Inexpensive project - brick and pavers path to repair an entry, backdoor, $1 dollar each (Home Depot), total cost $4, Seattle, Washington, USA

This back entry to an older apartment rental used to be a jumbled, unsightly and confusing nightmare, especially dangerous to people using canes to walk, those with bad eyesight, and even to the cat or dog. Using the existing brick dug out of the old walkway, purchasing the 4 larger brick pavers (concrete), we restructured the area for $4.00 using existing materials. This project was accomplished in 2 four-hour sessions with two people.

Between sessions the area was cleared of the materials and the ground was leveled to make walking here easy to do, even when the project was not finished. All tools were put away.

We added drainage using all the small pebbles and rocks we could round up from the yard. These rocks are no longer in view in the finished project because they form the foundation for the left, right and front areas so water drains from the left to the right and away from the entry.

Entryways, paths, exits, stairs and all transition places, such as hallways, and driveways should always be kept as clean and free of debris as possible.

There are multiple reasons for keeping transition areas clean and clear.

First is safety, and safety is aways the first consideration in walkways and staircases. The last thing anyone wants is a disabled or older person falling down a staircase, or tripping over stuff left in a transistion zone.

In my own case, my mother fell over a bag of potatos left on the staircase of her house, onto the landing where she cried out for help for 4 hours until a passerby on the street heard her. After that she always wore an emergency call necklace just in case. If we all followed the simple rule not to leave anything on a stairway, it just simply would not have happened.

Second is the energy or spiritual quality of any location. To keep energy flowing and clear, entryways, exits, hallways, paths and similar transition areas are the veins and arteries of physical places especially around the house.

Anything which blocks the flow of energy often is a safety risk as well.

The desire to place things in such transition zones that block their use, may be reviewed and considered as physical manifestations of energy and psychological problems such as the desire to hide, not deal with personal or professional problems, or other similar energy flow issues.

Now both the people and the cat enjoy walking through this area because they don't even notice it any more. Not noticing a transition zone is a good place to begin with a redesign - the best result is to notice the beauty of such an area, because its usefulness is a given.

French Country Hobbit Makeover

French Country Hobbit with traditional Tibetan and French influences for renovating and staging of a Hobbit sized Crown Hill house in Seattle built in the 1930s.


The best part of the renovation was probably the kitchen because we kept the period pieces. The whole interior became a little jewel - the bathroom did not require much work - wallpapering the uneven walls of an upstairs hallway made a huge difference.



Hallway upstairs facing north. New doors hung on new hinges and varnished three times. New knewl posts and wall paper to the left and covering ceiling. New oatmeal Berber carpet throughout second floor.

New handblown glass lamp from Home Depot lights Anne Geddes photo in gold frame. Looking down the hall at Modern Furniture custom made in Arlington Washington.

Hand tinted and custom blended paint to match.

Peggy's fireplace repainted stone texture

Here's the technique I used to renovate a terrible looking, but functional, old fireplace. First we cleaned the dirty red stone, and repainted the existing dingy old broken looking fireplace white base coat, then with a lovely brown paper bag wall color adding a second. This treatment cost less than $20 for materials. Cracks patched with fireplace stone fill. This is a very easy technique and we did it in about an hour and 1/2.

1. First thoroughly clean the stone or brick - it should have no grease, it should feel dry.
2. Then spackle and fill with heat resistant spackle. Let dry. Touch up.
3. Prime with paint. Paint the base coat a color such as the paper bag brown used here.
4. While that is still a little tacky, using an old brush, dry brush on another color of paint and work it into the high peaks of the stone or brickwork. We used a darker, red brown to achieve this effect. We also used old rags and newpapers to do the uneven blending.

The same colors were used on the walls of this room.

This is a very easy technique in two steps that completely transformed this fireplace, gives great results and is cheap cheap cheap!

Here's the rest of the room, the fireplace is out of the frame to the left before we installed the hearth slate embedded in the floor ...



