Even though Roger Beckman had dated Ann Baber for more than a decade, he didn’t discover her hidden talents until she started remodeling her 1970s Culver City condo. Her first task was Herculean: stripping the dark brown finish off her kitchen cabinets, followed by sanding, whitewashing and applying three coats of sealer. “I didn’t know…
When Patricia Morrow and her two children finally outgrew their two-bedroom North Hollywood home, it was obvious that something had to be done. I was sleeping in my daughter’s room and my son was in the other room," said Morrow, who had bought the house with her then-husband in 1970, pre-parenthood. "It was obvious there…
After living in her 1950s Woodland Hills ranch home for 14 years, Cathy Nordlund set out to do something she had never attempted before –completely gut and redo one room to her heart’s desire. But because of her pragmatic disposition — after all, she was trained as an engineer — Cathy was mindful not to…
The Los Angeles condominium Jay Falamaki bought several years ago was like scores of others in Southern California. “It was boring,” Falamaki says of the 860-square-foot condo’s white walls, vinyl floors and beige carpeting. “It was very basic with no character at all.” But bland surroundings would work for Falamaki, a native of Iran who…
As first-time home buyers and recent architecture school graduates, Apurva Pande and Chinmaya Misra got a lesson in real-world construction when they remodeled their own 1,600-square-foot midcentury bungalow in the West Adams area. At architecture school — he went to UCLA and she to the Southern California Institute of Architecture — the couple learned about…
Here’s a story I wrote for today’s L.A. Times about an ugly-duckling duplex that was turned into an Eastside swan by a couple who think they’ll stay awhile: Daniel Curet was a contented apartment dweller looking for an Eastside investment property a few years ago when his plans took a sudden turn on a narrow,…
Carl Balton still remembers how he spent one particular Christmas Day — alone, miserable and working on his just-purchased first house, a 1928 Mar Vista fixer-upper. On that day, the tiny, run-down house was vacant, cold and dreary. Rain puddled ankle deep outside, and winds blasted open the French doors he had just installed. Balton…
Here’s where the money went for Carl Balton’s Mar Vista remodel, featured in a previous post: Electrician: $1,060 Plumber: $550 (plus one snake aquarium) Wood floor refinishing: $1,300 Trash hauling: $270 Friends’ labor: $3,734 Bathroom fixtures, vanity: $2,000 Tile and countertop: $1,260 Tile setter: $660 Bathroom counter: $800 Shower curtain and track: $295 Bathroom materials:…
When he set out to renovate the kitchen of his West Hollywood condo, Cyrus Deboo discovered more than how to paint cabinets and lay a tile floor. The do-it-yourselfer also found out some things about patience and perseverance. “The incredible lesson I learned from that kitchen rivals anything I learned in therapy,” said Deboo, a…
New to my story? Read Part 1 • • Read Part 2 • • Read Part 3 Sean here for the final post. Here is the finished kitchen, minus the backsplash, which I’m sure will add a lot of color and interest. As with most projects, it’s the last details that tend to get put…