Teaser relief: www.645-42nd.com
In my last post, I made reference to a number of changes that we had made to the house: the front door, the master bathroom, the gas fireplace, etc. The above link will take you to the marketing site for our house where you can view the finished results of our changes. Details to follow...
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Changes to the familiar
It's easy to become accustomed to something the longer you live with it. This applies not only to houses but to cars, people and other objects. In the case of pets or people, especially a spouse or other family member, the attraction to that person usually grows stronger over time; with cars or other inanimate objects, the relationship usually heads the other direction.
The relationship that I had with our house was one of slowly growing admiration. The place was a relative dump when we bought it, but it had a number of positives that led us to buy it:
This is the front of the house as it looked when we bought it in 1998:
We made many changes to the exterior of the house over the ensuing years, including:
We had also made a number of changes to the interior of the house, including:
There were two things that we had grown accustomed to but hadn't yet done:
Like most relationships of 15 years, we had learned to live with these last two items. When it came time to sell the house, however, we had to look at it with new vision. Wanting to get the maximum value for the house, Emily and I knew we needed to make changes. The environment that we had grown comfortable with would not be good enough for someone experiencing it for the first time. The door and the bathroom had to go.
We contacted our friend and general contractor Joe Ryan for help. (Insert shameless plug here.) Joe's company is called Joe Ryan's Peninsula Painting (he painted our house and replaced the front siding), but he's able to perform almost all construction tasks, interior or exterior. If you need any work done on your place in the Bay Area, call Joe. He not only has the skill to perform remodeling jobs, he also has an almost obsessive attention to detail.
With Emily and me helping as much as we could, Joe installed the new door and trimmed the siding to match. The results were beautiful!
(In this picture, the siding hasn't yet been painted to match the rest of the house.)
He also remodeled the bathroom, but I don't have a picture of that yet. (Teaser alert: wait for the next post.)
When we were ready to sell the house, our realtor looked around and told us that the wood-burning fireplace insert had to go. I was surprised; it was an incredibly efficient way to heat the house and very inexpensive to use.
(Note to firewood hunters: I rarely paid for firewood. The two best sources can be had just by driving around. One: look for gardeners cutting down a tree. They will deliver the wood to your driveway for free instead of having to pay the dump to get rid of it. Two: look for a major remodel happening. The dumpster will usually have a lot of dimensional lumber in it, usually very dry. It doesn't make for the prettiest fire, but in an insert that doesn't matter. Just scoop out the nails and ashes when the fire is out.)
Back to the fireplace. We removed the insert and gave it to a neighbor's friend. When we saw the fireplace opening, however, we were in for a surprise. The insert installers had removed the damper and ruined the smoke shelf in the fireplace, and that would have required serious masonry work to make it functional. We opted for a gas fireplace insert.
The green tile facade that I had installed also had to go. It looked great when I installed it in 1999 but it was out of date. To update it, Emily and I shopped around until we found granite that matched the kitchen granite. (Another shameless plug: looking for granite? Terico's in San Jose is the place to go.) Joe said that the three of us could fabricate it to fit the fireplace, so he picked it up on a Monday morning and brought it to our house:
Yikes! This slab is 6x10' and weighs over 900 pounds! Joe, Emily and I spent about two hours laying out the cuts and planning how to proceed, but we made it happen! It took three days and a lot of muscle to get this installed, but the results are fantastic! (Yet another teaser because I don't have a picture available: the next post will show the installed facade.)
We also did some other minor updates to the house (crown molding in the bedrooms, minor electrical and painting), but the work is finally done.
We live on what Joe calls a "walking street". We have wonderful neighbors, and many of them will walk the cul-de-sac for exercise. A few of them said that once we had finished all of this work that we would reconsider moving. In true "Love It or List It" style, however, we're going to list it! We have loved our house and poured all of our efforts into it; I hope the next owners get as much enjoyment out of it as we have.
