Nesting Pair

A letter to the new owner

2009-06-14T01:19:00.000-07:00

Dear new owner,

Welcome to your new home. I hope that you find as much love and happiness as we have found in this sweet little house. She is solidly built: we have opened up a couple of walls and all the studs are dimensional 2x6 heartwood. Not to sound cliche, but they do not build them like this anymore.

My favorite room in this house has to be the back yard and it is the hardest thing to leave. It is truly a slice of paradise in your own backyard. There is no better way to start a day than to sip a cup of coffee and watch all the birds feeing in the morning. You know you've already had wonderful moments in your day.

Being so close to the Chickahominy River, we get a ton of different types of birds. This year we had down woodpeckers, a red headed flicker woodpecker at our feeders regularly. In addition we've had chickadees, sparrows, wrens, mockingbirds, robins, cardinals, blue birds, tufted titmice, and even more I don't know the names of. We have even seen hawks and eagles and have had herons stalking the goldfish in the pond. I hope you get a good backyard bird book. We've had lots and lots of fun watching them. Please, feed them. I have left the feeders and the sunflower seeds.

The veggie and herb gardens are also lots of fun and full of satisfaction. Nothing is cooler than cooking up veggies you grew yourself. I didn't plant a whole lot this year as I knew we were moving. You should be able to harvest tomatoes upon moving in. You also have eight pepper plants (four jalepeno and four habanero), and two crookneck squash. I planted those late so the should be producing by the time you move in.

The two trees to the east of the garden, by the shed are a cherry tree and an apricot. Last year Bobby (your new next door neighbor) and I stood around that tree and ate cherries right off of it. This year however, the mockingbird got all of them. Last year, I was all set for a bumper crop of apricots, but the squirrels got every one of them. Oh well, that what happens when you share your yard with critters.

In the herb garden, you have a monster rosemary (cut large chunks off and use for skewering shrimp on the BBQ, yum!), tons of oregano, lemonbalm, mint, parsley, and thyme. That rosemary was given to be as a cutting in a four inch pot from a friend's garden. Now, it's a monster, but I love the smell.

The best place to get away in your own back yard is the hammock beyond the garden. I love to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon with a book and rock myself to sleep.

This is a great party yard too. We've hosted tons of parties back here. Sunday BBQs, pumpkin carving parties, birthday parties, and whatever else we can think of. The firepit has been a wonderful part of that entertaining tradition. We use is so much in the spring, fall and even into the winter. We've had crowds of people bundled up in twenty degree weather roasting marshmallows and talking long into the night.

I guess my favorite part of the backyard however is how it changes over the seasons. So many gorgeous flowers in the spring and all through the summer, the rich colors in the fall, the different birds in the winter, and then new growth in the spring.

In the end, I just hope you love this house and it loves you back in the same way that it has for us. It is a great house and I know you'll be happy here.

Best of luck to you and yours.

Love,

The former caretakers of 137 Lee Ave.

Talk about nesting!

2009-06-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

We've had a bumper crop of babies around here. We've had three different nests that we can take pictures of, sparrows, robins, and wrens. It has been big fun to document their progress.

The sparrow's nest in the front topiary

A sparrow in the birdhouse that Penny built several years ago. We get babies here every year. Then they fly down to the fence near the bird feeder and the babies flutter and fluff up while waiting to be fed by the parents. So cute!

The wren's nest inside a plastic storage bin inside the tool shed.

Newborn baby robins. Nest was near the pond on the trellis.

Hungry baby robins.

Houses, I'm thinking about houses.

2009-03-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

All the time. It's all I think about. Wishing my house would sell, hoping the house I want will still be available when mine finally does sell, demoing, remodeling, and decorating the new house, wondering what I can do to make my house more attractive to buyers, etc. You get the picture. It's annoying and makes me boring. I'm ready to stop thinking, wishing, and dreaming and start doing.

