Not Your Grandmother’s Wallpaper

Remember my post about our wallpaper? Well, Chuck is pasting it now. Whenever we tell people we’re using wallpaper in our mid-century modern house we get double-takes. And I understand why. We’ve all suffered through way too many sad, florid, hyper-ornamental patterns covering every conceivable surface in the 70s and 80s. I had a cousin who even papered the electrical outlets to match her mauve rose trellis pattern. Some things can’t be unseen after you’ve seen them.

What’s different today? Modern wallpaper has bold, graphic patterns (not tiny florals or watery pastels) and we never paper an entire room—we limit the paper to a single accent wall in a room. And there’s no such thing as a modern wallpaper border; we carry the entire pattern floor to ceiling. To refresh your memory, here are our patterns, from English manufacturer Graham & Brown:

Chuck is starting in the dining room, where the subtle white and silver “Darcy” pattern is a perfect backdrop for an art gallery wall. White paper also brightens this ocean view space by reflecting even more light around the room. For professional looking results, you have to make sure the surface has been prepared. The original walls were so heavily patched and rough (from the amateur kitchen cabinets that had been roughly glued and screwed into the walls) that we had to install brand new sheetrock to get a smooth surface. The next step is a coat of wallpaper primer. It seals the drywall and improves the adhesiveness of wallpaper paste.

Chuck then carefully aligned the panels, matching the pattern on each strip precisely, after applying all-purpose adhesive to the wall. Check your wallpaper before buying the paste. Some papers require specialized vinyl-to-vinyl adhesive, while others come pre-pasted. Other papers may require you to apply paste to the paper instead of the wall, which is much harder to handle correctly. Chuck loves that the Graham & Brown paper is made with a special “Paste-the-Wall” technology; that type is easier to install. Even so, any wallpapering is a painstaking process, because you have to watch everything to make sure the patterns are exactly aligned and press out any unsightly bubbles quickly before the paste sets. And then enjoy the results!

Master Bedroom Retreat

The master bedroom is becoming a spacious retreat, with its own ensuite bath, abundant windows, generous sitting area and dedicated backyard access. You may recall this room was the 265 square foot (25m²) formerly “unpermitted” space that wasn’t legally part of the house. After we closed the deal, we heard from neighborhood folks that other potential buyers were spooked by the illegal space, afraid of the cost to rehabilitate or tear it down.

We gambled and won! We learned that with some inexpensive fixes involving bolts, epoxy, and a building inspector it could be brought up to code and instantly add 27% more legal square footage to our house. We bought a 980 square foot (91m²) house and turned it into 1245 square feet (116m²) with no heavy construction!

Our house is like the “Tardis” from Dr. Who. It’s bigger on the inside!

As part of the transformation, Chuck (my amazing designer husband from C W Quinn Home) decided to add a closet to the back wall. It took just two feet that would have otherwise gone unused. And it’s essential for a real bedroom to have a real closet. I love the custom storage that Chuck designed and built-in himself.

As a reminder, here’s what it looked like before.

Here’s the closet in progress.

And here’s after! We still have to add handles to the doors and wallpaper to the back wall but it’s 95% done.

Our Minds Are In The Gutter

Gutters aren’t something you think about often, and they’re not sexy, but they’re essential. They channel rainwater runoff away from your foundation and prevent many kinds of damage from ever happening. Like everything else on our house when we bought it, our gutters were broken. Made of cheap plastic, many of them were disconnected from the downspouts, rendering them useless. And notice how they don’t match the roof trim—not that anyone would want to match that garish electric blue!

And here are our new gutters! Five Star Rain Gutters recently installed nice new metal gutters that will hold up for years. And notice how the downspout is white, but the gutter itself is a handsome gray-blue that matches the new trim color? The gutters come in 60 different colors, and Chuck specifically matched the new paint colors to the gutters.

And here’s a preview of the whole exterior color scheme, on the garage. The garage has a gray base and white trim. The house will be reversed, with a white base (it’s currently a dirty cream) and gray trim (changing out the faded green).

 

 

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Our new fence is going up quickly in the side yard. Because we created a new entrance to the yard through the kitchen, the fence is essential for privacy.

Here’s how the view looked before the fence.

Going back farther in time, here’s the space when we first installed the door. I’m glad they put walls around it!

