Normandy Park Restoration

Got busy with a crowbar in the basement.

Got the wall units installed.  Missing 3 doors, but I'll finish those later.  By cutting 2" holes between the cabinets, and adding grommets behind the speakers, all the cables are hidden.  I figure when I put the in-wall speakers in, the grommets can be used to route anything from inside the cabinet to outside.  Here's a pic: Right now I'm playing with some LED rope lights above the upper cabinets, so I have a power cable strung up to them.  I like the effect, though the quality of the lights I'm using now is poor.  But I like the overall look.  I also added a painting from the bedroom: However I'll have to get a spot light to accent the painting.  I'm still not loving the pot that palm is in, or the palm itself.  It will do for now, but I'll put some other kind of plant and pot in that spot.  Other than a few tweeks here and there, I might go ahead and call this done for now.  Too many other parts of the house need more attention, so I'll foc

Finally finished the shelves in the fireplace nook.  They are 44" Ikea Lack shelves, cut to fit.

We're getting really pretty leaf colors this year.

Getting started on the living room.  I've started installing new shelves in the fireplace alcove, and a floating wall unit as an entertainment center.  There are 3 more shelves that I need to install in the fireplace alcove.  In this picture there is only one so far. Eventually all of the electronics will be hidden behind the doors with IR repeaters so that I can operate them without seeing them.  There will be doors on all of the cabinets when done.  I'll also work on getting some in-wall speakers, but for now I'll have cables draped around.

Had to get a coat of paint on before the rains hit.  Not completely sold on the blue trim, may due a dark brown or grey there instead, but a huge improvement over what it was.  Right now I only have one coat on, and haven't done the edging right, so it's a rough paint job, but it will tide the house over until I get a patch of good weather and can finish the job.

Adding some landscape lighting to the front of the house.  I figure worst case if we don't close, I can take these with me.  Experimenting with LED bulbs using a 5w MR16, the results are very nice.  The uplight closest to the front door has the LED bulb, the rest are stock 50w hallogens.  With the LED bulbs I can run a lot more lights on one ballast.  I'll be adding about 3-4 more lights later.

Finally getting rid of all the junk the previous owner left in the house, heading to the dump tomorrow.

We're set to close on the 15th of October, so I'm getting a little braver with my fixes and updates.  I realize I want a little experience with the new airless sprayers before I tackle painting the exterior of the house.  I also know that once I pull down the ceiling tiles in the basement, I'll want something to make it look decent while I'm working on the wiring and rearranging the upstairs.  I thought I'd do a dark paint on the exposed wood.  I'd seen pictures of that done in basements before and liked the look.  The basements in this house are about 8" tall, a little lower than that when duct work or plumbing is a factor, so while not low, it can't hurt to have a dark look to improve the height of the ceiling. So, I figured I'd start by painting the ceiling in the unfinished part of the basement.  Here are some before pictures:  The paint I used was the same dark flat Olive Green I'd used on the lighting plate in the bathroom.  It'

There was some really ugly chicken wire used to keep pets in on the back wall of the carport.  This had also allowed a lot of branches, pine needles, and pine cones to build up behind the carport.  Since my plan is to enclose the carport, I'll need to cover this back area and reframe it.  Can't do that till after I close, but I need to clean up in order to do that, so I got back there, trimmed back the bushes to allow access, and removed all the waste.  Ended up about 4 Home Depot yard waste bags full.  Didn't get a before picture, but did get an after picture:

Just went under contract, won't close till October 15th, but I needed to take care of some weather exposure before then.  Here is a shot of the paint which has worn off of the main beams on the back of the house. I put some color matching primer on them.  Once we close (or get close to closing) I'll start doing some proper painting.  The white wash on the undersides will be white and the beam will be navy blue.  But at least for now the wood is protected.  Here is an after shot. The color of the house really is bad, it's a putty color, with white wash under the eaves in the back, but all putty in the front.  Definitely needs some sprucing up.

While the back yard is still a bit of a mess, I have put in a few landscape lights to get the ball rolling.  Here is a dusk shot showing the direction I'm going: I'll leave the back yard natural, but clean up the deadfall, repair the landscape timbers, and clean up.  However having a back yard that is not only enclosed, but very natural looking and where I can't see the homes behind me is ideal.

The main bathroom had some horrible florescent lights above the sink.  The ballast appeared bad as they didn't work so I decided to replace them with some recessed lights from Ikea.  Here is the original fixture: I had temporarily put a different fixture in so that I could have some light, but there was an issue with that light, causing it to flicker.  So, I decided to get cracking on the recessed lights.  Here is the work in progress: And the final result: Lighting is much improved.  I used a piece of wood from the basement and painted it a flat, dark olive green.  The lights are wired in parallel.  I had originally planed to wire them in series, but they were very dim in that configuration.  The fixtures aren't quite sitting flush.  The wire I used was so stiff that it's pushing them out slightly.  I'll have to tinker on that later.  However, overall the look is much better and the lighting is greatly improved.

Here are some images of the house now that I've moved in: I added some track lights above the fireplace.  There was already and outlet up there that was switched via an awkward switch near the fireplace.  I'll probably move that switch later.  Here is a shot of the track lighting: Cost was about $50 from Lowes.  There also wasn't any effective lighting in the hallway, so I threw up some lantern lights I've had in rentals before.  It's a temporary hack, but it looks nice.

Original offer was submitted on December 5th.  It's now August 19th, and the bank says the deal is in "Final QA" and should have the approval letter in 3-5 business days.  We'll see if that's true or not.  Once I get the letter it's 45 days to close. It's a 2600 sqft mid-century in Normandy park.  Here is an original picture during construction in 1960: Structurally it's in good shape.  The only issue I can see is that the wall on the outside of the carport is slightly tilting inward, but not much.  The main thing is that it's very dated.  It has about 1700 sqft on the main floor, and about 1400 more in the basement.  The basement is partially finished, but the work wasn't done well so it looks crappy and dated.  But the potential is there.  I have plans to change just about everything, and will keep this blog so that I can recall what I've altered by the time I'm done. Here are some images of how the house looks now: