Grandma House
I’m going to start a new thread to follow along with the Grandma House Remodel. This house is in very good condition, but Grandma got a hold of a lot of wall paper and green carpet to decorate the house 20 or 30 years ago (possibly older than that). There’s a new aluminum shingle roof for fire retardation, newer HVAC and water heater. But the cosmetics are stuck somewhere in the past.
The buyers are leaving their 2 story large family home in Poway and moving to this single story home that has a pool (I think it’s enticement for grandkids) and a beautiful view to enjoy. I’m worried that they will take their remodel to their tastes too much. The reality is, when you are in your 70s, there’s a big chance this house is going to have to be sold again in 10 years or less.
The listing photos are very carefully avoiding the amount of wallpaper in this house. The kitchen even has wall paper on the ceiling!!! It’s going to be a huge job to get wallpaper off the walls. In fact, I told the new owners that they would need to hire a specialist that has the tools and knowledge to remove the wallpaper because my crew would pick away at it for weeks.
We will start work about August 15th and I will take a lot of before photos as we get in there
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Links to photos, even using a shorthand code, are not allowed. I deleted some of this post.
Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. Lots of things to change, but lots of potential.
The bones look pretty good. Definitely needs a “refresh”.
Those are some killer views.
Why would anyone wallpaper a ceiling? Why?!?!
Almost every room and hallway in my house had ugly wallpaper on it (why do we almost always find wallpaper picked out by someone else to be ugly?). I rented (and then bought) an electric steamer and removed it all myself.
It’s a slow process, but if you had several people going at the same time it would go pretty quick - couple days at most I would think.
There might be some asbestos crud under the ceiling wallpaper… I would leave the ceilings to the pros. It is not rocket science, but I would not want to mess with it for liability reasons.
Grandma’s house has quite the liberal use of draperies , ruffled valances, wood paneling, and assorted dinner plates as wall decorations!
Looks like the house is in great shape, but definitely needs updating. I can’t wait to see what you do with it CB. Love the views. Is this in Fletcher Hills?
Great house for updating!! Perfect.
i sort of like the blue viney wallpaper. It reminds me of my childhood i think.
cant wait to see how it all turns out!
All that paneling is worse than all that wall paper, imo.
It definitely has loads of potential to be a stunner.
What’s the chance they’ll be beautiful hardwood floors under all that carpet - or wouid that be unusual to find in SoCal?
Pool area could use a upgrading.
What are the bathrooms like? I always assume they are tragic if no pictures of them are included.
My house was covered in hideous and stylistically inappropriate el-cheapo wallpaper when we bought it. I hired a good paint and wall paper guy to remove all of it. Steaming off wall-paper is not something within my area of expertise, and our very high ceilings make things difficult.
Ultimately, I decided to re-paper the center hall and study, and he did that. I painted everything else.
There is actually lots of beautiful wall paper out there, but it is very expensive. Most paint stores, like Benjamin Moore, don’t even have the wall paper books for things like Schumacher, William Sanderson, Scalamandre, Clarence House and beyond. You have to go to a designer to see what’s available. I think that’s why mostly you’ll see the cheesy kind in use. Also, really great wallpaper tends to make a bolder design statement than many people feel comfortable with. 
I wonder what is under all of that carpet.
I think they should make the style choices they like, not worry about some future resale. Accessibility considerations might be good, though. Walk in shower? Width of openings, if possible?
That house is great. Just needs some fixing up.
This house is a very typical California bungalow. With a view like that in the Bay Area, it would be almost $2M unrenovated.
The house seems to be facing NNE so won’t get the full effect of great sunsets. But a nice sweeping view to the mountains. And good thing to have a pool because that area will be hot in the summer! Hope the grandkiddies don’t fall down the hill! That is going to quite a hike for you, cb.
So it looks like this house is going to be their final home, most likely. Much better for them to be totally comfortable now rather that living with a design that isn’t to their tastes for the sake of future resale.
Help! I didn’t get to the thread before the link was disabled. Can someone please PM me the link to the pictures? Thanks!
What was posted in the original post was the address, garbled up so it wouldn’t be found by search engines. There were no links to pictures that I saw. Unless the original post was modified by cb to include a flickr link, I think @MaineLonghorn made a mistake.
I assumed everyone just googled the address and went to one of the real estate pages that had the listing pictures.
Correct, there wasn’t any link to pictures but the stretched out address of the house - then you had to google for old sale listings since it currently shows off the market.
OK, the OP can repost the info, then. @coralbrook
^^Correct. Checked my browser history!