a split-level fixer-upper

New decks

2011-12-30T00:54:00.000-08:00

Decks finished, railing is next! Here the glass panels are already in place but we were still not allowed outside. Those gaps were still quite big!

Work in progress (see in the upper right corner, the slats are not all in yet.)

Thank you, Leonard, Jason, Luke and Pete for the beautiful, clean, professional work you did on this project! We could not be happier with the result.

Another corner of the upper deck.

The kids' lower deck is larger than the upper deck and makes for a wonderful outdoor play area.

The back of the house, as seen looking up from the bottom of the hill... The lower deck comes out further and has three glass panel inserts. Under the lower deck is a new storage "room" with low ceiling but plenty of room for boxes and paint cans. Entrance door to storage can be seen in lower left corner.

2 years later, replacing the decks!

2011-11-03T00:18:00.000-07:00

I don't think anyone is thinking we are rushing through the remodeling of this house. 2 years after we removed the old, unsafe decks from the house, we started the rebuild project.

Foundation for a storage area under the lower deck being poured one morning.

Storage under the lower deck shaping up.

The new storage!!

Here's the frame for the staircase to connect upper and lower decks...

I walked to the backyard to take this pix; the house indeed looks larger, much more complex but what an exciting change!

From the kids bedroom, one can already enjoy a great, new view. Slider doors were still blocked with large plywood sheets at this point.

Working on the railings, and frames for the glass panels.

Our slider doors were still blocked but we could not wait to go outside!

The new stairs connecting the upper and lower decks are beautiful, clean blocks.

Reupholstered dining room chairs

2011-10-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

We have reupholstered 4 of our garage sale found dining room chairs! I am super happy with the result.

The fabric we chose is a vinyl actually. It is silver.

A close-up of the light reflecting on the back rest.

All these 6 chairs are from the same garage sale and all 6 of them are made of beautiful teak wood. Two of them were reupholstered years ago; they have regular fabric covers.

When it rains, it pours

2011-06-15T22:59:00.000-07:00

Noticing that all these "before" pictures (below) were taken on the very same calendar day, I am asking myself, what were we thinking? The house was taken apart downstairs, upstairs and of course in between (we were re-wiring and getting gas to the new kitchen) at the very same time. One project needed another project done, and that one needed yet another...
Needless to say I am so happy that we are almost finished making a clean home out of this poor old fixer-upper house.
What a project of a house, but what a transformation!

An "after" version of the kitchen image above. Since this photo was taken, we have changed the light fixture! Not sure if I have a photo taken just yet though.

My favorite part of the new kitchen.

After remodel; the railing and stairway.

A little bit of woodwork

2010-11-29T15:46:00.000-08:00

Our house was (first) built almost 40 years ago and that probably means these steps are about that age. The concrete slabs have been holding up very well but their wooden frames were so thin, cracked and rotten about 2 years ago that we decided to throw them out and just rebuild them.

Before installing these boards, we cut them to size and stained them with a reddish brown colored stain.

All the pieces were drilled and screwed together at their corners.

Thank you Silvestre for your help with this project!

Laundry in the garage

2010-08-05T23:26:00.000-07:00

I have posted about the laundry room before but at that time I didn't upload any images showing how much work was involved. Well, I have found some more photos in the meanwhile; so here they are:

This is how it all started: we were remodeling the downstairs studio. This door used to lead from the garage to the studio, and it was right next to the laundry area. The small hallway used to be super narrow with a very low ceiling so we needed to move walls around.

The walls were already taken down inside the studio, but the plan was to remove them on the laundry's side as well. We might as well kill two birds with one stone, --wouldn't anyone?

As soon as all sheet rock walls were taken down, cables and plumbing had to be re-wired and moved.

New insulation material showing above laundry area and some new boards reinforcing the old columns.

Here the new entrance for the studio is shown, but the laundry door is not yet installed.

New, clean walls for the laundry, ready for washer and dryer with brand new wiring and hot/cold water!

New washer and dryer is now installed. A small sink with a new cabinet for detergents and cleaning supplies can be seen on the right hand side. Thank you, PL for the beautiful wood work. Doing laundry is no longer a problem around here :)

When the laundry door is shut, nothing can be seen. A small little issue: the entrance door of the studio (on the right) appears a few shades lighter in color than the rest of the wall and the laundry doors; it is likely because the wood is different... oh well, we say no big deal!

New bamboo stairs

2009-10-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

Soon after we installed the new bamboo floor it was time todo something about the stairs as well. We bought bamboo plywood (plyboo) forthe treads and regular (oak) plywood for the risers. There is no new tile floor here yet, only an old cut-to-shape black jute rug to cover the old.