And to refresh your memory, here’s how the space looked when we bought the house. It used to be a cramped bedroom with a low ceiling. Chuck’s imagination completely transformed it!

Making An Entrance

Our new entrance through the kitchen is almost finished. Look at this substantial block of concrete! I think our contractor, Darrin Brooks of K & G Construction in Grover Beach, borrowed it from the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant up the road. The steel poles are anchors for a new wooden fence that will close off the back yard and offer privacy from the house next door.

The steps had to be this tall because the floor sits high off the ground…

One of the odd features we’ve noticed in many homes of the period is that the backyards were ignored. Ours is a huge space that was not used properly. Previously the only way back there was through a bedroom. It was an awkward layout, not at all suitable for modern living and entertaining. Adding an egress through a public space like the kitchen makes the space much more livable, and increases resale potential.

Speaking of the backyard, we just had the dead brush and trees cleaned out. It looks a little barren right now, but it’s a wonderful blank canvas for an outdoor living and entertaining space.

A (Dining) Room With A View

The dining room is next. This view was never properly taken advantage of before, as this room used to share a teensy kitchen and a passage to the bedroom area. Now the space is a dedicated dining room that doesn’t have to share with other rooms.

Here’s the old layout. The orange lines indicate walls that used to exist but have been partially or fully removed.

 

And here’s the new layout.

 

The new cabinets from Chuck’s C W Quinn Home showroom add lots of storage, including a beverage fridge. A countertop will soon replace the clutter on top.

And here’s another ocean view. Goes great with dinner!

 

New Range Hood

All of our appliances are now installed. The range hood is now sitting over the stove, so we have a full suite of Frigidaire stainless steel in the kitchen and dining room (fridge, beverage fridge, range, microwave, and range hood).

The hood looks fabulous against the glass backsplash! Also notice the under-cabinet lighting. A well-lit room has multiple light sources to add drama and interest. We have general area light from recessed fixtures in the ceiling, coupled with more focused light from the pendants and under cabinet lights. All can be switched on or off independently, and most are on dimmers to fit any mood.

As for the appliances, there are many different price points for stainless, and we were careful not to spend too much. A reasonable investment in stainless appliances will get returns in resale value, but it’s easy to “over improve” for most neighborhoods. Unless you’re in a super high-end area, many buyers are not interested in paying for top-of-the-line appliances. That $6000 Aga stove or $10K Sub-Zero fridge may get you style points, but not much bang for your buck.

And everything is looking really great in context. With textiles from the pendants, artwork and tasteful accessories we’re warming up the space.

The Best Contractors in SLO County

In the spirit of the Oscars®, Chuck and I are having our own little awards ceremony for the house. As our home nears completion, there’s a long list of people and companies we need to thank. (And you can learn the award winners without having to sit through a three hour ceremony or any song-and-dance numbers!) Our contractors made a huge renovation project go quickly, transforming a shabby, neglected property into a home we’re proud to show off. If you need a contractor on the Central Coast or San Luis Obispo County, we highly recommend these award winners:

• Best General Contractor: Darrin Brooks of K & G Construction in Grover Beach (805-709-9153) started the build out with his carpenter extraordinaire Mike Schillero. They reframed walls, raised the ceiling in the room that became our kitchen, earthquake-proofed the former “umpermitted” room to meet code, installed acres of sheet rock (even on the ceiling), painted and much more.
• Best Structural Engineer: Mike Smith from Smith Structural Group created engineering plans that made everyone at the Pismo Beach Building Division happy. He enabled our open concept, ocean view kitchen to become a reality, and helped us add 25% more square footage to the house by engineering the former unpermitted room.
• Best Electrician: Erik Poor (aka Sparky) of PoorBoy Electric got himself under the house, braved the crawl space, and rewired it all in record time. He installed our gorgeous light fixtures and digital dimmer controls, and offered professional advice all along the way to make our house even better. He was saved from digging a trench in the back yard by the plumbers from…
• Best Plumbing: R & B Construction Richard Daly and his man Ryan rocked the house with their gorgeous copper pipes.
• Best Real Estate Agent: Keith Hoffman of Comet Realty our fabulous real estate agent, helped us actually purchase the house from sellers who were spooked by many potential buyers walking away at the last minute, daunted by the condition of the house and the amount of work it would require.
• Best Mortgage Officer  Greg Olivas at Heritage Oaks Bank. We made an offer on Dec 4 and closed on Dec 31—just 19 business days! We would have closed even sooner but one of the sellers lingered in the house a few days. We could have never have gotten a mortgage so quickly without the exceptional work from Greg and all the members of his team. Greg also helped convince the suspicious sellers that we were dedicated buyers determined to have the house.
• Best Waste Removal: API Waste Services were friendly, on time and reasonably priced. If you’re doing a renovation project, don’t even hesitate; rent a dumpster. You have no idea how much garbage even a small project can create, and your normal municipal trash service will not pick it up. You could try to save money by hauling it yourself to the dump, but it would be a false economy between your time, gas, and dump fees. API hauled off two 22 x 8 x 6 foot (6.7m x 2.4m x 1.8m) dumpster loads—that’s over 2100 cubic feet (59m³) of waste! And we could have used them a third time.
• Best Pest Removal: We had bugs (eek!) but Lenny at Brezden Pest Control had our house wrapped and sealed the minute we closed.
• Best Heating: Chuck Sweeney and Lenny from Wighton’s warmed our world by putting in the new furnace.
• Best Roofing: with only a moments notice Quaglino Roofing was on site plugging all the holes in the roof the plumbers made.
• Best Flooring: Kris Outland from Floors of Wood installed our new hardwood floors and refinished the existing vintage oak 1955 floors. They are matched seamlessly!
• Best Door Installation: Richard the Door Guy installed our front door and many new doors throughout the house. It’s a highly skilled job and he made the doors fit without gaps in a house that had no truly square corners. I know we all work hard for our money but that man really works, especially when all the doors are solid and not hollow. My back hurt just watching him…
• Best Gutters: And to save everything from drips Five Star Rain Gutters will be on site soon to replace the old plastic gutters – yes they were plastic with lots of holes in them.
• Best Landscaping: Gabriel from Gardens by Gabriel has been on site planning our new yard with native, drought tolerant plants. I look forward to see what he and his crew come up with. That’s the next phase after the interior is done. We have a 5000 square foot (464m²) yard to handle next!

We hope you enjoyed our contractor awards ceremony. We owe our beautiful new home to their professionalism, dedication and creativity.

Kitchen Sunrise

The kitchen is coming along nicely. A narrow slab of matching quartz will be installed on the ledge behind the sink soon. Our countertops are by Compac, a Spanish company that Chuck happens to feature in his C W Quinn Home showroom. The countertops are nearly indestructible and will look beautiful for years to come.

They look white in these pictures, but they’re actually pale gray to complement the color scheme in the kitchen, living room and dining room. A pure white countertop might also seem too sterile, as we want our house to look warm and inviting. Compac calls this countertop color “Luna,” and it does have the quality and shimmer of moonlight.

It’s a dramatic transformation from the original kitchen! Remember that the old kitchen was crammed into a corner of the house, and we moved it into the center.

And here’s my favorite view again. The waves crashing onto Pismo Beach in the morning are a soothing sight.

The Second Bath

We’ve spent so much time and energy in the kitchen that we haven’t focused as much on other areas like the two bathrooms. The larger bath has one of the few features that was sufficiently well preserved to keep: a vintage built-in vanity. The picture below is from the day we closed on the house. After nearly six decades the tile looks brand new.

For a while we doubted if the vanity was original to the house, because tile is in perfect condition. The workmanship, which was much better than any of the homemade amateur “improvements” made over the years that we had to remove, together with the 50s acid green color scheme, convinced us. Here’s a tile close up.

We knew we had to keep it. It’s one of the pleasures of restoring an older home. The sink was in good condition and couldn’t be removed anyway without destroying the tile. However, the cheap faucet and its grimy plastic knobs was not a well maintained art piece, so it had to go. We replaced with a chrome fixture. The curves reflect the period, like the streamlined cars you would have seen parked in the driveway.

 

Next up is some new hardware and white paint for the vanity. Another challenge was finding a floor to replace the worn out brown linoleum. It would have to coordinate with the highly specific green tile without overpowering the room. Matching the tile color would be impossible. After much searching, we located the perfect terrazzo floor! Terrazzo, a mixture of stone chips set in a binder and polished, is period appropriate since it was extensively used throughout the mid-20th century. And the green in the stone chips plays well with the original tile. The floor comes in 12×24 tiles that we’ll install soon. Can’t wait to see the results!