PARDON OUR DUST
October 21, 2001
Making the Place Sing
Musicians revive a Silver Lake
bungalow with a little help from their friends.
By KATHY PRICE-ROBINSON, Special to the Times
Reflecting on the 80-year-old, two-bedroom bungalow that she and
her boyfriend nurtured from a "disgusting, crumbling mess
of a house" into a polished cottage radiating warmth and
appeal, Kerrie White doesn't see just plaster, wood and glass.
She sees herself.
"This is like our child. We brought it to life," said
White, 39, a musician and singer, who helped pull off the whole-house
remodel for just $16,300.
The "adventure," as the couple described it, began late
last year, when White and Jesse Loya, 45, also a musician, began
looking for a starter house to buy in Los Angeles. Their agent,
Paul Kellogg of Coldwell Banker in Beverly Hills, at first showed
them houses that were in move-in condition.
But the couple weren't necessarily looking for something clean
and pristine.
They wanted a house that "felt good" to them, no matter
what the condition.
"There's an intangible feeling about a place," said
White, who found that some fixed-up houses had such bad vibes
that she "couldn't even walk in."
The couple, who have three school-age children between them, also
wanted a house for less than $200,000. Although they were pre-qualified
for a $325,000 loan, Loya didn't want to commit to such a large
mortgage, which would cramp his and White's flexible work-parenting
lifestyle.
"We could do it," Loya said, "if we both got ...
jobs." "Real jobs," White emphasized.
So they asked Kellogg to start showing them houses that were in
disrepair. "I don't care if you think it's gross," White
told him. "I want something that's a total dump."
Kellogg started faxing them listings that might fit the bill.
They drove through Silver Lake and Atwater neighborhoods looking
for possibilities, even vacant homes that had been boarded up.
"They were in no hurry," Kellogg said. "They were
intent on finding the right house."
It took six months to locate the bungalow--a new listing in Silver
Lake priced at $185,000--and White instantly knew it was the one.
She liked what she called "the bones" of the square
cottage sitting high off the street, its entrance sheltered by
a covered porch and flanked by French doors. Never mind the cracked
steps, weed-strewn yard, peeling paint and crumbling siding.
"We want it," she told the agent, even before she looked
inside.
Loya was sold when he walked around the house to the backyard.
"There was a big avocado tree with horizontal branches,"
he recalled. "The kids [had] said, 'Find us a house with
a big tree."'
Once they got inside, White focused on the home's positives: the
traditional bungalow floor plan, wooden floors, thick moldings
and a built-in dining room cabinet. The crumbling ceilings, walls
and plumbing, and the odors left by transients who had sought
shelter there, didn't faze her. Only later would she and Loya
discover the rat's nest inside a wall.
Using a key, White scratched through layers of paint covering
the fireplace facade and came upon exquisitely hued antique tiles.
"We were thrilled," she said. "It had this wonderful
energy."
In Kellogg's estimation, the purchase was wise. Comparable properties
on the street--those with two bedrooms and one bath but fixed
up--were selling for more than $300,000, and White had experience
with remodeling. Said Kellogg: "She really knew what she
was getting into."
The first step in the four-month remodel was extensive demolition:
removing rotted ceilings in all but the living room, taking the
plaster off half the walls, gutting the bathroom and kitchen and
hauling away piles of junk.
Loya did much of the work but got help from day laborers and friends
(referred to by the couple as "musicians with skills").
Each received $10 an hour. At $4,000, the dumpster fees and demolition
labor totaled nearly one-quarter of the remodeling cost.
Loya then stripped the wooden floors. Hunched over the task one
day, perspiration from his brow dripped onto the floor. "Our
sweat is in this house," White said.
Midway through the remodel, White began to feel the immensity
of what she had taken on. The walls looked like someone had taken
a shotgun to them; she and Loya argued over various issues, and
a robber stole $1,000 worth of tools. "It was beating me
down," she said, but they pressed on.
Cleaning the moldings of layers of old paint required experimentation.
At first, Loya tried a chemical paint stripper, but it made a
mess. Next, he took a heat gun to them. "Hours and hours
and hours with one little piece," White said. Finally, he
decided to skim joint compound over moldings that were left in
place to get a smooth surface, and then he painted. Moldings that
were taken down were run through a planer.
To replace the walls and ceilings, Loya did much of the work with
the help of a day laborer who turned out to be an excellent craftsman.
In outfitting the kitchen and bathroom with appliances and fixtures,
Loya and White put their scavenger skills to use scouring their
favorite salvage yard, Santa Fe Wrecking Co. in Los Angeles, looking
in dumpsters and visiting the sites of building demolitions. They
took an old metal sink unit to a friend's auto body shop for a
paint job.
"That's GM white," Loya said of the kitchen sink.Despite
extensive searching, the couple could not find proper-size wooden
windows for the bedroom and kitchen, so Loya made them by hand.
A musician friend replaced the plumbing and laid tile in the bathroom.
With the interior of the house nearing completion, the wall and
trim colors were major considerations. Loya and White say they
are sensitive to subtle differences of shade and tint.
At first, they tried a green wall color made by Ralph Lauren,
a favorite brand of White, who once worked in the fashion industry.
But it contained too much gray for their taste. In fact, White
told Loya, "If you paint the house that color, I'm not going
to live here."
Finally, Loya suggested they use one of his favorite brands, Martha
Stewart, which he had used in his previous residence.
They chose Shagreen, satin finish, for the walls, and Buttercream,
high gloss, for trim in the living and dining rooms. For the ceilings
in the kitchen and master bedroom, White chose Beach Glass, a
very pale blue.
The exterior of the house still needs paint and repair, and Loya
plans to start on that soon.
Asked to add up the cost of the interior work, White adds one
final item: "Boyfriend with skills--priceless."
* * *
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