The fresh new bamboo steps in place. I think this photo was snapped right after thetreads were clear coated (see the tape on the edge of each riser.)

We changed this color later but this pix shows the risers stained in a walnut color. Today their color is "Bombay Mahogany" which happens to be the color of our trims and doors inside the house.

Here those "Bombay Mahogany" baseboards can be seen.
I can't tell for sure but I think here the risers are already mahogany in color as well.

Tile work done. Thank you, DG! I am not sure why we took this pix but it seems someone was getting ready for a snowboarding weekend...

No railing yet here, but finally the house started to look cleaner. This image needs to be placed next to the one I took soon after we moved in when we had all kinds of tools here by the entrance door. On that old photo one can also see the crazy shiny wallpaper on the downstairs wall (here the wall had already been painted white, actually "tortilla").

Bamboo floor install

2009-05-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

I have just found these very old images from the time when we installed the bamboo floors in the house. The walls were still opened and the freshly exposed beam was still unpainted.

Another area where the walls were opened up and rebuilt wasthe pantry's corner. Here, the entire corner of the kitchen was rebuilt and anew sliding door was added. On this photo the old kitchen floor is still inplace but the upper cabinets are already removed. Back then, was it 2005? welived without a kitchen for 6 months but it looks like here we still had"half" of it working? (Honestly, it can get pretty soul-draining tohave to live like this but we pressed on hoping every day that our house eventually will turn into a beautiful home.)

Another view of the old living room's subfloor. I forgot about the floor lamp we used back then made of a camera's tripod and a clamp.

Finally, beautiful, new bamboo floor inour bedroom. We chose pre-finished bamboo since we already lived in the houseand didn't want to have to deal with the odors and poisons of the finishingmaterials.

No more iron railing, but the new glass railing wasn't done yet either when this photo was taken. I think we had no railing here for a few years, at least a year and a half...

I will never forget the happiness I felt when I saw this for the very first time after returning home one day. It has been many years but I still get the goosebumps!

Another view of the living room, dining room area. The old deck and its old railing can be seen in the dark.

Driveway project

2009-03-29T22:24:00.001-07:00

I found some images today showing how the driveway was remodeled a few years ago. They seem really old now, since they show the house even before painting, with less windows and with large dirt piles everywhere.

Cement mixer and some workers hard at work.

Drain (to our french drain!) still covered with plastic.

Driveway smoothed out, and almost done.

New windows

2008-09-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

Although the new sliders don't even seem big, (they just seem normal today), the extra light and the new, wider view is something we appreciate and enjoy very much, -every day!
Thank you, Lighthouse Windows!

The slider doors seen from the deck.

The new sliders in the dining room area are the same size (8 feet); here also shown from the outside. This image was taken before the house was painted.

Single pane windows -now history!

2008-06-12T16:08:00.000-07:00

Another one of those bigger projects was replacing all the windows and slider doors. Of course the house became easier to heat and keep warm, but we really liked how it also suddenly appeared younger, inside and out.

When we moved in, the windows and sliders were old, aluminum, single pain, and most of them smaller than we liked. This image shows our bedroom sliders before they were taken out.

The size of the sliders were exactly the same (6 feet) in the dining area but we thought there was plenty of room to grow them wider, to at least 8 feet.

This image shows the bedroom slider missing; and the new panels ready to be installed. The new cutout is larger; it's 2 feet wider towards the corner of the room.

The new cutout from the inside of the bedroom. Another tree to be seen from our bed, what a wonderful gift!!

A new and much larger beam was installed to fit over a now larger opening.

...and the new, raw wood frames around the sliders, with brand new sheetrock walls, right before painting. Ahh, things are getting better around here.

Light at the end of the hallway

2008-05-03T17:20:00.001-07:00

There is a short hallway in the house with no lighting in it, so it used to lead to a rather darkish corner, especially on cloudy days. Instead of investing a lot of money in installing light fixtures here we chose a low budget solution and hung three large mirrors on the wall at the very end. It's like we added a small window, the difference is pretty noticeable!

Since these (Ikea) mirrors came with wide, walnut wood frames, they make the perfect place for candles at night as well.

New outside lights

2008-04-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

These two new lights are not quite the same; one installs perpendicularly while the other one sits flat against the wall. They don't even line up, because they connect to the wall at different places but we thought that was kind of fun.

Luckily, the color of these light boxes are pretty close to the dark gray accent color of the house.

The perpendicular light attaches to the wall at its center;

the flat one attaches at its base.
Since the old lights (their junction boxes) used to line up, these new ones just won't, but we don't mind that at all.

