Mini Kitchen Upgrades

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Mary

we’ve been focusing on the bad and the ugly- our kitchen is definitely one of the good parts of our house! The previous owners did some serious upgrades to the 1958 original kitchen and although it’s still not my dream kitchen, it’s pretty darn nice:

Among it’s best features are:

Lots of counter space- There are 3-4 solid “work stations” around the kitchen which is very luxurious
Granite Counters- they’re great work surfaces and hide dirt/crumbs amazingly well (probably too well)
Lots of Drawers- our last house had one kitchen drawer and I think this one has 10… we actually had to get creative in finding things to put in drawers (we have a tupperware drawer, a paper/plastic-ware drawer, TWO utensil drawers…)
Nice and Sturdy cabinets that are not white (I HATE white cabinets- they are impossible to keep clean for people who use their kitchen and don’t have house keepers!)
Big enough for 2 people to cook in at once (if those 2 people get along well enough to cook together… Andy and I are working on that!)
Under-mount sink with one large/deep basin and one small/deep basin. I love that we can fit our biggest pots and cutting boards completely in the sink and Andy loves that it’s easy to clean around the sink.
Work space next to the stove. Our last house didn’t have that and I really missed being able to set things down next to the stove/oven as well as having a utensil container, salt and pepper within arms reach.
The step-up bar. Provides extra dining space (it’s where we have breakfasts) and also a good place for someone to sit (like Andy in the picture above) while someone else is cooking. While I like the step-up feature because it keeps the non-cooker(s) from eating the food being prepared on the counter belowAndy thinks it would be nicer to have a single level for more continuous workspace.

While the kitchen was probably the nicest part of the house on move in day (almost 4 months ago now!), we have made a few tweaks since then:

First off, the house didn’t come with a refrigerator (or washer and dryer). We contemplated living out of our three chest freezers in the garage (frozen food, beer and the lager fridge/mug freezer)- but we quickly decided that we’d like to have the luxury of a refrigerator/freezer in the kitchen… plus there was only a single outlet in the garage so that option probably wasn’t all too feasible. We ended up purchasing a stainless steel Samsung side-by side from Sears. It was delivered on move-in-day without a hitch. Because of itsposition next to the peninsula, there isn’t enough clearance for a swing-door or french door style fridge- hence our choice of a side-by-side. We also like that the magnetic sides are exposed so we didn’t lose the “central hub” of our house (not shown so as to maintain the image that we are neat-freaks). The positioning of the fridge creates a bit of a “nook” between the left side of the fridge and the back wall of the kitchen:

It’s perfect for storing our pots (whose bottoms aren’t exactly all that shiny and clean… so it’s nice that they’re only seen if you’re IN the kitchen) and ikea step stool. This side of the fridge also has a magnetic rack which holds aprons and lunch bags.

Working our way counter-clock-wise around the kitchen, we get to probably the easiest improvement we’ve done:

The $10 Ikea wine rack above the microwave! It holds 4 bottles hich is perfect for the 2 of us (I won’t mention how often we have to refill it).

Next up, the biggest change we made in the kitchen so far. We went from this:

To This:

We were a little uneasy about the wiring job seen in the first photo, but it turned out that the kitchen was wired for two fixtures (whereas they were previously using one giant one and had spackled over the other wires coming out of the ceiling). Coincidentally we purchased two track light fixtures (from Lowes, $50 each) that worked out perfectly! After Andy’s pro installation, I just had to prime and paint where the old fixture was and we were all set. We also installed a dimmer but find ourselves using full power when we’re working in the kitchen- it’s still nice to have options though. I love the lights now- because they can be angled we don’t have to worry about the beam blocking the light. They also cast a nice glow on the cabinets.

The last upgrade we made was turning half of the closet into a pantry:

All it took was a $35 adjustable Costco metal shelf. Our kitchen doesn’t have as much storage as I’d like (I am to kitchen equipment what Andy is to Beer equipment)- so adding shelving for pantry items and cleaning products, along with the pot racks, has really helped. In a perfect world I would love to have a walk-in pantry- or even a slide-out pantry- but that’s not very realistic. This setup actually works out quite nicely!

