount of extra counter space by designing the new, angled cabinet section you see on the right of the remodel photos. • While most of the appliances are new, she opted to keep her dishwasher, which worked fine, and got a new panel for the front. • A few concessions were made to keep within budget, including keeping the existing tile floor and not pushing the kitchen into an adjacent breakfast area. • But Dani did not have to give up her dream of granite counters, which were fit into the budget.
Ariane Wiltse, the homeowner, is also setting up a blog so she can chronicle her home's progress in more detail than we can handle here.
This kind of reminds me of the 18-month-long Dream Home Diaries in the New York Times, which followed a Boston couple's building of a $1-million dream home on a small island in Florida.
The difference here is that this is not a new home and Ariane doesn't have $1 million. Her budget is more like a wing and a prayer. And all this makes for a more fascinating story, at least to me.
Thanks for voting. If you were among the 11% who indicated this story would not be of interest, I'd like to hear why you voted that way. What is your perspective?
Back in the 1980s, Michelle Griffoul chose her home for one reason.
"It had forklift access to the backyard," said Michelle, who bought the home, in the Santa Barbara County community of Los Olivos, when she was a fledgling ceramic-tile artist with a very large kiln. "The house itself was irrelevant."
But the sage-green house with eggplant-colored trim has become relevant over the last 24 years, serving as a canvas of sorts where Michelle has tried out and lived with her whimsical ceramic and bronze tiles. Today she makes her living designing and manufacturing tiles sold in 140 showrooms nationwide.
Michelle's own tile projects -- in her bathrooms, on fireplaces and walls, on furniture and in and around a sumptuous swimming pool and spa -- remind her of the stages of her life: a first marriage, motherhood, divorce and remarriage. And they also chronicle her emergence as an artist.
Although the sleek new kitchen in Bethany Orlemann and Danny Miller's vintage Eagle Rock bungalow took only eight weeks to build in the summer of 2007, planning it was a three-year affair.
The couple's meandering path to a new kitchen took a series of twists and turns that began with Orlemann researching design magazines and drawing out her ideas. It switched directions when the couple, both assistant film editors, hired an architect to create what turned out to be an overblown design, which included a giant island that didn't suit their needs.
"It's just the two of us," Orlemann said.
The planning then came full circle with Orlemann designing the kitchen herself with the goal of matching the quality of the $100,000, architect-designed kitchens she saw featured in the magazines -- but for half the price.
"I was determined to show that an assistant film editor could design an equally beautiful kitchen for a lot less," she said. And, Orlemann said, she has no regrets about the extra time it took or the final result.
"Every step we took," she said, "moved us to the next point."
Construction (covered by general contractor: plumbing, electric and cabinetry): $43,000
Includes: demolition gut to studs, remove interior walls, framing new doorway and windows, drywall, rough and finish electrical (includes replacing old knob and tube wiring, relocate and upgrade new service panel), rough and finish plumbing (includes moving water lines for sink, dishwasher and laundry, as well as moving gas lines for stove and dryer), materials and installation of custom cabinets and installation of windows, doors, lights (interior and exterior) and appliances.
Countertops: Silestone Quartz Verde Aqua, 10% off sale: $3,463 Backsplash tile: $50 Tile installation: $450 Interior painting: $1,600 Hardwood flooring: includes tie-in to existing flooring, white oak: $2,900 HVAC: includes relocating air conditioner/heat vent to toe kick space beneath cabinet): $600 Window: $525 Door: $575 Refrigerator: Kenmore stainless steel, from OSH, bought on "no sales tax day," plus 20% off sale, plus LADWP rebate $65): $1,178 Washer/dryer: front loading Frigidaire, on sale, plus manufacturer’s rebate, plus LADWP rebate of $150): $849 Drain pan: $100 Stove: Frigidaire slide in, on sale: $1,200 Range hood: Chimney style stainless Broan, bought through Ebay, MSRP $578: $334 Faucet: Hansgrohe Pullout, MSRP $538, bought through Ebay: $100 Garbage disposal: Insinkerator, MSRP $320, bought through Ebay: $100 Spice rack/base cabinet filler: MSRP $153, bought through Ebay: $88 Sink: Kindred single bowl stainless steel, MSRP $500, from Costco.com: $300 Lighting fixtures: $60 Hardware: cabinet knobs, satin nickel, from Target: $50 Hardware: door latches, deadbolt, screen door hinges/pull: $50 Prep table: John Boos butcher block, MSRP $580: $360 Barstools: pair from Crate & Barrel: $180 Subtotal: $58,112 Sold: old refrigerator and stove through Craigslist: -$500
While Gretchen Zee bought her 1960s tract house in Santa Barbara for its lush one third-acre ocean-view lot overlooking an oak-covered hillside, she had to go outside the house to get any sense of nature.
The house was, in fact, backed up to the views, oriented to offer visions of the driveway from the family room's picture window.
In theory, the kitchen, at the back of the house, offered canyon views. However, besides a small window over the sink, the stove and cabinets stood between the people and the panorama.
"They just plunked these houses down without any sensitivity to where anything was," said Gretchen, who bought the house in 1988 with her husband, Tony, a physics researcher and professor, and their two young sons, Peter and Andrew, then 5 and 11, respectively.
Gretchen, an architect, wanted to remodel the house right away. The money to do it, however, was not available.
But the house helped bring about a remodel when, in a short period, the roof wore out, the kitchen sink cracked, the stove broke, and the dishwasher headed for its demise.
The logical response would have been to simply remodel the kitchen. But Gretchen, even with her fertile architect's mind, couldn't imagine simply upgrading it.
Finally, it occurred to her that the kitchen had to be moved to the driveway side of the house, where the family room was, and the family room moved to the view side of the house.
At first, Gretchen had no idea how exactly she would transform the space. Night after night, as she pondered the "new" house, her eyes settled on a large, abstract painting by Tony Zee's sister, Chicago artist Stella Zee.
As Gretchen took in the painting's large, sensuous forms swirling round with blues, yellows, browns and grays, she decided to use it as a starting point for the new color scheme.
Architecturally, the new space feels at once contemporary (unique ceiling angles, unusual colors), Asian (clean lines, use of red color) and a bit traditional (thick baseboard moldings and wooden floors).
Today, the newly positioned dining room and family room overlook the canyon through a walls of glass doors and windows, and both have high, slanted ceilings that were pushed up into the home's ample attic space.
Removing a wall to create the great room required, for structural stability, a supporting post near the entryway. Gretchen installed a large red post, which, in husband Tony's native China, is said to bring fortune to a family.
With Stella Zee's painting as the visual centerpoint, the ceilings are painted a pale gray, with the slightest touch of lavender, while two walls are a buttery yellow and two are a dusty green.
The subtle colors end at the new kitchen. While the baseboard cabinets are maple, the ceilings and counters are bright white and the glass-fronted wall cabinets are stained bright red, with the whole illuminated by a large, glass skylight.
The entire project cost $40,000 and took four months to complete Gretchen has no regrets, especially none on the red cabinets, which she said would be considered "too risky" by most of her friends.
"What's the big deal?" she said. "If I don't like it, I can just paint it."
A Glassell Park couple get personal in their latest redo -- down to the cat-feeding station.
As Kristina Johnson and David Franke discovered while remodeling their Glassell Park kitchen, taking charge of the job -- drawing the plans, buying materials, supervising contractors for some work and doing a portion of it themselves -- can not only save money, but it can also lead to a highly personalized result.
"The kitchen is 100% us," Johnson said of the room, which features a granite-covered windowsill and backsplash to accommodate pots of orchids, a cat-feeding station notched out of a bottom cabinet, and three subtly different shades of sage green paint.