Old outside lights

2008-03-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

Not even those cool modern light bulbs did the trick to modernize our old light fixtures by the entrance, so it was high time to replace them.

Bedroom walls -without mold

2008-03-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

Clean and dry new walls in our bedroom meant that after a few months we could finally move in!

We are not crazy about this particular texture, but all the walls in the house have something; it would be pretty difficult to get rid of it everywhere. (These two images above were taken after even the window was replaced)

Brand new, clean sheetrock boards taped, and ready to be textured.

The walls still before painting, but the bedroom already started to feel like a fancy new hotel. Well, for us, anyway. After what we have seen...

Moldy old walls

2008-03-22T23:11:00.000-07:00

Even before we moved in, it was obvious that the house had some mold in its walls and carpeting. We could not only smell it but noticed it under the wallpaper and all over the old carpet padding. Of course we didn't move into the bedroom right away.

First we thought removing the lower half of the sheetrock was enough but after a while it just seemed easiest to pull off the entire wall. This image was taken after we scrubbed the subfloor with a bleach and water mixture. On the wood framing close to the floor some damage can be seen. The rotten sections were removed and replaced before we washed the 2x4's and the inside of the outer wall.

We removed all of the old insulation and tar paper, and replaced them with new ones.

Here is an image just because it is kind of funny to look at this, TODAY. I was not laughing back then, honestly :)

vintage lampshade

2008-02-26T16:03:00.000-08:00

after years of waiting, we finally hung a light fixture over our dining room table! it's a vintage hand blown and hand painted shade salvaged from a very old house that was demolished (in hungary).
we are honored to give it a new home and really like the way it looks. it's the perfect company for our garage sale found vintage chair mix. thank you m. and p. for the great gift!

garage door project -finished!

2008-02-15T18:38:00.001-08:00

we are done with the cover of the garage door.

... and could not be happier. thank you pl, for your help!

garage door project -in progress

2008-02-10T15:07:00.000-08:00

we decided to cover the garage door with redwood that was salvaged from our disassembled lower level deck. we are very excited to see the front of the house look so different!

ugly garage door -on its way out

2008-02-10T15:02:00.001-08:00

this is not really a door, but for sure used to be very ugly. we couldn't wait to start a project to change it! (btw, this image was taken long time ago, as we were getting ready to redo the concrete driveway.)

downstairs remodel -after

2008-01-14T22:17:00.001-08:00

and finally, some after images. the new bathroom got a soft cork floor and of course a new pocket door (with sandblasted glass panel to let the light through) so no more swinging out into the hallway although the hallway is a bit wider, the walls were moved a bit.

the new curved walls of the shower are tiled with 2-inch tiles and the new toilet is sitting under the new area we took away from underneath some stairs (see angle of the wall above toilet). the mirror is from IKEA but we attached lights to its two sides.

there is a spacious new closet (compared to what it used to be) inside the bedroom, and the stairs are now moved over to the entrance; the "drop" is no longer between the hallway and the bedroom.
what a difference!
thank you cj and tj for the beautiful work here!

downstairs remodel -before and during...

2008-01-14T22:03:00.000-08:00

here is a good "before" image of the downstairs bedroom with its closet and some stairs. the closet was so awkward and tiny that it is a mystery why the builders left half of its area totally unused. (only the area right behind the door was actually the closet space.)

this image shows the subfloor opened up and the earth exposed. we needed to lower the ground here by removing some dirt so we could lower the hallway above and do away with those stairs between the room and the hallway.

the old closet during demolition. one can see on the ceiling on this image that only a small portion was actually a usable closet; the rest was an enclosed empty area. we divided this space between the new closet and the shower.

the hallway used to be so narrow and so low that larger people had to draw their arms closer, and taller ones had to bend down so not to hit their head into the ceiling. when the bathroom door swung out, it hit the glass part of the light fixture across the hallway! there was a small door here across the bathroom door as well, it led to the utility room. this door was removed and today the heater and the likes are accessed from the outside of the house.

next to the old toilet one can see a small opening which used to be a doorway to the crawlspace. across the room from the toilet this room had a kitchen sink, but no shower.

downstairs remodel

2008-01-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

a widened hallway, with its brand new wall moved outward
(on the left).

the remodel of the downstairs area has so far been the biggest challenge in my opinion. it took a very long time to conclude and included jobs like opening up the subfloor and digging / flattening some dirt to prepare for an even floor, widening of a dark and very narrow, low ceiling hallway, enlarging the bathroom using the area under our entry steps, and adding a brand new shower with curved walls so it would take up as little space as possible. there used to be a huge level difference between the hallway and the bedroom here with about three clunky stairs which we of course had to fix as well. we will post before and after pictures as well. thank you cj and tj for the remodeling help; --beautiful work!!

kitchen cabinets -after

2007-12-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

remodeling the kitchen has so far been the funnest project. we used walnut along with a glossy (almost glittery) white laminate on the cabinets. all materials are "green" with no formaldehyde emission. the counter top is made of a paper product called richlite. most appliances are bosch, the cabinet pulls are from home depot expo.

what is missing from this montage is our dining room table and the sliders to the deck.
thank you cj and tj for the remodeling help and thank you "woodmasters" for building these custom cabinets!

kitchen cabinets -before

2007-12-07T09:54:00.000-08:00

here is an old image of our kitchen as it looked when we moved in. the sink was installed such long time ago that water could pour down into the cabinet underneath any time someone splashed some water out over the edges. there was no way to use the dishwasher because the rinsing water would splash all over the counter top any time the machine needed a rinse. the electric stove was similarly interesting. one christmas day, as we were heating up some soup on it, the whole thing (the entire stove with oven) fell between the two cabinets that were supporting it.

we tried to give the kitchen a "face-lift" first, by painting the cabinets inside and out. it was a fun project (we even painted the walls yellow), but of course all the problems remained. the drawers were squeaking so loudly when one pulled them out just a tiny bit, the noise could wake a sleeping person up. the water was damaging the cabinets all around the sink. the cabinets in general were small, narrow, and some of them were awkwardly sized and shaped. we wanted to change the pantry door to a sliding pocket door so we could have more space for the fridge door. the floor used to be covered with linoleum; today there is a bamboo floor throughout the entire living area.

to make the transition between kitchen and living room smoother, we opened the walls above an old doorway. we decided to use the space above the old cabinets and designed an extra row on top with lighting. painted over the yellow paint, pulled out the old appliances, and completely redesigned all the cabinets.

now we know what we are not missing, at all

2007-11-27T22:47:00.001-08:00

i just found some old images of our house from the time we moved in with yellow windows, and shiny gold patterned wallpaper.

soon after the wallpaper was removed, the place became the "house of tools and mess". this is an image of the entrance area (door is to the right, not visible). i hope not too many people came over or stopped by, ... or if they did, they could forgive this unsightly "welcome".

the walls were so dirty, at places the white washed wood appeared to be greasy and wet. the color of the original carpet is a mystery we never could solve. it didn't matter after all, for we only had to look at it before we actually moved in.

the new railing

2007-11-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

glass panels and stainless steel framing; the closest thing we could come up with to having nothing here at all.

i finally found some time today and glued down the screw caps too. thank you rcr for our cool new railing and the installation.

the old railing is out

2007-11-13T21:09:00.001-08:00

the wall-to-wall carpet was removed from everywhere before we moved in (2002).

the house had a heavily paint-splattered subfloor for about 3.5 years. at one point we actually cleaned the areas where the sanding machine could reach but never found the time to go over the edges with a hand sander.
the old wrought iron railing was so awkward in an interior space we actually preferred not having a railing at all.

... and so we didn't, for 2 years. it took about that long to get the new one in after the flooring was replaced. we really liked the open space; it's too bad the drop at this area of the house is about 6 feet, there must be a rail.

and the new colors are...

2007-11-13T17:50:00.000-08:00

kelly moore's "slippery shale" (a greenish gray) on the main body, "end of summer" (soft yellow) under the eaves, "hamlet" (beige) on window frames, and side doors, and finally "defense" (dark gray) on the beams and roof edges.

we are still undecided about what to do with the entrance door and the old painted porch's (not shown) colors but the house is almost all the way painted!

even the dog's door (side garage door) looks so much nicer.
we hope our neighbors will like the new look.

thank you e.h for the beautiful paint job!

mustard yellow

2007-11-13T17:45:00.000-08:00

after more than 5 years of waiting, we feel very ready to change this mustard yellow color on the house and we believe our neighbors feel similarly...

laundry area in the garage

2007-11-13T17:18:00.000-08:00

our new laundry corner of the garage is finished; complete with a pull-out faucet and a fold-down table (to fold our clean cloths). no more dropping piles of t-shirts on the ground. thank you p.l for the beautiful wood work and thank you cj for moving the walls here so we can have such a nice laundry.

a brand new window

2007-10-04T13:03:00.000-07:00

a few days ago a new window was added to the house. we get more light, as long as the garage door is opened. maybe some day this door could be changed to one with a clear or frosted glass panel... thank you p.l for the installation!