Photos Loaded
I loaded a lot of photos to the Flickr group. Hallway door is done already with lots of creativity in cutting up the door jamb. We moved the door and door jamb from the bedroom door down to the hallway and I turned the bedroom door into an arched open entry. Power washed the roof today and discovered several surprises about the concrete tile and red paint everywhere. Also, our fireplace surround is on it’s final coat of mud, after 6 coats of drywall plaster !
The green gate and bell light fixtures give the place definite distinctive character! Love your vision!
I chose the bell style light fixtures on the gate for a specific reason. Those lights are what is called ‘dark sky’ lighting. It only casts light downward. Our house numbers will be on the right hand pillar under the light (requirement so fire department can find your house in the dark - good luck fire department finding this house). I wanted to have lighting that would not disturb with light pollution because a lot of people like to view from the dead end lookout.
I am having a lot of trouble getting workers and services to find this house. I constantly get phone calls or texts from guys who ‘cannot find the house’. They are down on the bottom portion of Del Monte at the dead end trying to find the house number. Some of them just give up and never show.
^ Maybe put a sign down there directing people to the alley behind the house, or the cul-de-sac above the house?
Or go Hollywood and put up some three foot high numbers up on the hill in front of the house and let people figure it out.
Floor Plan Revisions arrived last night. For some reason they were sent in html format. I printed them out and took cell phone photos. They are loaded to Flickr
This is shaping up!! What happened with the Craigslist lights? Any of them work?
Looks great! I can just see the listing - two master bedrooms en suite. Are you able to get anything done on this very rainy day?
@notrichenough - very good idea to put a big sign at the bottom of the hill. Just the house numbers and an arrow pointing up the hill. If you want to be kind you can put a map showing how to drive around to it.
Today… rainy day… the painters did not show up, which is understandable. We are working very hard down in basement finishing up some concrete stem wall repairs, post and beam repairs and enclosing the grey brick pillars with some plywood. This is work that has to get done anyway and does not need a permit.
Still deciding whether to sell the house as ‘unfinished’ basement or ‘finished’ basement with insulation and drywall. It’s difficult because there is a fine line between finishing the basement and turning it into liveable space. For liveable space there are a ton of requirements and a permit would probably be required. Which means… as usual… it’s something that might have to get done after final inspection. And, we will not have any time after final inspection because I need to get this thing on the market.
I have never heard back from the guy about the Craigslist lights. I sent him a text to give me exact measurements (although ad states 48" which I now realize is too big). He responded that he would send measurements and now I have never heard back.
No wonder the ad is still lingering on Craigslist. Pretty sure that he is the maintenance guy at the Senior Center or something and much more important things to do than try to sell some huge lamps that are sitting somewhere in the midst of a construction zone with caution tape around them!
OK, you’re looking for a lamp 30-36" high and 24" wide preferably under $500. And dramatic focal point as you’re entering house. Also I think you prefer no shades but not sure how you feel about a pendant.
My favorite for the room: http://www.houzz.com/photos/27282948/Golden-Lighting-Centennial-Rubbed-Bronze-3-Tier-Chandelier-traditional-chandeliers
Daily sale; only one left; a little small but great price: http://www.lampsplus.com/products/carter-18-inch-wide-8-light-antique-bronze-foyer-pendant__8g459.html
Maybe not enough wattage? http://www.lampsplus.com/products/franklin-iron-works-amber-scroll-24-and-three-quarter-inch-wide-pendant__66096.html
I love this but probably too modern: http://www.lampsplus.com/products/savoy-house-windsung-bronze-4-light-foyer-pendant__1c301.html
http://www.wayfair.com/Herndon-9-Light-Chandelier-SOY8836.html
A little too expensive and a little too big but it has your bling! http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Quoizel-Marquette-6-light-Chandelier/8616047/product.html?recset=aa0e0538-1dc8-417e-94c9-fbd692dc5910&refccid=6C2ACRWYNJVZPNKGV37CAPJ7ZU&recalg=828,512&recidx=3
And if you really want bling: http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/French-Imperial-Collection-9-light-Antique-Bronze-Finish-and-Clear-Crystal-Chandelier-19-x-33-Two-2-Tier/10578315/product.html?recset=6cc5b469-a379-4ea2-b702-495b1257d6be&refccid=ZKZ5CSNW2XNJQUCIXN3DHQNJPY&recalg=828,512&recidx=4 It’s the French Imperial collection! 
Too many choices!! I really love a lot of these
Windows and doors finally getting delivered Friday! I just cannot wait, I am so anxious to get something beautiful installed into the house.
Here are some of the inspiration photos we looked at for exterior
http://www.houzz.com/photos/3237351/Small-English-Cottage-in-Potomac-traditional-exterior-dc-metro
This is where we are getting the sagey green idea
http://www.houzz.com/photos/985830/Summers-Garden-traditional-landscape-dc-metro
Our garden doesn’t look like this, but this is exterior color scheme with dark windows
http://www.houzz.com/photos/8583911/French-Cottage-Garden-traditional-exterior-other-metro
All of your inspiration pictures look lovely. But my first thought about window boxes was…drought? I don’t think any of those houses were in a dry climate!