"We didn't build it with an eye for resale or with anyone else in mind."
The couple, both 39, took on the remodel in the summer of 2006 after a string of other successful upgrades, including updating the exterior, landscaping the backyard and redoing the lone bathroom.
Their overriding goal for the kitchen, as well as the adjacent service porch and dining room, was the same as it had been for the tiled bathroom: to add modern conveniences while retaining the character and craftsmanship of the 1941 home. (See old kitchen)
After months of planning, the couple got an equity loan and set a $30,000 budget. Summer was chosen because that's when David, a teacher at Eagle Rock Elementary, had time to tackle what would be the couple's biggest project so far.
Appliances: $3,750 (including front-loading washer and dryer, refrigerator and stove, minus several rebates from utility companies)
Cabinets and hardware: $4,000 (note: half the cabinets were original, half were custom made to match)
General contractor: $14,700 (included: demolition, raising the sunken floor, all the plumbing and electrical work, installing a new back door, removal and patching of a window, sink installation, tile-floor installation in the laundry and powder rooms, installing the old laundry room sink in the garage, and installation of a tankless water heater.
Fixtures: $1,420
Hardwood flooring: $2,870 ($1,800 for flooring, $1,000 for installation)
Granite: $3,075 ($1,100 for two slabs, $1,650 for kitchen fabrication, $325 to fabricate counter for laundry room)
Carl Balton, who bought and remodeled a beaten-down Mar Vista home, is an accountant type who is good with money and numbers. And frankly, I'm a little jealous of his numbers acumen.
Then, he did a totally organized and low-cost remodel that is filled with easygoing grace. Again, green envy.
And then, to top it off, a reader identifying herself as Carl's ex-girlfriend just posted a comment about his house saying how Carl always did have style and congratulating him on this remodel. I mean, does it get any better than that?
So I thought I'd look closely at before and after photos of Carl's remodel (click to enlarge) and point out some of the upgrades that he did himself, or with various friends that he paid to help him. Carl also hired pros when that was the wise thing to do. Knowing when to spend the money and when to not spend the money is key.
Part of Carl's strategy was buying a sound house that already had good features like a nice tile roof, hardwood floors and a workable floor plan. Therefore, he did not have to spend thousands of dollars shoring up a bad foundation, for instance, or tearing out rotted walls. Most of what he spent his time (eight weeks) and money ($25,000) on added much to the visual beauty of the home.
Sleek and customized, a ground-up remodel transforms a tiny ocean-view lot.
When architect Robert Nebolon started sketching out ideas for his sister's tear-down and rebuild in south Hermosa Beach, he felt pretty confident that his design would meet the needs of her family -- despite the challenging 30-by-50-foot lot they had to work with.
But he was also a little anxious about doing a good job because he knew their four siblings and other relatives and friends would be watching.
"I didn't want to screw up in front of the whole family," said Nebolon, 48.
But Barbara Gunning, 42, never doubted her big brother could create a house right for her, her husband, Joe, 42, and their two daughters.
Even though Nebolon lives in Berkeley, he had spent enough time with his sister and her family to have a sense of their Southern California lifestyle -- fun, social, vigorous, beachy yet sophisticated.
"I trusted Robert," said Barbara, who moved her family into the airy house with ocean views a year ago. "He knew."
Mitch Klapow was not enthused when his mother handed him an ad for the Oakridge Mobile Home Park in Sylmar, where he would eventually buy his first home.
At the time, Mitch, 30, was searching for a condominium to rent. Looking at the mobile homes in the real estate magazine, he thought: "There's no way I'm living in a trailer."
A condo rental in Granada Hills, near where he and his mother operated two laundromats and a small publishing company, would be a step up from the various apartments he had rented since he left home at 18.
With the rent on his latest apartment increasing to more than $1,000 a month (this was a few years ago), he decided to find a condo, figuring he could pay $1,100 to $1,200 a month.
