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…
New to my story? Read Part 1 here Read Part 2 here Sean here. The kitchen remodel I’ve been helping my parents with is done. Well, sort of. The backsplash tile is not installed, and it will be some time before we do that. Ironically, while I have been pushing my parents toward more-dynamic, less-bland…
The trouble with a two-story house is that if a ceiling is too low on the bottom floor, what are your options? It’s not a simple matter of punching up the ceiling. There’s another room up there. But that didn’t stop Scott and Lori in their 1940s Lake Arrowhead vacation cabin. They bought the place…
New to my story? Read Part 1 first. Sean here. We are almost done with my parents’ three-month kitchen remodel. That’s a long time for people to be without a kitchen. It’s been hard on my mom. What made it more challenging is that we (mostly me) decided to put new flooring in the kitchen,…