Thus ends the upgrades we’ve made so far. Since a complete kitchen re-model isn’t exactly in the budget (nor needed) we’ve narrowed down our to-dol ist to a few things that would make our kitchen even more functional:

A gas range. Not only do I prefer gas to electric, the electric range doesn’t have enough electricity to run the oven plus a burner on high at the same time- which makes for lots of frustration and many trips to the electrical panel to reset the tripped breakers. Our goal is to get this done by Thanksgiving so I can cook Thanksgiving dinner with the new range- we’ll see if that happens or if we have a microwaved feast!
A new faucet. Ours actually LOOKS pretty neat and we really like the CONCEPT of it (pull out sprayer, single handle, goose neck)

but the problem is, most of the time it looks like this:

The mechanism that holds the head in place is broken. Also, there’s no logic to what handle position gets the hottest water and what position gets the coldest water (hint: NOT all the way to the left/right or even right/left).

A new dishwasher. Our house actually came with a brand new hot point dishwasher (bottom of the line), but its major draw backs are that dishes don’t come out clean and the racks are in terrible positions. I wish we could have paid $300 more for the house to get a dishwasher that worked. Oh Well.
A range hood. We currently have a ceiling exhaust fan (like you’d find in a 50-year-old bathroom-as seen above next to the track lighting) that is a couple feet away from the stove (separated by a 12″ beam) which does not cut it. If bacon is made for breakfast you can still smell it at dinner time. I’m not sure if this should trump a new dishwasher or not… both are pretty annoying- but not as annoying as the range.
Back to the step-up bar area… the construction is a bit wonky so people with long legs (a.k.a. Andy) tend to bang their knees on sharp corners. I personally don’t know what they are talking about.

Lowest on our wish list (because it’s only aesthetic and not functional) is re-facing the cabinet doors. HGTV tells us it’s “MUCH CHEAPER” to get new doors than totally new cabinets- and our cabinets are great- we just don’t fully appreciate the door style. The “style” (or “Theme” as Andy would say) doesn’t match the house nor our vision for it. It’s more “Italian Villa” than “Mid-Century Modern”)

All in all, it’s probably the nicest kitchen I’ve ever had- which makes cooking more fun (unless you plan to use the oven and stove).

Mirabelle’s Home For the Elderly

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Mary

Before it became casa Krone, our house was…

Mirabelle’s home for the elderly (or Mirabelle’s Place for short).

!!!Disclaimer: everything from here on is based solely on rumor and hypothesis!!!

Mirabelle’s home for the elderly was a sort of nursing home for elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease… and yes, there was a sign above the garage that said “Mirabelle’s Place.” Apparently the neighbors complained (our neighborhood is 100% residential and not at all zoned for nursing homes…) and Mirabelle (the lady to ran it/ previous owner of our house) had to take it down. The lasting affect of that sign, however, is that our neighbors still refer to our house as “Mirabelle’s Place” (we overheard or neighbor telling his landscaping contractor last weekend: “yeah… they’re the people who bought Mirabelle’s place.”). Knowing this explains SOOO much about our house:

The handicap accessibility (ramps off the side deck, hand rails in the bathrooms, zero-clearance showers, the buzzer)
The “security” (security cameras, fire alarm, the “fire extinguisher inside” sign, the 10 smoke detectors)
The exceptionally high number of bedrooms (6 total: the 3 intended bedrooms, the office/bedroom, the “beer room” plus about 25% of the garage was made into a room (complete with a sliding door to the atrium, white paint and a textured ceiling)
Every single “room” listed above has a sliding door to either the outside or the atrium- so our house has 9 exterior doors (including the dog door) plus 3 doors into the atrium.
The mail man was shocked to find out there are only 2 people living here… we still get mail for about 10 different people.
The laundry room didn’t have a dryer exhaust vent (we added one into the garage which apparently is a big no-no that we’ll have to fix some day but works for now- as long one of the garage doors is open)
There IS a dryer exhaust vent in the living room… apparently that was the “laundry room”
The copious statues and fountains… elderly people like that sort of thing and their eyesight is generally not good enough to tell that, up-close, they were hideously ugly (or even from far away… you can see more than one fountain if you Google Earth our house!)
The many many many plants that require hand-watering (there is no in-ground sprinkler system… or there was but someone decided to concrete around it). We recently learned that one of Mirabelle’s patients used gardening as her therapy and spent ALL DAY EVERY DAY tending to the plants. We learned this when we confirmed our neighbor’s suspicion that we were discarding two green waste bins full of tree/shrub/plant every week (she said “my son asked if that was a tree he saw in your garbage can”). Our plan is to “simplify” the landscaping… and my theory is that some time in 2012 we’ll have it down to just the stuff we want (e.g. grass). Yeah, we have no intentions of renting a dumpster if we can discard stuff for free every week in our green waste bins (yeah, we have 2… it was a happy misunderstanding when we started garbage collection service). On that note- if anyone is interested in any type of plant life (and we pretty much have the whole spectrum)- it’s yours for the digging.
Mirabelle’s husband was the resident handy man… so a lot of our house was “DIY” (not in the “wow, your DIY wedding details were so personal” way, but more in the “uh, are you sure you’re qualified to DIY electrical work?” way). Sadly, I think he had some medical problems (I heard he fell off the roof)… so perhaps that had something to do with the quality of his work. I also think it had something to do with the eventual closing of Mirabelle’s place / foreclosure of our house (which, by the way, we bought from the same back that owned it… which worked out magnificently for us… not so well for Mirabelle).