I am also tired of falling in love with a house, crunching numbers, mentally renovating and decorating, picking colors, painting, wallpapering, furnishing and then imagining throwing the first open house/house warming party, only to find out that the house has been sold and I was dreaming about someone else's house. :::le sigh:: Yes, the court yard house, the elvis fabulous house, the harvest gold extravaganza house has been sold to a contractor and his fiancee. I'm sure they are a lovely couple, but I have trouble being gracious right now. Actually, I've already grieved it, cried over it, stomped my feet, and have moved on. I've found another house, far less expensive, two blocks away, that I could fall in love with. It's only been on the market a few days, but now it seems to have disappeared from the MLS service. Could it have sold in only five days? Really? How is that fair? I know, life is not fair. I need to get over it. Patience isn't my strong suit. Houses are taking four to six months in this market in this area to sell, I tell myself. I try to console myself with all the positive feedback we have received. Everyone loves our house. It's beautiful they say. The layout is great, they say. You can seat six in the dining room with room to spare, they say. They love the color scheme, they say. The love the vast amount of storage, they say. Then they notice that it only has one bathroom. ARGH!

An Even Better Picture

2009-03-08T17:05:00.001-07:00

Taken once the sun was shining. Do you see how beautifully I shoveled that driveway?

And to think that this weekend was near 80 degrees and I planted violas by the stairs to the front door!

The Blizzard of 2009

2009-03-02T12:03:00.001-08:00

We had 8 -10 inches around here and it has been quite lovely. It's doubly nice since school was closed today and I don't have to go out in it. We picked up a 1000 piece puzzle and I am busying myself with that this afternoon.

The downside is that two trees each lost a very large limb and we have to figure out how to clean them up. The limb in the front is blocking my neighbor's drive, so that one is of greater urgency. The other issue is that we are supposed to have another open house next weekend and we would like to get it cleaned up by then.

The other tree is in the back yard but is too high up to tackle ourselves, we think.

My newest favorite song

2009-02-22T18:26:00.000-08:00

I think I'm in love...

2009-02-20T16:02:00.001-08:00

...but as with all love, there are problems.

We went and looked at this gem on Wednesday. It is located on this charming cul de sac in the city, right near Byrd Park, a local institution. Look at that wonderful center fountain!

Penny even found a wonderful old post card of the park:

It is in our price range (sort of) and the location cannot be beat. A fabulous park just beyond the front door, restaurants and shops within walking distance, that lovely cul de sac filled with unique architectural jems, what's not to love?

Then, we went inside. Not only is every inch of this place covered in paneling circa 1963, most of it is harvest gold. All of the woodwork is painted harvest gold as well. Take a look:
The Entry
I adore this small window in the entry.

The entry opens up to the staircase.
The living room is off to the left with a fireplace.
Off to the right is the dining room, kitchen, and closed in back porch.Get a load of the cornice boards.

And the kitchen is advertised as having stainless steel appliances. The door leads to the back yard. That plaid is spectacular.

Let's go upstairs and look at the bedrooms and bathrooms. First we'll pass this pristine piece of vintage lighting:

Into the master bedroom, the harvest yellow finally relents to another color scheme: Yes. That is pickled green paneling combined with a green faux toile papered paneling. Up close:
The master bath has some repair issues, but isn't totally horrible. I actually really like the old hex tiles.

The second bath is swathed in harvest gold. Wondering who thought a yellow toilet was a brilliant design decision makes me wonder. But what really keeps me up at night is that thousands of people bought into this idea and installed them!

The second bedroom's best feature is that it leads out to the fabulous rooftop deck. Running a close second is the delightful shag carpeting and the BLUE pickled paneling. Who knew they pickled paneling blue? There are two more smaller bedrooms, but I did not get good pics of those.

The basement might have been a bit scary, but had been cleaned up pretty well. The plaster ceiling is damaged and needs to be pulled down.

So, what's to love about this house. She has great bones, good flow, and a spectacular location. It needs a lot of love to bring it back from the brink. I love the challenge of it and I think it would be a great investment as well. Who's up for a 70s party and then a demo party?

Looking at Houses

2009-02-16T10:18:00.001-08:00

So, this morning we went to go look at this house in our preferred neighborhood.

It is listed at the very top of our price range in a fairly modest neighborhood, $265,000. At this price, we expect that everything will be done, updated, refinished and move in ready.

We had been recently admiring this house which was the basis for our assumption on price. It was listed at $239,950.
It is a huge four bedroom, four bathroom American Foursquare. It had been completely gutted and renovated. All new systems, new kitchen, new roof, all done. It is on a good block just a few hundred feet from a large park.

So, we had high hopes for this brick house today. It is also on a good block, corner lot, a block and half away from the same park. This is what we saw:

From the street, not so bad.

As we got closer, we could see some issues starting to emerge on the outside but exteriors can be a bit more difficult to keep up than interiors. Some water damage on the soffit and some stucco issues on the porch.

