LIKE…LIKE… LIKE!
Loved the photos - it’s a stunningly beautiful renovation.
Excellent news, cb!
Today was another exhausting day. I scrubbed every inch of floor including using my fingernails to get every little dinky drop of paint scraped off the floors. I have no fingernails left - you can add $20 to the cost of trying to do this for a living just to get nails done…which won’t happen for a long time in the future because I’ll find more paint on the floor somewhere and start using fingernails again. I have discovered over the last years that the only thing that works to get overspray off stuff is my fingernails - on my hands and knees. Once I had the brilliant idea to use a Magic Eraser and it completely ruined the polyurethane finish of the newly refinished floor. Luckily it was in a closet.
Then, of course, the deck building guys needed 6 more 2x6 12ft long pressure treated pieces. Emergency run to Home Depot to load lumber. Those dang pressure treated things are extremely heavy and the dang 2x6 are on the 3rd rack from the floor. They are heavy by nature, and, for some reason the lumber at Home Depot is always ‘wet’. I believe the professional term is ‘green’. I am longing for a day in the near future where I do not need to visit Home Depot.
I drove three new comparables that were having their Broker Caravan today also. Three properties just came up for sale in our same price range:
4026 Del Mar Ave - 3bd/2ba 1500sf, no view, nice back yard with pool and BBQ area, dated kitchens and baths (but clean, not terrible), flat lot with alley access and 2 car garage. Shows well. Very small kitchen right by front door $875k-$899k. A funny thing about this property is when I walked in the owners were there. I recognized them as the first people through the door at our Open House. Obviously the competition is checking out the competition 
1071 Alexandria - 3 bd/1.5 ba 1500sf, very poor condition, no view, medium size lot, far superior location, flat lot with 2 car garage - although lot is small for that street. $899k-$949k. My guess is that a smart buyer will buy this one and do a total remodel with 2nd floor to capture the views. So, their market is different… I need the buyer that wants everything ‘move in ready’.
4548 Cape May - 3 bd/2.5 ba 2300sf, view from 2nd story only. This one is very close to my property. House is dark and dingy downstairs and stuck in the 70s with the ‘southwest’ style that was popular during that era. The tile, granite, flooring all do not match at all… really ugly when you go inside. Worst part is that they did some ‘faux’ painting on the walls with a dirty yellow and tan. When you walk in it looks like something dirty is bleeding through the walls. Family room upstairs has an incredible rock star view. If you are looking out from my property there is a very large pine tree that is blocking some of the view. Well, that dang pine tree is in this property’s yard. I almost wanted to beg them to cut it down… it’s blocking everyone’s view $1,050,000 and I do not think they will get it. It does not show well.
None of these three meet the criteria of ‘move in ready’ (for most buyers today)
So, this is my world… agonizing over every other property out there and how we stack up
Does the person behind them have any recourse if the new second floor blocks their view? If that is even an issue with this property… in general though, if you’ve had a view for decades can you keep it?
I have a friend who had a house on lake, he wanted to add a second floor but it would have blocked the view of the house behind them, and the people behind were able to prevent him from adding the 2nd floor.
Deck Building Cost
Although this is relative for the area of the country that you live in, I thought I would share the total costs for building the deck
Size 24’ long X 10’ wide
Challenge 1 - need to build a trap door that is 3’ x 3’ above the gas meter, mostly for safety reasons so that the homeowner can turn off the main gas line in an emergency. Also, so SDGE can supposedly work on the meter if needed. Believe me, I can guarantee that no one from SDGE has been near this meter for at least 15 years. Probably an exaggeration, at least since they installed the Smart Meter. They would have to climb up the mud embankment and crawl under years and years of overgrown weeds and brush. It took us 4 days to dig out vegetation to even find the meter.
Challenge 2 - I need to be very careful about City building codes. If a deck is 36" or less from the ground it does not need a permit. Believe me, we are moving a lot of dirt around to try to keep within 36". So, that is an additional cost that someone might not incur.
Challenge 3 - The entry door to the crawl space is located right under the French Doors. So, we are building a somewhat fancy deck with posts recessed about 2 1/2’ from edge of deck. The deck will cantilever out over the crawlspace entry so that there is plenty of access.
Materials:
Pressure Treated lumber for posts and structure
Each piece is painted with solid wood stain to grey color
Hot dipped nails - because that is what you have to use with pressure treated wood
Simpson hangers and special earthquake straps also that ‘hold down’ the joists to the beam
Composite ChoiceDek grey deck planks
Redwood railing stained with wood stain
ChoiceDek composite rail top
Labor Cost:
$2,000 fixed bid for setting posts, moving dirt and general deck building
$200 for my carpenter to build trap door structure and trap door (I don’t trust anyone else to build it right)
$2,200 for deck materials
$130 for painting on wood stain as we go along
My worst nightmare was when the deck builders started slamming on the grey composite deck planks and I realized that we had not painted the under structure - which was brown ugly. If we had let him screw in all those planks, someone would have had to crawl underneath on our bellies and try to paint from underneath. Nope, I want it to be perfect!