View more details on this makeover here - http://www.wonderlane.com/livingroom_renovation2007.html

Formerly Haunted * 4001 Whitman Ave NE Seattle WA 98103

Still footage from video camera. This is the Whitman house in 2001 as it appeared before, yes, unbelievably we renovated it for free (5-6 months overall) and the owner then sold it. Why? Right before the dotcom bust it was the only place I could find to live in Seattle. At all. No matter what the condition was.

There had just been a wind storm which knocked down the flowering trees from the front yard. The white sofa Julie is laying on was the prior renter's and they just left it on the walk out front of the house. She's on the left on the front sidewalk.



It took a crew of up to 6 people, 3 working nearly full time 3 months to make it livable. Then I worked on it with help for another three months until it was finished about the same time I found work at Premera Blue Cross building their first Web application.

I spoke to the owner's wife and suggested he sell it because it would never look better, I guess that wasn't so wise. He still had the audacity to complain.

Nicole surveys the plastic floor covering - to make sure it's complete -



It was a lovely place in bad condition with dog food, poo, and fur crammed into the heating and old carpets. So it smelled funny. First we cleaned it , including the forced air heating, and removed the wall to wall carpets, and hauled them away. Worse yet there was evidence of animal cruelty with the appearance of a dog kept locked up in a second bedroom - urine stains that came from the same source. The animal tried to claw its way out of the room.

The upstairs neighbor said his asthma stopped - he really never had that - he was allergic to all the fur and poo in the heating system!

We nailed back in all the nailheads of the wood floors and put an oil rub and very very light varnish on each floor's rooms. On the most damaged wood we filled the wood. This place was really big inside. Huge.

We reworked the bathroom - here's a photo of my artist friend Mark helping me with some remodeling.



Then we painted it, including 3 colors in some rooms (cream and white trim with a very light orange creme). We completely made over the bathroom adding a new sink, faucet and mirror. A new faucet for the kitchen and the water flowed freely at last.

Due to the age of most things we found around it appeared that no one had cared for the place since the 1970's. There was alot of garbage, and decrepid stuff like the rotten wood picnic table in the small back yard covered in spiders, you know broken desks, and big cans, and old mirrors. We cleaned it. We found this friendly ball - Wilson, of course with a nod to Tom Hanks.



Same with the kitchen. We added lighting throughout, and new curtains, and blinds tailored to fit.

Jim Chase - as the DR. FIXALL gets ready in the kitchen -


Also removed tons of junk from the basement and backyard and planted flowers and grass. Spent days trimming the trees in front and bushes. Planted two types of flowering bushes, lilacs. We also put up the brass house numbers out front.

Until we filled all the holes in the house I had bad dreams and nightmares no matter where I placed my bed. Once we completely filled in everything, all the cracks, then things were better. Once completely painted and refurbished, these bad dreams vanished. One exception was the ghost cat Julie said would brush up against her leg.

Julie starts spackling the walls - as she painted I drove roundtrip Seattle to Folsom -


I had a little video camera that I captured these images from - hauling my homestead
from the trees and sun of Folsom - and back to Seattle - on 5 in the pouring rain -


My favorite ghost was the one that would jump over my bed at night mounted on a horse. I was unimpressed and just rolled over and went back to sleep.

Generally I charge to do this kind of work but I was so desperate to have a place to live - the landlord made a profit of course, and I had to move out. Right then the market fell.

My friend Nicole enjoying a ciggy on the west side of The Whitman House.



Myself I was just grateful to my friends that I could spend so much time with them and that they helped me so much for such a little reward as just friendship. When we were done the place looked fantasic!

Here is an after shot -



Unfortunately I did not record the process which was almost all done inside the house.

Besides the scary stalking ghost, there was a cat ghost, a mounted on horseback ghost, and even a prostitute ghost. There was a strong owner ghost concerned about her garden. After asking the dearly departed residents to find new homes I believe that helped rid the place of ghosts but not completely.