Let's go inside and see what we can see, shall we?

Would you look at those entryway floors! What was that?

And that's me trying to take in the living room/dining room combo? And oh, I how I wish blogs had "smell-o-vision" technology. It smelled like a cross between hair straightener solution, lysol spray, and church lady perfume. And the house was doused in it! And check out the double sided Chesterfield sofa. Who puts that in their living room??

It was at this point that we start to hear voices. Plural. Several. Kids mostly. And the realtor yells up the stairs that we're here and looking at the house. A teenaged boy comes down the stairs saying that he and his siblings will be leaving because they are off for the holiday. It was an awkward moment to say the least. Especially because we have already commented none too complimentary things about the house so far. Like I said, awkward.

Someone, sometime had ripped out the original French doors and replaced it with this ugly rectangular opening with those attractive planters between the front room and back room.

More living room. Can I just say here that every surface was covered in wallpaper, throughout the house. And not in a good way.

It baffles me that people put their house on the market and do nothing to make it marketable like declutter and depersonalize. Isn't this common knowledge these days?

This is the downstairs bathroom. Love that groovy metalic wall paper. And tell me, who thought it was okay to make bathroom fixtures in yellow. Really? Yellow. Who thought that was a good color?

And let's move onto the kitchen. All the particleboard uppers had been covered in some sort of stainless steel, but they had never been finished around the edges. The floor, and I am so sad I didn't get a picture of this, was tiled recently. And in the center, they had added decorative medallion wall tiles that had raised high relief of neo-classical baskets. Weird.

They didn't bother to move the fridge so they just tiled around it.

The original porch had been closed in to make an odd little dining nook and a sun room. I personally love how they have recreated the "Hall of Justice" in the sun room.

This is the upstairs bathroom. Spectacularly craptastic.

The basement was incredibly scary. Beyond scary. There were like three different furnaces. A very scary glass block bar. Just very scary:

So, it was a grand disappointment, to say the least. They must have been high to think of pricing this place where they did. It needs everything and a huge amount of work. It will sit like that for a very long time. Given our tight budget, I'm more than willing to take on a project house, but this lacks the really neat stuff I love in these houses, namely the French doors, and those wide open entries with grand staircases. We shall keep looking and I shall continue to document it all!

Breezeway/Florida Room

2009-02-15T19:58:00.000-08:00

This is a slightly awkward room. It is exactly eight feet wide and just over twenty feet long, running the entire width of the house. So, it's long and narrow. It separates the rest of the house from the garage. On one end is a sliding glass door leading toward the back yard. On the other a set of three jalousie windows (which I abhor) that look toward the front yard.. The window on the left side is over the kitchen sink.

Several years ago, I decided to paint the dark red brick to lighten the room and make it a bit more cheerful and less dark and dank. What a nightmare. I made so many mistakes! I think that is the one and only time I've ever cried over paint. It took forever to paint as the brick is highly textured and I had no clue about how to paint it. I also picked a blue and I'm not a blue fan. Then, I also picked the wrong sheen, gloss. Why I thought gloss would be right out there is still a mystery to me. I also picked a darker, greyer tone for the trim. When I was all done, it looked like a cross between a battleship and a pool locker room. I repainted the trim to the lighter blue and trimmed out several other things in a bright spring green. I also painted much of my furniture in there the same green, or a bright orange. I was going for a beachy, island look. Don't ask me why. I've since gotten rid of the old brass ceiling fan, painted all the trim a nice bright white, and left it at that. We use this room as a place for morning coffee in the spring and fall when it's a bit too chilly to go outdoors. Mostly however, we use the room as a large dog house. There's a doggy door in the slider and it allows the animals to come and get out of the weather. It also serves as a greenhouse for my ever shrinking house plant collection.

The floor is covered in bamboo mat-rug things we found on clearance. The underfloor is concrete and the bamboo is hard wearing and looks neat and clean.

Bedrooms

2009-02-15T19:38:00.001-08:00

The master bedroom: not huge, but it fits a king bed and side tables easily.

The second bedroom. We used to use it as a walk in closet but have pulled down the shelves, repainted, and staged it as a bedroom.