So, now you have the full history of Mirabelle’s Place (as told through rumor and hypothesis)!

What’s an Eichler?

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Mary

Andy and I have been living in San Rafael for over 3 years now, so “Eichler” has become a natural part of our vocabulary- but before we moved up here, we had no idea what it meant. On our very first trip to San Rafael (after my job interview but before I accepted the job) we talked to a (crazy) real-estate agent to get a feel for the different neighborhoods and housing costs (by the way, the WORST way to find a realtor is to walk into a real estate office on a Saturday morning and start working with the first person you see!). Anyhow, not only did she tell us that housing prices in Marin were impervious to any down turns (that was December, 2007… turns out that she was wrong), she told us the only place we could afford to live (i.e. buy a house for less than $500,000) would be Petaluma… about 40 miles north of here with a killer commute… and that we wanted to avoid “Eichlerville” at all costs. Flash forward 3.5 years… we bought an Eichler in “Eichlerville” for less than $500,000 (the same model a block away sold for $1,000,000 in 2007). Anyhow… that was our introduction to Eichlers.

Eichler homes are pretty unique- I think the best way to describe them are “California Modern” (although our particular Eichler can best be described as “George Jetson Remodels with Home Depot Clearance Supplies and a Roman Palance theme”). Oh, and when I say unique- I should specify that while about a dozen of your neighbors have your exact same house (or its mirror image) taken over the general US population, they are unique.

While many people assume they were designed by Joseph Eichler- he was just the developer (kinda like the guy Eiffel who gets all of the credit for the Eiffel tower but he didn’t actually design it). Eichler developed homes in various neighborhoods in northern and southern California between 1950 and 1974 (I think he has a couple Eichlers in New York… but flat roofs/ no insulation and NY are not a good match). The architect firm that actually designed our house was called “Anshen and Allen”. Anyhow, Eichler’s developments are pretty distinct for the types of houses they contain- very Frank Lloyd Write-ish, they epitomize “Mid-Century-Modern.” I’ve detailed some of the distinctive Eichler features below

To get you oriented, our floor plan is Anshen & Allen E-21. Imagine a back yard at the top of the picture and afront yard at the bottom with neighbors on the left and right. The layout above is pretty accurate- the only exceptions are the layout of the master bath (Bath 2) and the kitchen are slightly different. Plus “Family Room”=Our Dining room, “Bonus Room”=Our Beer Room, “Office/Bedroom”=Andy’s office and the Bottom Left Bedroom=Mary’s Sewing room.

Atriums (a.k.a. holes in the middle of the house): Pros: Makes an awesome entry-way and a pretty cool house layout. Versatile- people have done all sorts of stuff with them (added retractable roofs, sealed them off completely, put in hot tubs, ponds, etc.). Adds additional “outdoor” space that’s more private and quieter (no street noise) than the front or back yard. If you stand at the right spot and look through the giant hole in the roof above the atrium it gives a nice view of the hills. Cons: None, they’re my favorite Eichler feature!

Glass walls to “bring the outdoors in.” Pros: Really cool looking (unless your outside looks like a cheap blind person’s interpretation of a roman palace). Let in lots of light. If your glass company writes “to replace single pane of glass” on your homeowners’ insurance claim when you break one, you can get them replaced with dual-paned glass for a $50 deductible. Cons: Let in too much light to sleep without curtains (which are expensive). Attract lawn-mower debris (see insurance tip above).

Sliding doors (originally even for closets and cabinets- but ours have been replaced) Pros: They don’t slam (Andy’s least favorite thing ever is a door slamming). Allow for lots of light. Cons: TOO MANY DOORS! Our house has 9 exterior doors (albiet the previous ownwers added 2 of them and we added 1- Honey’s dog door)- all but 2 exterior doors (the front door and dog door) are sliders- but there are 3 more interior sliders! Easy to walk into (sort of the reason I can only bend the tip of my pinky 23 degrees. I’m not the only one- every dog we’ve had at our house had tried to walk/run through one). A sliding garage door is not very practical- the hardware gets rusty and hard to move and you can only have one half open at a time.

