Lisa Lane

Lisa Lane
The day we bought this clunker

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Chapter 25 - Front of House - Before & After

Front of House - Before and After comparisons

BEFORE - Front of House

AFTER - Front of House

BEFORE - Entrance and Balcony

AFTER - Entrance and  Balcony

BEFORE - Right side of house

AFTER - Right side of house

BEFORE - Close up of right side of house

AFTER - Close up of right side of house
BEFORE - Left side of house


AFTER - Left side of house



Chapter 25 - Welcome to My Italian Villa

There is not an inch of this house that Steve and I have not worked on - whether we demolished it, rebuilt it, painted it, renovated it or just cleaned it - everything at one point has had our attention. But that south patio has been the most demanding and attention-grabbing area of them all. Like a needy child in a group of youngsters, this patio has required more of our time and energy than any other part of the house. But it is the case of the ugly duckling becoming the beautiful swan.

First, the sad little patio was just so pathetic and hideous that we were perplexed on what to do for the longest time.  With it being such an eye-sore and right off the formal living room, we knew that it had to be completly remodeled. In Chapter 12 - Getting Rid of the South Side Patio

you can see how much work it took to open the space from a cage to an airy patio. It took almost every friend we had to get that old turquoise jacuzzi out of there as well.

(See Chapter 13 - Friends to the Rescue)  
With the patio opened up, Steve wanted to enhance it, give it something to be proud of and create a natural extension of the formal living room. We had some elegant plans for the living room and thought that the patio should compliment the new design of the interior. He chose the highest grade cedar planking he could find. He used this same cedar on the back porch as well as the entrance to create a cohesive look for the whole house but the idea started with "dressing up the south patio."

With a new ceiling and new French doors, the patio was beginning to look better. We also constructed graceful arches to be supported by stone pillars. 

The patio looks across to the next door neighbor's wall with a dirt path in between and we knew we had to do something with this ugly area! So, we told Par 3, the landscapers that we wanted a rose-garden walkway, like an Italian villa. Par 3 did a beautiful job!
I fell in love with it immediately!


The landscaping is going in!

The Stone Pillars are in place!

The floor of the patio had the red concrete that the original house had everywhere. But we got rid of the back porch's red floor by smashing it up and adding basic grey concrete. On this south patio, we again wanted to dress it up so we laid pavers down to accent the Italian Villa look. 

Pavers require lots of sand that you level out or "screed" with a flat board. Then with the sand exactly level, you just carefully place the paver down in the pattern you want. Steve was really good at this and managed to get the floor down and level in 3 days. I helped a little but I wasn't really good and my side had a wavey floor which had to be redone....by Steve...cause I couldn't get it right! Remodeling this house with Steve, I am learning a lot of new skills and a lot of humility!




 

Chapter 24 - Something Doesn't Smell Right

This 70's house was built before the sprawl of Las Vegas and Clark County had crept so far west. There was no organized water or sewerage systems for the house to connect to at that time. Therefore, this house has been on a septic tank system for 30+ years. Most of us that grew up in the 70's probably lived in houses with septic tanks and just didn't know it but by the time we were old enough to purchase our first homes, most homes were connected to the local sewer system.

To close the well and join the network for water was easy and inexpensive. Clark County has a very generous grant that subsidizes the cost to connect to the county water. They pay up to 85% of the cost to cap the well, trench the home's new water line and attach to the main water line.

To join the sewerage system was not so easy. As the Health Department explained to us, "There IS NOT such an elaborate grant for sewerage connections as there is for water linkage. Water is very scarce here in Las Vegas so the Water District will pay a lot to obtain your water rights and cap your well."  I guess sewerage is not so scarce here in Las Vegas because it would cost us about $60,000 for the priviledge of connecting.

If the house is within 400 yards of a sewer line, the law says you must connect, no matter the cost. If your house is outside of 400 yards, the law allows you to stay on your septic system. We are about 2 blocks or 540 yards away from the line and so we planned to stay as is. Problem number one solved.

Next Problem Number Two, are the current septic tank and leach fields in "compliance" with the law? First, someone had to explain what a leach field was and for those of you that do not know, let me pass on what we have learned.

A septic system has a holding tank and any gases or liquids are then metered out to several perforated pipes. These perforated pipes then deliver the liquid to a large soil surface area, called a leach field for absorption. The leach field is deep under the ground. There are lot's of rules and regulations on how far the leach field is from the house, from the road and what is allowed on top of the area. 

Our septic tank is located in the front of the house, outside the driveway and the leach field is located inside the circular driveway.

When we applied for a sub-division of the land and inspection, we presented the Health Dept with plans showing where the sewage system is located according to sewage companies that had come to inspect. Upon reviewing the information that they had on hand, the Health Dept. said, "We show that you have 8 lines in your leach field. That means the leach field is under your driveway. Only 10% can be located under the concrete of the driveway - you are not in compliance."

They wanted us to abandon and rip up the concrete driveway or prove otherwise. Either way, we would have to destroy all the landscaping we just put in. In order to "prove" to them where the leach field was, we would have to bull-doze down until we located and unearthed the entire system of perforate pipes.

So, Steve in a last desperate attempt to save the landscaping and save the driveway pleaded with them to check their archives. They promised to see if they have anything in their warehouse where they file the old records. We didn't hold out much hope for a small lone piece of evidence to have survived 30+ years.

But miracles do happen. Even for septic tanks and circular drives. As we were heading off to California to spend Thanksgiving with Stephanie and Patrick, we get a call from Natalie, Steve's office manager, to stop and pick up the fax she knew we were looking for. This is the actual inspection, certified, radified and blessed with the seal from the Health Inspector of 1978. As you can see the 8 lines are divided into 2 leach fields, both in compliance with current regulations.