Before and After House Renovation in Shoreline, Washington

Before


After


This home improvement renovation just cheered up and modernized this house! We hadn’t had a chance to hang the art properly yet when the 'After' photos were taken, but I think you see the difference in how the lighting warmed, cheered and brightened up the place. Also we re-positioned the sofa and chairs, giving an improved flow into and around the living room. The vintage blue Queen Anne inspired library chairs the homeowner already had purchased and now put to use!

They hung the larger more colorful art in new locations, which is now the first thing you see coming in the front door (on the right out of this photo). It is so welcoming everyone wants to be in this room now, instead of instantly wandering into the media TV room.

The dedicated husband and wife team striped the popcorn ceiling with a pancake spatula and a water sprayer, covering the floor with the plastic you see in the "Before" photo at the top. They wore masks, and carefully mopped up anything which was not caught by the plastic. Once finished the new pot lights and ocular lights were hung by our electrician.

I had the couple purchase matching custom-made, simple oak book shelves for storage (see the "After" picture to the left and right of the fireplace). We kept them short, not going to the ceiling so they would not appear looming over you while seated. We faux painted the white fireplace to look like a pale and aged red brick in under 1 hour.

We also painted the interior of the house a light coral color - changing the color, warming it up made a huge difference. The homeowner was truly afraid of making a mistake color and nearly all surfaces were white, white and more white - painted or otherwise. Calling the color 'coral' instead of 'pink' helped a lot to sell the idea of something other than white.

The torchiere relocated to the media room leaving more space here in the main room where it was needed; the yellow sofa, and large TV set we moved to the completed media room.

The lady of the house told me that no one ever wanted to sit in that cold living room. Now people sit and talk comfortably and you can see everything.

In other major changes we added a dining room, the hot water heater was once in the center of the house, we dropped it into the basement, replacing it with an automatic heat on demand style water heater. This expanded their useful space quite a bit. Since they had no basement the space for the heater had to be dug out and a small concrete floor and utility stairs poured. Diging out the hard packed soil was more difficult than first imagined – but with friends and family, it went fast.

They engaged in a large number of improvements, including adding a new roof. The lights need to be focused in that quick shot I took. We are looking for a suitable living room table, and continually try to pare things down. It’s clean and more than livable now, it is a pleasure.

Spa Feeling for Bathroom - Amazing Transformation

Almost all the walls in the small bungalow we are working to renovate, paint, and clean will be in a lovely gold light yellow, with white trim – except for the bathroom – done with puttycolored brown walls (paperbag perhaps?), with a brownie purplish grey trim. It looks great! It is so modern to go with the tiles around the Jacuzzi in the same colors. It is positively AMAZING what some filling, spackling, sanding, and a fresh layer of paint can do for a small, older bathroom.

Over the bathroom basin we are installing a mirrored 3 light vanity fixture to go with the 1930’s engraved style mirror I picked up from Lowe’s for $34, and framed with a gray picture frame ($24.) to match the grey trim. I replaced that one with the one shown in this photo for about $68.00 and used the other mirror in the kitchen.



This toned down grey and brown treatment for the bathroom has a very modern spa feel to it. Coupled with the new light fixtures (which one visitor to the house termed “classy” ha ha!) and a new lighted fan should emphasize the house's many water features - it’s koi pond out front and backyard gazebo housing a large wood hot tub (4 people comfortably). It always feels like you are being gently boiled by some good witch when out in the gazebo soaking after a long day working.

A great rule for staging a house for sale is:

“perfect -- where you look, and where you touch”

in otherwords it is worth your time and effort to detail those places in house where you first look and then are likely to touch. Kitchens and bathrooms are the most likely to be grungy and also are very important when refinishing a house to sell.