Buying a place had not yet occurred to him: "I think of myself as a renter."
His mind changed when he toured Oakridge, a large, gated park tucked up against the San Gabriel Mountains in the far northern reaches of the San Fernando Valley. Besides winding streets of well-kept factory-manufactured homes that seem more like cottages than trailers, the park offers a 15,000-square-foot clubhouse, two jacuzzis, a pool, tennis court, and billiard room with five tables. As a family park, it is open to children, and there is an average age of 50.
The prices were appealing to Klapow. He could lock one in for less than $100,000 at the time, he said, still sounding incredulous. "It's a joke. It's ridiculous."
While he would still be renting the lot, he would also reap the tax and equity-building advantages of owning a home.
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.
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.
You know how everyone likes to sit up high on bar stools? But without having to be in a bar?
Steve and Marygrace Carpenter like that feeling so much they got rid of their lowly kitchen table during a recent remodel at their Westchester home and replaced it with this tall table. It's almost like an island in the kitchen, but it's for sittin' at.
This also illustrates the beauty of getting your cabinets custom made, which, strangely enough, often costs about the same or less than buying cabinets "off the shelf." In this case, Steve told the cabinetmaker what he needed to create this bar-height table, then got the granite fabricator to make a nice rectangular piece with rounded edges, and voila! It's where everyone wants to sit, including me during a visit. I mean, I could hardly pull myself away from it.
Taking a break from the wildfire coverage, let's consider load-bearing posts in a house.
Every now and again, a large and open room requires a post to hold up the roof or floor above. It's usually a matter of the budget, where a beam or beams strong enough to span the room and carry the load would be cost prohibitive.
So, rather than trying to hide the post, why not celebrate it?
I visited this Hermosa Beach house recently for a Pardon Our Dust feature that will run soon in the Sunday Real Estate section of the L.A. Times.
Until the feature runs, I wanted to share with you a tile-covered post I saw at that house. See a close-up of the tile.
As you can see, the family's youngest daughter has discovered that the tiles give her enough foothold to climb up and down like a little monkey. Looking on is the girl's uncle, architect Robert Nebolon, who designed the house.
It might be soon to talk about recovery as the tragedy unfolds, but Southern Californians do rebuild after fires. I'm sure Claremont residents Vern and Deb Jahnke, who lost their house in the 2003 Grand Prix Fire, are thinking about and praying for (he's a minister, after all) the victims of the current fires.
After their house burned, the Jahnkes wanted to sell their charred lot and move on. But then they got excited about the prospect of building a "green" home they could grow old in, and a fire-resistant one.
In the bottom photo, you see the burnt house, which was covered with wood shingles. Very flammable wood shingles.
In the top photo, you see the house risen from the ashes, with these fire-resistant qualities:
• Stucco exterior • Tile roof • Dual-pane windows • No soffits
Also, you may notice the exposed wood on the exterior, which is typically a no-no for fire-prone areas. In order for the wood to be allowed by codes, it had to be of a certain thickness (notice how thick the posts and beams are?) so it will be very slow to burn if a fire comes this way again.
If you or someone you know faces fire tragedy today, it's not just the Jahnkes who are praying for you — millions of us are.
I asked Liese my favorite how's-the-remodel-working-out set of questions. I wanted to know what she and Dave would have done differently, given the chance, during the 18-month-long remodel. And I wanted to know what turned out better than they expected. To my surprise, it was the floor tiles (pictured here), bought at Mission Tile for $2 each, that delighted her most. Read her comments:
I have to say, there isn’t anything I’d do differently. Perhaps it is because we took so much time with each detail following our belief –- do it right the first time and you won’t have to do it again (at least not for another 10 years when I’m sure it will have to be updated)!