The sage green idea would work very well with the gate color.
http://www.wayfair.com/Herndon-9-Light-Chandelier-SOY8836.html
In Marilyn’s post…I like this one the best. Simple but nice.
I had window boxes. They rotted out and resulted in a carpenter ant infestation that involved a floor joist!
+1 on the Wayfair fixture!
Dirt in boxes and siding = not a good mix. Agree with Madison.
Personally, I would not want window boxes. Too much maintenance and too much effort trying to keep the plants alive and looking good. Not even going to make a decision on window boxes until we get everything done and I can see if we need more curb appeal in the front of the house
Interesting Real Estate Info
I don’t know if you guys have this in your areas… a lot of competitors put up bandit signs stating “We Buy Houses” in various flavors. Bandit signs are those small signs that people staple to telephone poles or fences at intersections or something. These guys are usually wholesalers who try to get a house under contract and then they will shop out the contract to a list of investors they work with. They will then ‘assign’ the contract to another buyer which involves just changing the title on the purchase deed during escrow.
I got an interesting call this week. The main guy from 1-888-Cash Offer called me up out of the blue and said “I saw that you flipped a house on Nipoma and I just got into contract on a property that you might be interested in”. I give him credit for digging deep in his research to find buyers. This obviously piqued my interest and he forwarded the deal to me via email. Guess what?? It was the house on Hill Street in 92106 and I know the listing agent. She was the agent that sold Adair in 92107 (the small dark wood house that is now a ‘vacation rental’ ) that I passed on. She had told me that the heirs had another house that was their mother’s primary residence. I kept calling her and it finally came to market after I purchased Del Monte. Asking price was $1.3mil and I felt it was priced way too high.
They have been dropping price a lot and now it is listed about $1,095,000. It went Pending on April 3rd or so. On April 4th this guy is shopping the deal out to me (and others) for a purchase of $1,050,000. This means that he must have got into contract for about $950k to $975k because they like to make cash on the deal. I reviewed it and politely declined. First, I don’t have time or money for another $1mil project, Second, I felt that the purchase price was too high to make a profit, but Third and most important… I really did not want to piss off a local Point Loma agent by suddenly showing up as the buyer in the middle of her deal. If she had any smarts she would realize that if she had just priced it right to begin with (in other words… target investors instead of home buyers) she could have squeezed another $50k for her sellers.
Within 2 days of my decline, the property is ‘back on the market’. This means that they could not find a buyer so they cancelled the contract based on their inspection contingency. They always put 17 days inspection contingency to try to shop the deal and then they cancel because they cannot sell it… not because it fails inspection or something.
But the good news is that I am now on this guy’s email list and am receiving very interesting deals in email almost every day. Some very nice locations where he is proposing tearing down little house and building 4 condo units on the land. Too rich for my blood, but very interesting to watch!!
It was a glorious day!!!
Finally, finally, finally!!! Fun things getting done. Well, at least it’s more fun than watching black ABS piping replace cast iron under the house.
The painters have been going to town scraping, sanding and prepping the exterior of the house that is going to stay intact. It’s interesting to see the layers of paint over the last 80 years. House was originally painted a dark green (with no primer on the bare wood), then there was a layer of spray texture on the wood. I’ve seen this 3 times now. I’m guessing some door to door salesman was selling this wonder cure foamy bumpy stuff to everyone in the 50s or something. It was sprayed over the whole house and it is just plain ugly. That was an ivory color. Probably full of asbestos for all I know. Then the red paint was painted right over that stuff. We are going to be ready for a good coat of primer next week.
Our windows and French doors arrived and they are beautiful. They arrived too late to get one of them installed so I could see how they look. The windows are slightly wider in jamb width than our openings, but it was the best I could get from the manufacturer. We are going to have to do a lot of surgery and trimming to get them to fit right.
SDGE came at 8am this morning and disconnected the old meter and wired everything from the alley to the new meter and then the electrician spent most of the day getting our wiring hooked up to the new meter so we have some power in some outlets for tools and some lighting.
BUT… the most glorious thing that happened today was a surprise! I came back from a Home Depot run and I see my carpenter in the hall bathroom putting in insulation and drywall. “What are you doing?” “Oh, I’m just going to fix up the plumbing in here so I need to get drywall installed”. We can only get drywall installed up behind the toilet because I have received permission to ‘install a toilet’ but nothing else is inspected in there. The old electric meter was installed in exterior wall behind this toilet room so we had to wait until today for the electrician to pull out all the old stuff before we could close up the wall.
An hour later… “Can you come look at something in here?” I go in and the boys have meticulously drywalled the walls for total privacy, they have hung the new door, installed a privacy door knob, meticulously strung a light in room with a little switch AND INSTALLED THE NEW TOILET!!! Oh happy days… I cannot get any happier 
And, even better, they have decided that this toilet is for La Dona only. Noone else is allowed to use it. The boys have to use the old disgusting bathroom until it gets demolished.
Photos Loaded
Meanwhile, no return phone call or email from engineer on any status of my plans. It has now been 4 weeks waiting to ‘get into CAD’.
Property Brothers were at Warwicks in La Jolla today…thought you might have gone there to pick their brains!