A word about salvaging old materials for re-use. Charlie has a keen eye for what might be worthwhile to keep. Here is the pile of stuff we pulled out of the part of the house we pulled down: It’s all redwood, con-heart and some very very nice clear. Look at this piece: This is clearRead more about Re-using materials[…]
Part of what I was curious to see during the demolition is whether we could uncover any further clues as to the history of the house. What we found seems to just add more uncertainty. We believed that the part of the house being demolished was likely built in 1922 (whereas the original single-story partRead more about Clues in the demolition[…]
We initially thought it might take a year until we had permits in hand. Boy was that naive. First, for any uccoructure older than 50 years, you have to get a historical site & structures report (HSSR) done. This is intended to uncover whether there is anything historically significant about the house or property (inRead more about The Backstory: History[…]
In looking at older houses we stumbled upon the property we bought- a large half acre with an older house that, while interesting, was somewhat of a Frankenstein house that was built in 5 phases over about 80 years. For example, take a look at this nonsensical meeting of roof lines. The house was alsoRead more about The Backstory: Building the new while living in the old[…]
It all started when we were looking for a house in 2012. At the time (and it continues today) there was very very little on the market, especially in the area we wanted to live, the Upper East neighborhood of Santa Barbara. We wanted to live somewhere that was walk-able, and close to things, likeRead more about The Backstory: In the beginning … we just wanted to buy a house[…]