After reading your article, I would like to see a follow up piece on exactly where every dollar was spent. My wife and I are planning an inexpensive remodel of 2 bathrooms and a kitchen and we’re at around $20,000. I know that the person listed in the story choose cost effective solutions, but my…
When David Kean set out to buy his first home, he was looking for two things: old and charming. He envisioned thick crown molding and hardwood floors. But there was a glitch in his plan. “Old and charming was too expensive,” said Kean, 36, who works as a real estate agent. Plus, he explained, he…
Before its major remodel, this 1921 Granada Hills home had virtually no discernable exterior style. That’s because the original house had been distorted in the 1950s with a boxy family room addition that went clear across the front, enclosing the front door and forcing the inhabitants to enter thereafter through a side door. When owners…
The fact that Judy and Roy Uehara’s dingy, cramped 27-year-old kitchen and adjacent family room were transformed into a luminous, elegant, granite- and maple-infused great room is a triumph of sorts (as, indeed, are most remodels). The first hurdle was the sensitive timing of the renovation, which, for financial reasons, had to be done after…
Here’s the best-looking DIY kitchen I’ve seen yet. No offense to the other DIY kitchens I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. They all had their charms. But this Los Angeles kitchen is so luscious. So strikingly handsome. The project took Liese and David 18 months, which is an awful long time to wash dishes in…
When Janet Foster was considering buying a 1948 Long Beach fixer-upper, her decision hinged on her father’s response to one question: Will you help? Tom Opferman, then newly retired from his engineering job, said “yes” to his youngest daughter, single and 29 at the time. Thus began a remodeling odyssey that started with gutting the…
Here’s one of my favorite kitchens, built by Corona homeowner Rick Taylor for $7,500 during a three-week vacation. But here’s the best part: Rick’s wife Stephanie did not want her household with two small children disrupted by the remodel. To address her concerns, Rick produced a spreadsheet showing her precisely how he could get it…
Several years ago, Reese Lackey’s three-part financial plan was simple: • Buy a home in what he heard was the most popular Southland style (Spanish). • Remodel it with trendy features (tile floors, granite kitchen counters, stainless steel appliances). • Live in the house for two years to satisfy tax laws and “flip” it for…