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Pardon Our Dust
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PARDON OUR DUST
Inspired Dad Really Turns on the Charm
Event designer transforms a Wilshire Vista relic into a
cozy cottage for two.
In his role as an event designer, Charles Banfield creates
enchanting settings. He's made a gypsy camp for a 70-year-old's birthday
and a shimmering river scene for a movie premiere.
So when it was time to prepare for Banfield's own special event--the adoption
of a child--he got right to work to create the proper backdrop.
The first step was to lose his Hollywood Hills rental and buy a house
in a neighborhood with "an 'Ozzie and Harriet' feeling to it."
As he searched the Wilshire Vista area of Los Angeles for a fixer-upper,
Banfield had one overriding goal: to find a home with charm, or at least
one with potential.
He thought he had found one, but after a hectic four-month, $200,000 remodel
on a dilapidated 1927 relic, Banfield admits he may have overshot his
mark.
The rock-faced English cottage and its whimsical garden are so welcoming
that passers-by stare, point, walk up the flagstone path, leave notes
and peer in the big French window. Last Halloween, so many kids knocked
on his storybook-like front door that he ran out of candy until the neighbors
bailed him out.
"It's almost too welcoming," Banfield says of his colorful corner
lot in the neighborhood north of Pico Boulevard near La Brea Avenue. "If
I had it do over again, I would add a low rock wall around the yard."
But that's not likely to happen now. He's more than busy raising his 5-year-old
daughter, Judith, whose adoption will be final this fall.
"I'm done with [the house]," he says. "I'm enjoying it
now."
When Banfield bought the house, however, it was not such a joy. Though
he was sold on the floor plan--living room flowing into dining room and
then to kitchen on the right side of the house, three bedrooms along a
hallway on the left--the exterior was "so far gone" that he
doubted his ability to transform it.
"It was laden with stuff," Banfield says, recalling the metal
awnings, plywood porch overhang, metal bars over louvered windows, dozens
of overgrown rose bushes and an assortment of antennas on the roof.
From the beginning, Banfield wanted to be the contractor for the remodel
and planned to hire professionals who were "friends of friends."
He already had a feel for construction, having grown up in a Frazier Park
house that his engineer father built but never finished. "I've lived
in sawdust all my life."
To get the work started, and to save about $20,000, Banfield did the demolition
with the help of day laborers.
In the ensuing weeks, Banfield and his workers filled nine 40-cubic-yard
dumpsters. He tore off the roofing, ripped out kitchen and bathroom cabinets
and fixtures, removed a closet in the foyer, knocked out the wall separating
the kitchen from the breakfast room and demolished a closet in the main
bathroom.
"There's nothing better than [swinging] a sledgehammer," he
says. "It's better than therapy."
With a vision of an English garden in his mind, Banfield decided that
none of the existing shrubs would fit, and so he removed them. Naturally,
this "scared the neighbors."
After the house was stripped, Banfield started pouring on the charm. The
most enchanting addition was the synthetic river rocks around the chimney,
over the front door, along the front steps, on the fences and all over
the garage, which was designed to resemble a carriage house. Rocks were
mixed from several manufacturers to ensure a variety of pattern and color.
The roof and rolled eaves were replaced. They should have been cedar,
Banfield said, but codes wouldn't allow it.
The remaining walls were plastered with buff-colored stucco, which Banfield
hopes will "age" soon. He yearns for rust stains under the exterior
lamps.
"Oh, I love that," he says, explaining that he wants an old
house with a "love worn" look.
Old, leaky, rattling windows and doors were not part of the vision, however,
and all were replaced, as were the plumbing and wiring. The home's original
oak floor, though worn and stained, was retained and not refinished.
Inside, Banfield discovered some serious problems--the breakfast room
floor had dropped 5 inches over the decades, termites had chewed some
wood and dry rot had done damage--that caused his original budget of $120,000
to swell to $200,000.
After the damage was fixed, the kitchen and original bathroom received
the most attention. The tiny kitchen was pushed into the breakfast room
and was further expanded with a multi-peaked ceiling into what was wasted
attic space.
All the cabinets, from Home Depot, have raised panels and are made of
birch. Banfield chose white tile for the counters and installed two sinks.
All appliances are white, in the mid-price range, and also were purchased
from Home Depot. (In retrospect, he said he should have spent a few thousand
more and "gone industrial" with high-end, stainless-steel appliances.)
The walls of the kitchen are covered with his collection of cranberry-colored
Transferware china, which he started collecting "before it was cool."
And the floor is covered with a tile that looks like stone, which he highly
recommends. "It hides everything," he says.
The main bathroom was reconstructed with a glass shower, deep tub and
two pedestal sinks. Another bathroom was added off the kitchen.
To create more wall space for furniture, nine windows were removed from
the north side of the house as they overlooked the neighbor's driveway
and brought in only the palest of light.
To get the house done in just a few months, Banfield says, he was there
three times a day to answer questions, make decisions and motivate the
workers: at 7 a.m. when they were starting the day, at noon and at 3:30
p.m. when they were packing up.
"I was cracking the whip big time," he recalls. "I wanted
to live here."
Once the house was done, Banfield chose the front and largest bedroom
for his own and turned the back bedroom into a den.
But when the opportunity to adopt Judith came along a few months later,
Banfield made some major changes. The single father gave her the master
bedroom and decorated it with a pink ceiling, a picket-fence bed and a
tea-party table.
"She needs room to play," he said.
He moved himself into the smallest bedroom and turned the den into his
new office. To be there for Judith when she gets home afternoons from
school two blocks away, he scaled down his business and gave up his outside
office.
Banfield doesn't consider this too much to sacrifice. Once you got to
know Judith, he says, "you'd give up a lot, too."
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