As for the best part of it, I think that would just have to be the overall feeling of it. When I sit at the butcher block table with my coffee in the morning or glass of wine at night and look back at the kitchen itself, I’m always amazed at Dave’s talent at truly taking our vision and making it a reality. It makes up for all those tough moments like redoing the water lines under the house until 11 p.m. and dealing with the tenacity of black grout (it takes buckets and buckets and buckets of water to get that right) or scraping every bit of old paint off the woodwork.
But if I had to choose something, I’d have to say the floor. I LOVE it. It is exactly what I have always wanted. People said tile would be hard for someone who likes to cook (hard on the feet/body) but I haven’t found that to be true. When you are on your feet anywhere for a long period of time you are going to feel it!
And some friends have mentioned that they’d be afraid to have a copper sink, thinking it would be hard to clean, but in reality, it’s just as easy to clean as any other surface. It gets prettier as we use it and I just use the Bartender’s Friend on it lightly.
And the wine cooler is an added luxury that I really think makes the kitchen. But wait! I can’t forget the dishwasher! The first I’ve had in my life (aside from my childhood home). That is truly a treat! We really should never, ever take our dishwashers for granted –- take it from someone who did them for 18 months in a bathtub!
This three-minute YouTube video shows some befores and afters of SoCal remodeling projects I've written about. Perhaps they will inspire you. Be sure to turn up the sound.
Bill and Becka Doering did a whole-house green remodel on their Santa Barbara home, and I wrote a Pardon Our Dust feature about it, which you can read here.
Bill is both an engineer and a green-building enthusiast. With his firm, Doering Design & Engineering, he helps others make their homes more energy-efficient. Also, the couple and their house became the subjects of a new documentary called "Remodel 2030," which is a takeoff of architect Ed Mazria's Architecture 2030 challenge for all buildings to become carbon-neutral within 23 years.
As the Doerings and their two young kids have lived with their remodel for more than a year, I thought I'd catch up with them and see how it's going. Here are the questions I asked:
1. Now that you've had a chance to live with your remodel for some time, what's the best part of it, something that's been more wonderful than you expected?
Becka: I really love the open floor plan. Taking out the walls makes it so much easier to keep up with the kids. I can be in the kitchen doing chores with the ability to see and hear them in the living or dining room. I can be on the sofa nursing Lucas and be able to chat with Emi while she works at the table, etc. The large slider in the living room creates a similar connection with the backyard.
Also, I love the daylight. The large windows and doors, and especially the skylight in the hallway, keep the house bright and breezy, even on cloudy days.
Putting the fourth bedroom into the plans has been key. There is always room in there for a little extra stuff. It affords our overnight guests a bit of privacy. And it's still a relatively open space where the kids can spread out and do a big project or jump around and get crazy. Having such a versatile area has been valuable.
Bill: Of course, there's the return on the investment of putting your heart and soul (and blood and tears) into your home. But the best unexpected thing is the location of the house, which has enabled us to change our daily living habits. We walk to Trader Joe's and to the coffee store and to go to dinner. We play at the school down the block. We walk much more in the neighborhood. The car is relegated to a "need to use" basis...
And it reinvigorated our commitment to the environment and activism!
2. And what are your regrets? What would you do different if you could?
Becka: If I were to do it again, I'd look more at concrete countertops. At West Coast Green, I saw an elegant and interesting concrete, I think it had chips of recycled porcelain in it! I was really concerned about cracking and staining, but I think the porcelain would help to mitigate both of those issues. Also, I would have found more places to use the LED lights; they're great!
Bill: I would have spent even more time researching products and ensuring a good installation of this or that. If you are gonna do it, do it once and do it right!
Ann Lippincott recalls the exact moment her kitchen remodel got off the ground.
During a Halloween party at her Santa Barbara ocean-view condominium two years ago, Lippincott, who was dressed as a witch, was standing in the kitchen with a friend, Lena Savage, an artist and former architect who was dressed as a punk rocker.
The two studied the cramped space Lippincott had come to decry as "a bunch of stupid cabinets stuck to the wall." Then Savage said: "There's so much we could do with this kitchen."