Probably some additional costs to regrade that stupid alley dirt mountain away from the deck and put in some proper drainage.
There is a 30 ft (I might be wrong about that exact nbr) building limit from lowest part of property. It is a fact of life in Point Loma area that anyone and everyone can go up 2 floors (plus a rooftop deck). So, the term ‘unobstructable view’ is big around here. Most agents advise their buyers to carefully review if views could be lost. And, there are some people who have paid money to people in front of them to record a ‘height restriction’. That is the only case where someone cannot build. A ‘height restriction’ severely limits the value of the property when sold in the future.
Did any CC’ers show up for the brokers’ caravan, so far as you know?
Yes, in a roundabout way there is one CCer that is searching for a new home in this area from out of state and I have tried to help a little bit. Her agent came through but I did not get a chance to meet the agent because my job is to stay away during the Broker Caravan.
Oh it’s a tray on the bed. In the earlier pics I was wondering why you had a roomba on the bed!! (Looking on a little Kindle fire screen).
The listing photos are wonderful. What an amazing job you and your team have done.
cb, have you started to consider your next project? I myself would be too exhausted but I suspect you’re made of better stuff than I.
(If I were in the SD area – and I will be in mid-April – I would have dropped by to see the house.)
DH and I will be in SD on Sunday to visit his dad. I would love to drive over to peek at the house if I can get away!
Lots of advertising, so it’s not a secret… Open House on Sunday 1 to 4pm. I’m not supposed to be there, but sometimes I am anyway
At the rate I’m going, I’ll still own this house mid-April. But hopefully will be in escrow by then
Deck almost done, just have to put up the railing tomorrow. I painted the courtyard a darker grey today (all by myself!!) because my agent begged me to get it fixed before Open House. We still haven’t found a way to logistically get the top of the stairs and the garage patio painted because my carpenter has been using it to cut and paint up pieces for the deck.
Even though I hired some guys to build the deck they are a bunch of whiners, refusing to paint cut pieces before putting them on… telling me that is my job. A big rule on my project (that drives all the guys crazy) is that every cut piece of wood has to be at least primed before it gets installed. The sure way to immediately rot wood that is exposed is not to prime it. It is impossible to shove paint, primer, stain or some kind of sealant into cracks after wood is installed. So, I had to pull my carpenter off building the custom door and now we have an assembly line. He actually has to cut all the pieces and then I slap the wood stain on them and then they go out to the deck for the other guys to ‘install it’. They somehow have forced us to be cutting the wood in order to get the stain on.
I loaded a couple of photos of the deck and repainted courtyard
Today an agent came through with her husband and they stayed a really long time. She said they were looking to buy for themselves. A dead giveaway is when they start discussing where they will put their furniture.
Two other agents brought buyers through but they didn’t stay very long.
I’m hoping we will have more showings on Saturday because I am assuming that buyers in this price range might actually have busy jobs !!
I hope it is a booming weekend for you, coralbrook.
(We do the same pre-paint thing with our deck stuff. Saves a lot of work and gets better results.)
Forgive, me, but I don’t think those tall birds of paradise with greens look at all attractive on the table in the courtyard. I think you would be better off with something lower and more rounded with bright flowers. Like maybe begonias or geraniums or primroses. Maybe flanked by pillar candles in those tall glass vases.
Thank you for the advice on the tall flowers. I will put candles in the tall vases instead. I don’t have good luck with flower arrangements out in the sun, so I’ll just do the pillar candles
Won’t candles melt in the heat? I like the flowers. I think they look like something the younger, hipper folks would be drawn to. They’re kind of Crate and Barrel-ish.
I just got a chance to look at your official photos on a full-sized screen–wow, great job! Love the natural light and the views that are in so many of your shots. It crossed my mind that you simply can’t get those killer views without either some stairs to the front door or a crazy steep driveway.
cb, the deck looks great. Love your idea of hanging a wrench under the trap door! Some future owner will e delighted that you did that!
Yes, the ‘valve’ on this gas meter is the old fashioned hex nut thing. So when there is an emergency and you need to get the gas turned off you have to rush around and find the wrench that will turn it off. How many of us know exactly where that is in an emergency?? Not a good situation. So, I always like to hang a wrench right at the gas meter for the Buyers. Even better is to replace with an easy lever shut off, but I didn’t dare mess with this gas meter because the City and SDGE were watching everything. Technically, a homeowner is not supposed to change anything on that meter.