Both men and women are focused on the kitchen and bathroom of the house being livable and usable – upon moving in, and that means immaculately clean and perfect. It is true that smaller places require more time to detail, and small bathrooms are extremely important to detail out with spackle, sanding, and painting. Nothing should draw attention to itself and the focus should be gently directed to the room’s best features – in this case the giant Jacuzzi tub.

One interesting thing I corrected - with this house’s bathroom the light shines directly down on the door showing every bump and surface irregularity. If the door was new or had not much use and fewer levels of paint it would be easy to make it look good, but of course this is not the case here. The solution? Paint the inside of the door brown-grey to go with the trim! It hides the many flaws of the door and still maintains the modern spa appeal.

As part of the spa look we took the old standard mirrored cabinet from over the sink and painted it several layers of semi-gloss pure white. In the back of the cabinet I cut out and placed a piece of the toile wallpaper and set the shelves back into the cabinet, and placed it onto the wall above the toilet. The toile is a sweet visual surprise to anyone opening the cabinet!

What’s next? Painting the wall sizing for the wallpaper in the stairwell and small hallway, where the new bowl shaped African trading bead inspired light fixture illuminates the area in a warm glow. Completing the trim and corners in the last upstairs room.

Bowl shaped lighting fixtures have a certain positive Feng Shi aspect to them, of encouraging freeflowing energy and also wealth, as the bowl is full of light. As the top light fixture in the most private recess of the house, I think it is an excellent choice for many reasons.



Yesterday we also had a tourist – a woman who works as a children’s advocate who came to see the progress – it is interesting to see that as a project comes closer to completion people can begin to visualize what the additional goodies, like wallpaper will mean to the completed project.

Jeanette also helped keep us focused on the right design path – when we found a lovely nude painting, and spoke briefly about including it as part of the staging she said “what part of French Country Hobbit” is this?” Good point! – it may be perceived as inappropriate by some buyers and it does not suit the mood of the presentation. So we stick to the original design!

Renovation
Seattle

Chandeliers In, New Finds

Jeanette’s house, which we are renovating and putting on the market, is looking wonderful - we put in the new lamps - chandelier in the dining room, new fixtures in just about all rooms in a 1930's inspired theme, we have doubled the light in the house and softened it.



This is about combining styles so the house brings out its cuteness. I actually found flatware that had both French and Tibetan designs worked into the same pattern so I can tie Jeanette’s French style to her Tibetan carpets she had custom made by Tibetan exile friends in the Himalayan foothills of India when visiting there.

For the dining room I am using blue and cream toile in the curtains and a tall white curio corner cabinet that Sara Storm is painting and wallpapering with the matching toile paper which we will use to display Jeanette’s handpainted blue and cream French dishes. The chandelier is gold and clear glass beads in a French style I picked up at Lowe’s for $88.00 and we have a turn of the century handmade French embroidery framed depicting couples at a party for the wall. Under the chandelier we’ll be using the round wooden table I picked up for $15 and Ken Vititus, the painter, refinished for fun when he visiting Seattle from New York in 2003.

I actually got so excited about the design of the kitchen window treatments I could not sleep last night - we are making it look cute and sweet and wonderful; friendly. Dai, playing the part of an electrician dropped in and installed all the lights, what a surprise! Especially sweet is the African Trading Bead inspired hand blown glass lamp in the upstairs hallway. For some reason everyone is wild about the kitchen light fixture. It makes the uneven quality of the kitchen look normal, cozy, and as if this is the kind of kitchen where everything just seems to pop magically perfect out of the oven!

I am staining and varnishing the brand new doors we had installed, with a three step process that gives them real depth – starting with a honey oak, and then varnish, then a pinkie red stain then varnish. In this way I can control the levels of color and reflectivity. Of course I am a fine artist so doing doors with energy is important to me. Hey they look like a French Hobbit cottage and that was my goal.

I think I would love doing this fulltime.

A former owner taped the walls to the trim and Julie, Sara, and Jeanette are striping that all off and back filling it and patching and sanding it. I got to get back to packing.

Renovation
Seattle
Makeover