The relationship that I had with our house was one of slowly growing admiration. The place was a relative dump when we bought it, but it had a number of positives that led us to buy it:
- A fantastic 180 degree view of San Francisco bay, from the San Mateo bridge to Sugarloaf hill
- A quiet cul-de-sac with 22 other houses and no through traffic
- Solid construction with excellent drainage in a (relatively) safe earthquake zone
This is the front of the house as it looked when we bought it in 1998:
We made many changes to the exterior of the house over the ensuing years, including:
- Replacing the rock lawn with sod and adding irrigation
- Building the brick planter in front
- Clearing all of the overgrown brush in the back yard
- Replacing the aluminum slider windows with Pella wood clad windows (including the bay window)
- Removing the dated shutter look and replacing the front siding
- Rebuilding the fences and gates on the front and side of the house
- Building stairs and terracing the back yard and adding irrigation
- Creating the flagstone patio on the "ledge" halfway up the hill
- Building storage sheds along both fences
- Bringing water and electric service to the top of the hill
- Building a tree fort for our daughter at the very top of the hill
- Creating a vineyard on the otherwise "unusable" top half of the hill
We had also made a number of changes to the interior of the house, including:
- Redoing all of the hardwood floors
- Remodeling the hall (common) bathroom
- Remodeling the kitchen (you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL7hTIJjbbg)
- Replacing all of the interior closet and hall doors
- Installing a wood-burning insert in the fireplace and updating the facade
- Updating the knob-and-tube electrical with grounded Romex
- Building my workshop in the garage (my personal favorite!)
There were two things that we had grown accustomed to but hadn't yet done:
- Remodel the master bathroom
- Replace the front door (a hollow-core weakling with a dated Coke-bottle transom)
Like most relationships of 15 years, we had learned to live with these last two items. When it came time to sell the house, however, we had to look at it with new vision. Wanting to get the maximum value for the house, Emily and I knew we needed to make changes. The environment that we had grown comfortable with would not be good enough for someone experiencing it for the first time. The door and the bathroom had to go.
We contacted our friend and general contractor Joe Ryan for help. (Insert shameless plug here.) Joe's company is called Joe Ryan's Peninsula Painting (he painted our house and replaced the front siding), but he's able to perform almost all construction tasks, interior or exterior. If you need any work done on your place in the Bay Area, call Joe. He not only has the skill to perform remodeling jobs, he also has an almost obsessive attention to detail.
With Emily and me helping as much as we could, Joe installed the new door and trimmed the siding to match. The results were beautiful!
(In this picture, the siding hasn't yet been painted to match the rest of the house.)
He also remodeled the bathroom, but I don't have a picture of that yet. (Teaser alert: wait for the next post.)
When we were ready to sell the house, our realtor looked around and told us that the wood-burning fireplace insert had to go. I was surprised; it was an incredibly efficient way to heat the house and very inexpensive to use.
(Note to firewood hunters: I rarely paid for firewood. The two best sources can be had just by driving around. One: look for gardeners cutting down a tree. They will deliver the wood to your driveway for free instead of having to pay the dump to get rid of it. Two: look for a major remodel happening. The dumpster will usually have a lot of dimensional lumber in it, usually very dry. It doesn't make for the prettiest fire, but in an insert that doesn't matter. Just scoop out the nails and ashes when the fire is out.)
Back to the fireplace. We removed the insert and gave it to a neighbor's friend. When we saw the fireplace opening, however, we were in for a surprise. The insert installers had removed the damper and ruined the smoke shelf in the fireplace, and that would have required serious masonry work to make it functional. We opted for a gas fireplace insert.
The green tile facade that I had installed also had to go. It looked great when I installed it in 1999 but it was out of date. To update it, Emily and I shopped around until we found granite that matched the kitchen granite. (Another shameless plug: looking for granite? Terico's in San Jose is the place to go.) Joe said that the three of us could fabricate it to fit the fireplace, so he picked it up on a Monday morning and brought it to our house:
Yikes! This slab is 6x10' and weighs over 900 pounds! Joe, Emily and I spent about two hours laying out the cuts and planning how to proceed, but we made it happen! It took three days and a lot of muscle to get this installed, but the results are fantastic! (Yet another teaser because I don't have a picture available: the next post will show the installed facade.)
We also did some other minor updates to the house (crown molding in the bedrooms, minor electrical and painting), but the work is finally done.
We live on what Joe calls a "walking street". We have wonderful neighbors, and many of them will walk the cul-de-sac for exercise. A few of them said that once we had finished all of this work that we would reconsider moving. In true "Love It or List It" style, however, we're going to list it! We have loved our house and poured all of our efforts into it; I hope the next owners get as much enjoyment out of it as we have.
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