"Which was what I was waiting to hear," said Lippincott, a professor at UC Santa Barbara. Up to that point, she had been stymied by a string of designers whose sentiments had boiled down to one thought about the 8 1/2 -by-10 1/2 -foot kitchen: It's small.
At that, Lippincott would think: Yes, it is, and that means I'll be able to afford really great stuff in it.
Finally, someone shared her vision.
And so last month, after 18 months of planning and four months of construction, the two friends held a party for the contractor, craftsmen and workers who had helped create Lippincott's dream kitchen of finely crafted cherry and mahogany cabinets, concrete counters and a glass tile backsplash.
I present the sources for the Santa Barbara kitchen remodel above in a separate post as an homage to all the professionals who work daily to bring homeowners' dreams to life.
The really great tile setters and plumbers and masons and contractors generally cost more than those less talented and less together. But for some homeowners -- those who want to lessen the chance that there will be irresolvable problems and contention, and who want to increase the chance of a truly inspired remodel -- the extra cost is still a bargain.
Project: Remodel Santa Barbara condo's small kitchen
I like contacting past subjects of Pardon Our Dust, my remodeling series in the L.A. Times, and asking them: Hey, how's it going?
Typically I see a house shortly after a remodel is finished when the people are thrilled with the project. After all, most of the time they have contacted me, suggesting their own home for the series (and this is my favorite way to find my projects). So there's a fair amount of glee all around.
But after a remodel has been lived with for a year or two, some weaknesses are bound to emerge. And some joys more fully appreciated.
So with the launch of this "How's that remodel working out?" series, I bring you comments from some of my favorite POD features to help you with your own plans.
The first responses come from Trish Cohen in the Hollywood Hills. I wrote about the tower she built with her husband, music attorney Martin Cohen, who has since passed away. Martin had owned the several-acre property for decades, but it was not until Trish entered the scene that the house started to take on a graceful beauty.
The remodel I wrote about was a two-story tower, which was built off the master bedroom. The bottom of the tower functions as a large closet, with a spiral staircase leading to the second floor of the tower, which is an exercise room overlooking the bedroom.
I asked Trish: What is the best thing about the tower? What do you wish you'd done differently? Here's what she said:
The best thing about the tower is its look. I live in a relatively small farmhouse and the tower has given it a Tuscan look. As the tower was built to accommodate a closet, I've certainly made good use of it and I have plenty of room now for my clothes. The upstairs part of the tower is used as an exercise room and I use it a lot and really enjoy being up there on the treadmill looking out over the hills of Hollywood.
My only regret, other than losing my husband, is the fact that we didn't put a hidden ironing board into the closet, a safe, more shoe racks and a center piece with drawers. I have since put in another shoe rack and the center piece.
There are many creative ways to pull together a remodel.
For this recent Hollywood Hills kitchen renovation, homeowners Renata Kanclerz and Lisa Coleman bought appliances and other materials on their own and then paid their contractor a flat fee for all labor and installation.
Here's how much the homeowners paid for various features in this kitchen (not including installation):
As Betty Frazier approached her 80th birthday, no one would have thought twice if she had decided to downsize her living arrangements.
Instead, the Leisure World resident did the opposite, opting to sell her one-bedroom place, move up to a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit she bought in the same Laguna Woods community and embark on an all-encompassing, five-month, $45,000 remodel.
"I took off like a sail in the wind," said Betty, who used part of her savings to finance the project. By the time the remodel was complete, Betty was so pumped up, she decided to go back to work as an interior designer after an eight-year retirement.
Rarely does a house thrill like the 1922 Mediterranean Brian Wakil and Susan McDonnell-Wakil bought several years ago in Silver Lake. It exhilarated them for both its colorful past as well as its potentially colorful future.
