Send Email: kathyprice@aol.com
Pardon Our Dust
Submit a Project for "Pardon Our Dust"
PARDON OUR DUST
The Second Time Around
A woman rescues her childhood home from disrepair, finding new joy in
renovating an old address.
When Deb Mabari bought the 1930's bungalow she grew up in, she was finally
able to pull a stunt she could never have gotten away with as a child.
First, she rode the bike around the living room and down the hall. Then,
her skateboard.
After that, she called her mother, who had since moved to Colorado and
said: "Mom, guess what I'm doing? Bouncing the ball in the house!"
That giddiness soon faded for Mabari, 34, and her girlfriend, Diane Dingman,
39, with whom she bought the house in 1996. Before long, the two first-time
homeowners grasped how difficult would be their task: to transform the
1930's house from the dump it had become over the years to the jewel they
hoped for, an enterprise completed last year after a massive $150,000
remodel.
"We realized this was going to be an expensive endeavor," says
Mabari, an advertising and marketing consultant.
The three-bedroom, two-bath house where little Deb lived with her parents
and sister was then a neatly tended bungalow, set just off Melrose in
a quiet neighborhood. More than a dozen neighbor kids played ball in the
street.
But after the house was sold in the late 1980s, it went into decline.
Paint peeled. Tin foil covered the windows. Tenants parked cars in the
front yard and let three large dogs trash the back yard. Once-tended rose
bushes, their overgrown vines tangled in security bars, had died.
Even though Mabari lived in an apartment nearby, she avoided the house.
"When you drive by and it looks like (that)," she says, "it
breaks your heart."
In 1996, though, Mabari was looking for a house to buy after her accountant
told her she needed a tax write-off. One day, she took a shortcut to work,
and drove past the distressed house. There she saw a "For Sale"
sign. The asking price was $227,000.
She called Dingman, who works in television production, and said: "I
found the house we're going to buy."
After making an offer of $187,000, Mabari and Dingman agreed to buy the
house for $208,000.
Even though the two homeowners had neither money nor equity to pay for
a big remodel, they nonetheless started planning one.
For help, they turned to Dingman's two best friends, Los Angeles designers
Rick Spooner and Everardo H. Garcia, sho proclaimed they had "fabulous"
ideas for the house.
By the end of the year, the four had come up with a set of blueprints,
but it would be several years before the remodel began.
"There's nothing wrong with dreaming," Mabari says, "and
having those dreams come true. Patience is a virtue."
The plans called for removing the wall that separated the kitchen from
the living room, to create a great room. The modest kitchen would be expanded
into a small family room, and would include a granite-topped island and
deep pantry.
The home's ancient plumbing and electrical systems would be replaced,
and the closets outfitted by a closet company. To bring more light into
the hallway, the doors that led from there to the three bedrooms and main
bathroom would be single-light French doors with frosted glass inserts.
The wooden floors would be restored or replaced as necessary.
On the exterior, the "moderne" architectural style would be
restored to preserve the rounded entry porch overhang and divided-light
windows. Any new windows would be custom made to match the originals,
and the house would be replastered.
"We wanted to keep it in the same style," Dingman explained.
While remodeling plans were being developed, the women set out to make
the house livable: The first task was to have "cottage cheese"
acoustical material scraped off the ceilings. Then, Mabari and Dingman
took down a large and overgrown tree in the front yard, which brightened
the house considerably.
Asssting them was Willie Offer, Mabari's childhood chum whose paretns
still lived in the neighborhood. In all, six families Mabari knew as a
child still live nearby.
In 1998, the couple, tiring of the long wait for the remodel, repainted
the kitchen as a stopgap measure so that "we didn't kill each other
and blow up the house," Dingman explained. "We couldn't deal
with it anymore."
By 1999, thanks to several years of a booming real esate market, the house
had appreciated enough so that $96,000 could be borrowed against the equity.
The rest of the money for the remodel, about $50,000, came from earnings.
When it came time to find a contractor, the women looked no further than
John C. Cran, a contractor they had met when he was sent out by a fireplace
shop to repair the handle on the flue. Mabari was amazed at his punctuality.
"He showed up on time on the day he said he would," she says,
still sounding surprised. "That's why he got the (remodeling) job."
Another contractor bid on the plans, and while the two contractors' bids
were nearly identical, the homeowners chose Cran primarily because of
his respectful attitude toward them.
"He never blew me off," says Dingman, who oversaw the remodel.
If the references are good, she suggests this simple guage for deciding
on a contractor: "If you have a problem, do you feel comfortable
calling him? If the answer is yes, you have your contractor."
The major part of the remodel started in September 1999 and lasted four
months. The crew arrived everyday at 7 a.m. and while Dingman was not
a morning person then, she says: "I am now."
Even with a set of design plans, Dingman found out, scores of decisions
needed to be made as the remodel moved forward. She recalls asking the
contractor many times: "Do we really have to tell you today?"
And to the store clerk who said a certain item wasn't in stock: "What
do you mean? They're installing it tomorrow."
Finding the perfect cabinets, for instance, was daunting. "We looked
everywhere," Mabari recalls. "Everywhere." In the end,
the cabinets were custom made of maple, accented with walnut insets and
walnut crown moldings. The doors on the upper cabinets are outfitted with
"Coke-bottle glass" that looks handmade.
Still not decided in 1996, and indeed not even by the time the remodel
started in 1999, was how to remodel the home's main bathroom. "We
didn't know what to do with it," Mabari says. It had its original
corner vanity and tile counter, which was cracked, and a tiled shower
that was small and dark.
One evening, the two homeowners and the two designers went out to dinner
and inspiration struck; they sketched out a new bathroom design on the
paper tablecloth. It called for a claw-foot tub at the end of the room,
a glass steam shower to the left and a soapstone counter with bowl-type
sinks. A wainscoting of bead board would help give the room a period feeling.
The final touch was the landscaping, which includes a slate walkway, sod
lawn, queen palms, drought-resistant plants and accent lights.
The homeowners have few regrets. Based on sales of other improved homes
in the neighborhood, they figure their home is worth around $600,000.
"We could talk about our house forever," Mabari says. "We're
so happy with it."
###
Source Book:
Project: Whole house remodel off Melrose in Los Angeles
Homeowners: Deb Mabari and Diane Dingman
Designers: Rick Spooner, Everardo H. Garcia, SK Associates, Redondo Beach,
(310) 937-1494
Builder: John C. Cran, John C. Cran Contracting, West Los Angeles, (310)
823-5548, jccran@aol.com
Landscaper: Gayle Martin, California Landscapes, Los Angeles, (323) 930-0808,
www.californialandscapes.com
Handyman: Willie Offer, La Crescenta, (818) 248-6048
Duration: 4 months
Cost: $150,000 (including appliances and furniture)