Someone mentioned the vegetation around the utility pole. I like it! It’s lush, green and flowering and camouflages the pole.
cb, glad your crew showed up early and got to work! Better than no-shows!
I think the shrub at right of driveway is very ugly. Its on our property and we pruned it back a lot. At this point it would be difficult to get it out and replace it with something big enough. Also, its a drought tolerant species and I’d probably get arrested, things are very strict around here now. I’ve got bigger issues, Like it’s been 3 weeks now and we still don’t have parking patio fence up yet!! I’ve paid for about 5 days of sanding and we still have 20 more pieces to go. Who’s stupid idea was it to reuse that painted redwood??? I could have purchased 100 new pieces and been done with it by now.
Isn’t high quality heart redwood (which is what that looks like from the pictures) stupidly expensive? Like $30-40 for a 2x4?
Plus you get brownie points for reusing and recycling.
What are you using to sand the boards? I would think a belt sander would only take a couple minutes per piece. Or find someone with a planer, I bet one of your contractor or carpenter buddies has one, or maybe you can rent one. One pass through per side, and the paint would be gone.
I couldn’t zoom in enough to see details, but that vegetation looks like a combination of vines to me. Having something with textural and color interest near ground level diverts the eye away from the utility pole, which is a huge positive IMO. But then, I love plants!
I drove by early this afternoon and the pure white looked pretty stark in the full sun so even going a little less bright should look better. Someone was sanding away at the foot of the driveway!
Sanding away on those dang white painted redwood pieces that we saved from the cage! Of course I wanted them sanded back to raw wood to make the fence down on the patio.
Thanks for confirming that I don’t like the stark white trim 
How did you say you will mask the utility gizmos on the front corner of the house?
First, we have to rebuild the ‘box’ thing at the bottom because it is rotted out.
We are going to plant a bottle brush tree in front of it. It has to be strategically planted because homeowners will need access to it to get to main panel.
The stars of Flip or Flop have followed the path of every other reality flipping show. They are now doing ‘Get Rich with Real Estate’ seminars. They have endorsed Success Path which is the typical “Come to the Free Seminar”. The free seminar is all about how you can sign up for their 3 day intensive workshop for $2,000. At the intensive workshop they reveal nothing except how to go call your credit card company and get your limit up as high as you possibly can.
When you finish that exercise (which they have you do right on the spot in the class), then they sell you on their mentor program for about $25k to $40k. For heaven’s sake… if someone had $25k to $40k they should just do a bunch of research on their own and then go out and use that money for a down payment to get started. Sure you will make a bunch of mistakes the first couple of times, but that is how you learn.
I’m just mentioning this because it is a solid pattern of every Flip show on TV. Than Merrill from Flip this House, the guy from Flipping Vegas, the guys from Flipping San Diego… they last about 2-3 years on TV and then go on to these Real Estate Seminar things that all have the same pattern.
No surprise, really.
Look how hard you work to make $75-100k on a flip.
How much easier to run a few seminars and part some people from their money.
Once you get your own show, you can do the same. Just have to come up with a catchy name and pitch a few tv execs. 
So slimey/scammy!
Spent a lot of time this morning getting a bunch of samples of creamy white, silvery white, grey white. On the way back I see Bammm… right there in front of my face is a house that I admire with the exact same Elephant Skin stucco paint. Granted, they have a lot more trim and a large block wall with the trim color so the Elephant Skin coloring is not a lot. But… they have a gorgeous slightly putty color as the trim and a purple door.
It was up for sale for a couple of months at $1.5 million, no takers. It is now rented. But I went inside during an Open House and it was kind of cool - somewhat retro (especially a crazy red formica kitchen countertop thing).
Check out the subtle, but good looking, color scheme at
3755 Amaryllis, 92106
Would vote against a purple door–too many people may not like it. I think some shade of blue is much safer for appealing to broader range of buyers.
When we bought our home, one of the things I most disliked was the dark green door with copper accents. I was so happy when we finally replaced it with a door which we just used a clear stain or varnish on. Colors can really be a turn off.
I purchased a sample of the Durango Blue to try on the door
In the end I did not get a sample of Crystal Cut because it had a pinkish tinge to it that is not obvious on the computer screen, but was very obvious with the swatch at the store.
That’s interesting that you disliked your dark green door, HImom. In my area, that is a very common color. In fact, we changed the medium blue color of our shutters and door, to a dark green (on a traditional brick house).
Several people have suggested blue for the door, and because that’s not a common color used in my area, I’ve not been an advocate of it. But most posters on this thread love the idea of blue. So I’m thinking color preferences are geographical.
That’s a very dark purple door. It blends in with the Elephant Skin house color. It looks good, but it wouldn’t act like an accent color like a blue door would. Because the door is in the recessed part of the front of the house, you might want the door to pop.
FWIW, the purple door doesn’t appeal to me either, at least in the photograph.
That is a lovely, beautiful house.
Zillow is all over the place in price estimates–it values that house @ over $1.7M! Since it didn’t sell for $1.5M, I don’t think the market and buyers agree with Zillow.
Zillow goes purely on price/square foot averaged across all sales in area. It works fine in tract home development areas, doesn’t work at all in Point Loma neighborhood where price is based on views, views, location, usable yard, condition of house, character/architecture etc. This house sits on a corner of Poinsettia street which is a very busy street but is very close to my project property.
If I went by Zillow… they have the house 3 doors down valued at $3.31 million because it has huge square footage of 4,868sf. So, based on that, their algorithm is $680/square foot. They have my project valued at $796k which is about $470/square foot. Doesn’t make any sense but I am sure there are adjustments there somewhere. Even if we took the $470/square foot times my new 2,500sf I should be able to price at $1.176 million. I wish !!!