Third Bedroom/Office: We installed two floor to ceiling bookshelves and use this room as an office. Neither of us have extended family and have little need for a guest bedroom. Besides, the house is small and we need to use the space more efficiently. Directly to the left, just outside the frame of the picture is a second, smaller closet. Originally, this room was dark with the old knotty pine paneling with its orange-y shellac. I love how fresh and clean it looks now. This photo was taken in the doorway that leads directly to the kitchen. Down the hallway you can see the entrance to the master on the left. At the end of the hallway is the second bedroom. Off to the right is the bathroom.

Living and Dining Rooms

2009-02-15T19:04:00.001-08:00

The first pic is taken from the front door. The doorway in the dining room leads to the breezeway/florida room that separates the house from the garage.

The two rooms are open to one another which is nice. While generally, I'm not overly fond of "open concept" rooms that are so popular these days, I do like these rooms open to one another. I make a mess in the kitchen and I like the option of closing off and hiding my mess. The pocket door allows me to do this easily.

The brick on the fire place was ugly red color and that clashed with the red that I had originally painted the living room. You can see the color it used to be in the mural over the mantle. We also tiled over the ugly terra cotta hearth with a nice slate subway tile.

The Bathroom

2009-02-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

We totally revamped the bathroom which was in dire need. The only updating the bathroom had received was a couple of new vanities. Despite its modest size, it has lots of storage, which this house has a great deal of in general. There is a large linen closet that holds everything. Before we renovated, I had ripped out the old, dingy, aluminum medicine cabinet and we lived with the giant hole for nearly three years. Sometimes, I need to let projects percolate before I make a final decision. Normally, I would have preserved the traditional black and white tile, but it was in very poor condition and made the bathroom feel perpetually filthy, ew. So, here are the befores:
See the hole on the right?

This is the "during"

And the after:

We pulled out the tile and replaced it with beadboard, tiled over the floor with a larger black and white ceramic tile, and replaced the vanity with a smaller footprint pedestal sink. The tub was reglazed and tiled around it with subway tile. Then I painted it all out in an aqua blue. Now, it feels clean, airy, and soothing.

Penny Here.

2009-02-15T18:11:00.000-08:00

I will be along for this ride and may post on occasion.

The Rancher

2009-02-15T18:05:00.001-08:00

So, this is our rancher. Casa Caudlee in all its glory. It is a modest, three bedroom, one bath ranch in the suburbs of Richmond. Penny has lived here for nearly eighteen. I moved in with her eight years ago. When I moved in, Penny had not done a whole lot to it as it started out as a rental. When I moved in most of the walls were white except for the bedroom and dining room. The dining room was painted an odd hue of colonial blue. The bedroom was...drumroll please...grape juice purple. I don't think we have any pictures of it back then, for good reason. We've spent the past eight years on project after project. I won't bore you with all the details, but I will add pics of what it looks like today. Most of these pics were taken after the house was staged, so most of the personality is stripped from it. It looks a little generic and a bit dull right now.

If you want to buy it, call my agent.

The Kitchen:

We updated it a year ago with resale in mind. The before was pretty awful with four different countertops and a mix of painted an unpainted cabinets and older appliances. We replaced the counters with granite tile, painted out all the cabinets, changed out the hardware, and put in stainless appliances. We also updated all the light fixtures. In all of our renovations we debated between going totally updated and more modern or recognize and respect the age of the house and maintain that integrity. I think we tried to strike a balance. In the neighborhood we live in, we were very leery of over-renovating as we knew we would never recoup that investment. That was why we decided to keep the cabinets we had which were good quality and solid wood, and to go with granite tile rather than a slab. We've lived with it for about a year now and I still think we made good choices. I particularly love the drawer pulls. They are my favorites.

While not grand in size, it functions beautifully and the layout works very well. It is not my dream kitchen, but it comes close. Lots of cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling, plenty of counter space and it has a good work triangle.

Utility Room
Just off the kitchen, a French door leads to a sunken utility room/pantry/mudroom/laundry space. We put up 65+ feet of deep shelving on the back wall which add loads of storage.

The washer dryer is off to the right. We recently replaced the flooring with a hardwearing VCT tile and a storm door with a built in dog door.

Introductory Posting

2009-02-15T18:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it has been a while since I've blogged regularly and I've never spent much time in the writing process, at least for blogging, so bear with me.

The whole purpose of this blog is to document our adventures in renovating and then selling our 1950s suburban ranch. Then document the purchasing and renovating an older home. I hope the blog will help me figure out what my taste and style is by compiling inspiration into a single, easy access place, document the whole process, and to have some fun as well. We'll see how much I actually get accomplished!