Saved the landscaping! Saved the circular drive! Saved the renovation! We had much to be thankful for at Thanksgiving this year!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Chapter 23 - Landscaping

I bought my first home, the smallest home (by square footage) in the neighborhood approx 18 years ago. Both of my children attended the elementary school across the street from this project house. And of course, I built my current home right behind our project house approx nine years ago. I tell you this so that maybe you can understand that I’ve been around this rundown home for a very, very long time…and like all of my neighbors we’ve had to endure the absolutely dead landscaping of this place…for a very, very long time! I always thought it too bad and what a shame that this home sitting on the corner, in the center of the neighborhood, was always so rundown. Honestly, I can’t remember anything but weeds growing in the yard.


As the house was being re-stucco’d, we both got very excited about the exterior because it started to look like an entirely new home. And just as soon as the scaffolding was down, we couldn’t wait to spray the house with a fresh coat of paint. The enthusiasm didn’t slow down from there, so I had the landscapers come right over and survey the yard. (The idea was that we could get the outside of the home completed before the cold of winter came.) The landscapers have been clients of mine for a long time, and they’re good friends too, so I had complete trust in them to take good care of me. I simply told them my budget figure and they took it from there.


Technically speaking, Las Vegas is a desert and water is a very precious commodity. Approximately 10 years ago the Water District placed a moratorium on planting grass in Vegas. All of the newer built homes have rocks, cactus and desert landscaping in their yards now. I grew up in Denver, Salt Lake City and Idaho Falls, all cities in the Rocky Mountains where grass and trees are very abundant. Accordingly, with this project house I knew that we had to breathe new life into it as much as we could…curb appeal was critical if we had any chance to sell this place when we were finished. Because the house was over 30 years old, the grass moratorium didn’t apply to us, and since grass was less expensive than rocks, I got a few more trees out of the budget.
Hopefully as you can see in the photos, the landscaping breathed new life into this old yard. Truly it’s now the garden in the center of the neighborhood. Both Mitzi and I have been stopped by so many of our neighbors in the past few weeks who’ve had nothing but great compliments for the home. Our stake president who lives nearby even stopped me to thank me for upgrading the area! Lol. And now with the exterior of the home finished I guess everyone thinks that we’re done with the house renovation because they all are asking to come see it. However, we’ve only got the walls recently put back on and the interior painted a few weeks ago. Guess we’ll have to speed the work up or everyone might lose interest? Ha ha.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Chapter 22 - Rock Work & the Finished Turret

In Chapter 18 - Entrance, Roof & Stucco you can see the demolition of the entrance and front of the house. Once the demolition was completed, we started to rebuild the entrance by creating a "Romeo & Juliet" balcony and a Grand Entrance with a turret. By October, the turret was ready for the rock finish.

Steve and I went back to the rock store several times to decide on just the right look. We chose the French Villa Chateau - Chablis fnish. The stones had a beautiful combination of brown, red and a little darker orange.  

The stone is not real stone but the fabricated concrete that is so popular out here in Las Vegas. It's about 1/4 the cost of real stone but adds color, style and a lovely finish to the home.

Pablo was the stone mason and he was terrific. He brought 20 years experience to our project and it showed in his excellent craftsmanship. The outside of the turret was actually finished in 4 days while the iron-railed  Juliet balcony was completed right along side. 
One of our favorite features is the floor pavers and bull-nosed step that give the entrance a very  "grand" but inviting look. The landscapers designed the pavers so that right by the door we could have small cypress trees, bushes and flowers with irrigation.  The entrance also has new 14 foot solid mahogany doors and Steve finished the roof with cedar planking. (Not one wood knot in any of the planks!) We will hang a gorgeous bronzed chandelier as the final touch.



Monday, December 6, 2010

Chapter 21 - Finished Roof & HVAC

The house had the original Heating, Venitaling and Air-Conditioning system from 1978. It was time for a huge update. We worked with a great company called Wrich. It's hard to belive that right before we bought this house two families were living here and it was not heated or air-conditioned. (Not even the mice
survived as we found out when we took down the ceilings).

It wasn't as simple as just changing out the units. Some of the refrigeration lines were broken and had to be replaced. The lines run through the ceiling of the house. After most of the ceilings and drywalls were replaced, textured and painted, it was about mid-October. Temperatures were beginning to cool down in Las Vegas. So we called the AC guys to install the new heaters and air-conditioners now rather than at the end of the project.

The air-conditioners sit on the roof of the house and therefore, they had to bring out a crane to hoist these 1,000 lb units up on top of the roof. It was kinda cool. Pun intended.

 

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Chapter 20 - Back Porch Build

Watch what happens to the back of the house...

April 2009 - The Original House back view

The balcony was rotting away with old artifical turf and decaying floorboards

We removed the railings, floor and structure of the back porch

Next, we removed all the old windows on both the first and second floor and reframed the entire back of the house

We began to rebuilt by creating new footings and posts to hold the new, much larger balcony

While we restructured the back porch, we also installed brand new top-of-the-line Anderson windows across the entire back of the house

We added an access door from the loft room as well as a new window and new roof lines that flank both sides of the balcony

The roof line on the right side sits right under the picture window of the Master Bathroom.

Laying down the floor of larger, half-round balcony
The Master Bedroom has a new beautiful sliding glass double door
 
The balcony and porch along with the roof line are complete and the "look" of  balcony began to take shape.


Lathe (chicken wire) is applied so that stucco can be added.

A thin sheet of concrete is smoothed over the floor of the balcony

The roof of the porch is beautiful cedar planks.
With the roof completed, we added new and repaired old stucco. Then we destroyed the red-dyed concrete patio.


The back porch columns ready to be assembled

The Back Porch compete!

THE BACK OF THE HOUSE NOW!!!