According to neighbors in this hilly enclave of eclectic homes, cowboy actor Tom Mix built the 2,200 square-foot, multi-level house, which was once surrounded by pastures of grazing horses. For the past several decades the house was owned by vaudeville actress Violet Carlson, who died at age 97. According to her son, Cary Grant, Jeanette MacDonald, and many other stars visited the home.
The future of the home, in Brian's and Susan's hands, emerged after a $120,000 remodel and a badly needed infusion of color. Over the years, Carlson had transformed her home into a temple of white. "The walls were painted white," said Brian, a documentary film maker. "The red tile roof was painted white. The grand piano was white. Floor tiles white. Marble white."
This blank canvas had a magnetic pull on Susan, an artist. "To me, a house is just a large-scale painting," she said. Brian, on the other hand, was agog over the living room's Byzantine-shaped windows and doors, the lofty wood ceiling and the fireplace inset with exquisite Bechtel tiles. "Gotta have it," Brian proclaimed as he set foot in the room. Not since childhood had he experienced "the feeling inside that I wanted something so bad I couldn't stand it."
Some decisions in the remodel were easy (replace antiquated plumbing and wiring, install a new tile roof), but some called for experimentation. While the exterior was sand-blasted and replastered in a light mocha shade, Susan struggled to find the right trim color before realizing that white was ideal.
"Sometimes it's best to restrain yourself," she said. Inside, restraint lessened. The living room ceiling took several coats of a dark pumpkin hue, a bathroom got purple cabinets, a hallway was painted yellow ochre under a wash of red, and the guest room was painted a pale blue-lavender.
The choice of kitchen colors required serious thought. It would be easy to repaint if tastes changed, but the tile floor would be fairly permanent, and the investment in custom-stained Shaker-style cabinets, as well as the granite counters, would be substantial. "You don't make a mistake on cabinets," Brian emphasized.
In 1974 -- the year Renata Kanclerz and Lisa Coleman's Hollywood Hills kitchen was previously remodeled -- dark plywood cabinets, butcher-block counters and red brick backsplashes were considered cutting edge.
Three decades later, however, those materials were too old to be hip and too young to be historic.
So last year, Kanclerz and Coleman tore out that kitchen and replaced it with today's version of ultramodern: light-stained birch cabinets, quartz composite counters, porcelain floor tiles and a stunning stainless steel woven backsplash.
Though the old kitchen was worn out before the remodel, that was not a problem when Coleman, a musician who scores TV shows, bought the distinctive 1927 French Normandy home in 1986.
At the time, she was on the road a lot and how the kitchen looked or functioned was not an issue. "We weren't really here cooking," she said.
The kitchen had some nice qualities, especially the bank of original French windows over the sink and a cozy breakfast nook. But poor design had put a large pantry cabinet between the nook and kitchen, isolating it and blocking natural light.
Kanclerz figured the previous kitchen renovation was a homeowner-handyman special, and that suspicion was confirmed when, once they began their own remodel, a "time capsule" was discovered hidden behind the cabinets.
The capsule included some marijuana and a handwritten note predicting that President Nixon would be impeached, and it named the gaggle of friends who were living in the house (all of whom the note said had voted for Sen. George McGovern) and those who were working on the kitchen. "This is ridiculous," the note concluded.
It took Coleman and Kanclerz some time, however, to get to that demolition. The project languished as they were beset with indecision -- even though they pulled out $100,000 when they refinanced four years ago intending to redo the kitchen.
The two were spurred into action last year when Coleman became pregnant with their daughter, August. They didn't want her growing up in a kitchen with plywood doors and drawers held together with gaffer's tape. "That was the impetus," Kanclerz said. "It really propelled us."
Kanclerz started the project by looking on the Internet and in magazines for a sense of what she and Coleman would like and tore out pages and put them in a notebook. "When we went to the appliance store," she said, "I had my book."
Once they knew the kind of kitchen they wanted -- modern and unique but compatible with the style of their vintage home and with a Viking or Wolf range -- they sought out designers. Bradco Kitchens had been featured on the "Designers' Challenge" home improvement show and the two liked what they saw.
Still, they dreaded their home being torn up and the project stalled. Then one Sunday, Kanclerz said to Coleman: "Come on, we've got to bite the bullet," and they walked into the Bradco showroom.
Even though Roger Beckman had dated Ann Baber for more than a decade, he didn’t discover her hidden talents until she started remodeling her 1970s Culver City condo.
Her first task was Herculean: stripping the dark brown finish off her kitchen cabinets, followed by sanding, whitewashing and applying three coats of sealer.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” admitted Anne, a commercial real estate broker. “It was a horrible, horrible job. It was a miracle I finished. Roger was amazed at my tenacity.”
But that was only the beginning. Energized, she built a room divider, took out her built-in stove and substituted a free-standing model and updated her bathroom.
“I was amazed,” Roger said. “She did work I’d never do. She has a natural talent. Put a trowel in her hand and wow. I found out she’s a great plasterer.”
Encouraged by Anne’s talent, Roger asked her if she’d like to look at a small 1950s fixer-upper he’d found through a newspaper ad.
“It’s trashed,” he told her. But the price, at the bottom of the market, was almost too low to pass up.
Bolstered by her skills, Baber was not scared off by the 912-square-foot home’s charmless chain-link fence, dirt yard, awkward floor plan, cracked plaster, malfunctioning appliances, cigarette-burned windowsills or dark, depressing paneling.
“Good bones,” she declared and christened it “The Tiny.”
The Tiny was in a good location for Baber, who sells apartment buildings in the area, as well as for Beckman, who owns apartment building in the area. Ultimately, it was Anne’s remodeling success with her condo that decided the deal.
“Well, hell,” Roger had said, “with these skills, let’s do it.”
And Roger came to the project with his own assets.
“He has every tool in the world,” Anne explains. And when Roger branded himself “not much of a craftsman,” Anne disagrees. “You are too, honey.”
Escrow closed in late spring, and after investing about $40,000 and hundreds of hours of sweat equity, Anne moved into The Tiny the following January.
The first goal for Anne was to change the location of the front door, which originally directed foot traffic into the house by way of a diagonal path across the small living room.
“It made the living room feel like a hallway,” Anne said.
In place of the front door, the couple built a fireplace. Now the entrance opens into the dining room, with the living room and fireplace to the left, and the kitchen beyond that. Off the dining room, a hallway with build-in cupboards leads to two bedrooms and a bathroom.
When Patricia Morrow and her two children finally outgrew their two-bedroom North Hollywood home, it was obvious that something had to be done.
I was sleeping in my daughter's room and my son was in the other room," said Morrow, who had bought the house with her then-husband in 1970, pre-parenthood. "It was obvious there was no room for Mom."
But moving to a larger house was never an option for Morrow and her children, Mary and James.
"I wanted my kids to say, 'This is the house Mom brought me home to from the hospital,'" she said. "I wanted them to be near neighbors who would say, 'My, James, you're sure getting big.'"
Plus there was the divorce to consider. "You don't want to displace the kids any more than you have to," said Morrow, a management recruiter. And she didn't want to walk away from the two ash trees on the side of the house that she had watched mature.
Also, she liked the increasingly mixed ethnicity of her neighborhood, which she said is "the neighborhood of the future."
So, it seemed, adding on to the 1950s bungalow was the only recourse. Trouble was, "I'd only heard horror stories about remodeling," Morrow said. Read more . . .
After living in her 1950s Woodland Hills ranch home for 14 years, Cathy Nordlund set out to do something she had never attempted before --completely gut and redo one room to her heart's desire.
I want to let you know about the Pardon Our Dust feature coming up Sunday in the Real Estate section. It's about two bathrooms that were gutted and redone in 14 days. But I also want to share with you something that did not fit in my article but that touched me personally as I reported and wrote the story. 
