My opinion…the cage sort of reminds me of houses that have bars on the windows. It is not welcoming…and I personally think it’s ugly.
The curb appeal will be important. Many folks do drive by views of houses for sale. Bad curb appeal…they might not even visit.
I’m familiar with parts of Point Loma, and a cage in front of a house isn’t what you usually see. Many of the homes have beautiful front entries, with nice landscaping.
CB, Habitat for Humanity may take appliances…
^^^^^I tried to get Habitat for Humanity’s attention to take my very nice 13 solid wood interior doors, and they never even acknowledged me. YMMV.
HfH has a couple of ReStore facilities in San Diego that will resell appliances and other building materials:
http://www.sdhfh.org/AboutUs/LatestNews/tabid/324/ArticleID/1029/Default.aspx
I don’t think they will pick up, though. The one on Mission Rd. doesn’t look too far away.
It looks like The Restore facilities don’t take appliances over 7 yrs old. It also looks like they don’t take any dishwashers at all.
Huh, that’s too bad. 
I have not had good experiences with Habitat for Humanity. My agent used to always tell me “take it to the Habitat for Humanity store” or “go look through the Habitat for Humanity store for stuff for the renovation”. So, I wasted my time loading up a whole bunch of white vinyl dual pane windows and other stuff. I get there and they want me to unload it myself (not fun) and then I discover I need to pay a $50 donation. I totally understand, but I was not prepared for it. They don’t want to become the dumping ground instead of going to the real dump
And, I’ve had zero luck finding anything in the store that is above builder grade. I just don’t bother any more.
My Worst Nightmare!
Remember I said BEWARE having appliances delivered early. I inspected each appliance as they arrived on their various dates and times. Dishwasher front was pristine, no scratches or dents. Today the electrician worked for awhile putting on the electric pigtail to get it ready. About 3 hours later I look over and the front of the dishwasher has a 6" vertical scratch ending in a lengthwise dent. I went ballistic but I don’t think the electrician did it. I think it happened sometime over the last couple of weeks with the blanket covering it. Of course everyone has no idea what could of possibly happened 
There goes $500 down the drain. I cannot install a brand new dishwasher with a scratch and dent (even though I bought it at the scratch and dent place). I am just sick sick sick. Busy trying to figure out if I can purchase a door replacement only, but unfortunately I don’t think you can for the dishwasher because there is a lot of electrical wiring running between the door with the controls on it to the motor system.
I have tried the infamous dry ice method and carbon dioxide air spray on several appliances because this has happened before. I have spent hours and no luck.
Meanwhile, wallpaper is still just a huge chore. Still spending time and money trying to get it off both the inside and outside of the dining room cabinetry. We finally gave up on ever getting the entry living area walls perfectly ready for painting. I’ve instructed the guys to apply a thin coat of drywall mud with skip trowel texture just so we can get towards painting the walls.
I’ve loaded some pictures. Didn’t take a picture of the scratch and dent because I discovered it at the very end of the day and I was just too stunned.
What about Freecycle?
Wow. I am surprised about that. Our Habitat for Humanity store comes and picks up stuff at our house. for example when we redid our kitchen they came and took all the old kitchen cabinets, counter tops, sink,stove,microwave, table and chairs and other stuff. They loaded it all up and hauled it away. They did ask for a $25 donation but it wasn’t required. They also have come to take old doors and other furniture at times…
,
I’m so sorry! That dishwasher was such a great deal!
I may have gotten lucky… I discovered that I can purchase the stainless steel outer panel for about $100 plus shipping. OK, it’s only a $100 disaster. Phewww! Now I have to decide if I’m going to sit around trying to do the dry ice method or just order the new panel.
it could be a local thing. I don’t think there are too many Habitat for Humanity homes being built in this area. I could be wrong.
Cb, I would just bite the bullet and buy the panel. I doubt the dry ice method would yield great results where there is a scratch (you will have to polish that somehow, too).
Yeah, the dry ice method just pops out the dent. The scratch is very minor, but my eye sees it and it is very long
So sorry, cb. I agree with bb; I’d just order the panel and move on to the next task.
Coralbrook, I think you already mentioned that you aren’t putting the finishing touches on your cabinets until everything is done. +100 on that. We had scratches near where they installed the dishwasher, the cooktop, you name it. There was little we could do save sending stuff back to Downsview in Canada. Luckily the scratches were not so awful that they wouldn’t be ones that would have come from eventual wear and tear. But I was livid and we did eventually have the fronts replaced. Fun times. This was even with the sticky protective stuff left on. But, it’s clear that one subcontractor did not care about the previous work of another. We think it was the countertop people but had no way to prove anything.
So, shortly after our new house was move-in ready but before we did move in, we stopped by to take some more measurements. We saw an enormous scratch down one front of the Sub-Zero. This was well before cellphone photos, so we called our builder and stayed there until he showed up so there would be no question that it wasn’t our fault. Then we were so appalled we almost failed to notice the scratches all over the front of the D/W. Apparently someone in the final cleaning crew was not careful?
Can you get some of that surface protective sticky plastic to protect your appliances and keep your risk to a minimum?
cb, sorry about the scratch. VERY frustrating!! But if this is your worst nightmare, you must have pretty good dreams.
Yes, it is usually the countertop guys that do the most damage. On the La Mesa project (Flip #1) the countertop guys dented the oven door and that was when I spent hours trying to pop the dent with the dry ice and it didn’t work. I finally had to sell the house with a ‘disclosure’ that there was a dent in the bottom of the oven door. This happened because the countertop guys have to pull out the range in order to do the countertop install and they were pushing it back in with knees, etc.
But I’ve never had anything as bad as AttorneyMother with damage to the appliances, until now. We installed the oven because it was impossible to get the configuration of doors and drawers correct on the oven cabinet without doing a full install. We could pull it out and put it somewhere, but that probably wouldn’t matter. We have turned around the refrigerator and dishwasher so that they face the wall (less chance of accidental damage to the front). We are going to install a barrier around the oven because the corner of that oven is in the impact zone with things coming in and out from garage.
I can see a future problem when the flooring team comes to install the new oak hardwood floors in the kitchen and living room, but then they need the whole place cleared out to do the sanding and refinishing of the floors. Those appliances are going to have to go somewhere and I have no idea where they are going to go while all that is happening.
Coralbrook, look at the Picture No. 1/6 in the slideshow. It’s not exactly like your post situation in the kitchen opening, but look at the strong architectural statement that is made by this entrance arch:
http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/07/joseph-lembo-apartment-renovation/slideshow/2015/07/22/jos_lembo/1/
Maybe you or someone with a good eye can do something to enhance the appeal of having the post there – even to the point of making it appear like a faux “column” with very simple capital on top of that post as a design element when seen from the living room (hmmm). Normally, I’m not one for embellishment, but that post cries out for something. While I’m not sure how you would execute this exactly, I’ll throw it out there for other ideas.