One of our neighbors kindly shared some pics of our place, before it went on the market. In fact, this was before it had been prepared for sale. I’m thinking if it had looked like this, we may have paid a little less. It had been neglected, to say the least. We’re pleased not to …
More →
Author Archives: Andy
-
welcome to the jungle
-
fireplace paint
We love our cinder-block fireplace. One problem –it’s yellow…and it shouldn’t be. More accurately, it’s smoke-stained white, but it amounts to the same. It doesn’t look too bad in this pic, but trust me on this. Anyhow, we set about re-painting it white. The texture of this cinder block makes it difficult to paint with …
More → -
beam me up
Post and beam construction is synonymous with Eichler homes, and similar modern home designs. This is what enables walls of glass and open living space. These ceiling beams are intended to be visible, and admired, as an architectural feature. And they need painting. We’d inherited brown painted beams in the living space, shown in this …
More → -
more doors
Our lime green front door was the first, and biggest, of four external door projects on our list. With that done, we tackled the door leading from our kitchen into the garage. It’s the white one you can see in the distance below. Previously, we couldn’t unlock this door from the garage side –we had …
More → -
arcadia sliders
Our single-pane glass sliding doors are 1955 originals. Not great for efficiency, but good for a dose of nostalgia. Arcadia manufactured most, if not all, Eichler sliders –we’ve certainly seen them on models built ten years after ours. We have three sets –office (above, near), master (above, far) and lounge (below). We can’t afford to upgrade …
More → -
halfway house
Now we’ve settled on paint colors, we’re systematically working our way through the house, painting all the trim, beams and (eventually) ceilings. We also plan to paint the odd feature wall. During this phase, the place will inevitably feel disjointed. Above, our new Cityscape gray trim (inside) butts against Oxford Brown trim (outside). Likewise, the …
More → -
door to door
The weather continues to be mild –at least to us, as we’ve grown accustomed to Boston winters. So, it seemed like a good opportunity to paint our front door, and fit new hardware. The weather’s relevant, as we’d be temporarily door-less. Et voilà… We’d love to install a new door, but budget dictated sticking with …
More → -
the office
Quick update on our office (technically called the “all-purpose room”). We revisited the wood paneling I told you about, to improve on the finish. We used more Citristrip to clear any paint remnants, cleaned with mineral spirits, then applied another coat of Restor-A-Finish. The results were worth the effort, though it’s difficult to do it justice …
More → -
door film
The glass panel beside our front door is completely transparent. People can see right into our living space, and get a good sense if anyone is home. Later Eichler models used opaque glass for this panel, so we decided to mimic that, while solving the security issue. The sunlight in the above ‘before’ shot means …
More →