Post-And-Beam Construction with tounge and groove decking for ceilings. Pros: Really cool looking. Cons: Beams are prone to rotting and difficult/expensive to replace. Ceilings are difficult to patch and don’t accomodate recessed lighting (actually, any wiring is difficult).

Open floor Plans. Pros: Modern Layout. Cons: Making all of the rooms “go together”. Having 11 different types of flooring (9 pictured above) is not aesthetically pleasing.

Flat and/or Low Slope Roofs. Pros: None (doesn’t even look cool). Cons: No attic space or head room between ceiling and roof means no insulation. Prone to water pooling which leads to leaks.

Radiant Floor Heating. Pros: Keeps your feet warm! The air doesn’t dry out like it does with forced hot air (good if you and/or your dog have sensitive skin). Cons: The tubing that circulate the water embedded in the concrete slab can leak and degrade and eventually render themselves useless (more likely if the tubing is galvanized steel rather than copper like ours). I’ve also heard a rumor (from a Realtor, selling an Eichler with forced hot air) that radiant floor heating is more expensive than forced hot air. *Bonus flooring type in the picture above!

“Eichler Siding” (vertical siding with 2″-spaced grooves). Pros: Really cool looking and unique. Cons: one guy on the planet sells it and it’s really expensive. Actually, with a jig, router, and about 20,000 hours you can make your own out of flat siding sheets… which Andy considered but decided it’s probably worth the extra $25/sheet to have someone else put the lines in the siding.

Insulation Optional. Eichlers were catalog-order and the buyer could choose luxurious add-ons such as insulation. Apparently the original buyers of our house were not the type to splurge on luxurious insulation- we don’t have a lick of the stuff… unless you count the drywall-over-existing-paneling as insulation. Pros: None. It gets HOT in the summer and COLD in the winter. Cons: Obvious.

So, there you have it- Eichlers (ours in particular) in a nutshell!

The Quirks

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Mary

This lovely home that we own is full of quirks. Some of them cross the line to “what were they thinking” (like hard-wiring the atrium light with speaker wire) but there are some more fun less safety-hazard quirks too…

The School-House Fire Alarm:

This is one of my favorite features of our house- totally authentic and great for parties! For everyone who will ever be tempted to pull it when they visit, I’m not going to divulge whether it’s hooked up or not… but I will leave this hint: we WILL know when you pull it!

In the same vein, this guy:

Funny thing is, it’s on a hallway wall! Does it imply that if we got a sledge hammer and ripped down the wall (which will happen some day) we’d find a fire extinguisher inside?

Did I mention that our house is 100% handicapped accessible… literally? Like, it’s literally been retro-fitted for the handicapped? We have ramps, two zero-clearance showers (no tubs), and hand-rails everywhere. Luckily we don’t really need them as hand-rails yet, but they do make nice towel bars:

I will admit I do use these hand-rails when trying to balance on one leg in our 2’x2′ shower trying to shave my other leg (and I have also hit my head on it a couple times too):

Last (well not really last, there are tons more but that’s all for another day) but not least is another favorite, which resides in close proximity to my ultimate favorite quirk:

What is it? An indoor door-bell? Nope! It’s a Buzzer! So, if someone is at the front door and I walk to the kitchen, look across the atrium and through the window to see who it is, deem them allowed to enter our house but don’t want to walk the extra 20 feet to the front door to let them in, I push the buzzer and buzz them in. Yup- just like grandma’s apartment building (except we’re not 85, not on the 6th floor, and don’t live in an apartment building).

Statues, Statues Everywhere!!!

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Andy

As of today we have two statues. Our Beer Monk who encourages me to brew and looks over the atrium (he stands about 18 inches high) and our garden gnome who encourages us to travel. He stands about 8 inches tall and is a close relative of that gnome from travelocity

So, in my opinion, statues ARE NOT REALLY a very appealing Eichler “enhancement”. But, to each is own (design is a personal thing).and I guess we just choose not to have 9 foot concrete fountains and 6 foot tall concrete ladies painted in sexy white latex paint surrounding our house. I know, weird.

To date I’ve sold TWO fountains weighing in at about 1000 pounds each. Two lions that easily weighed 250 pounds each. A 300 pound lady, a 100 pound bench, a mini fountain (100 pounds, not pictured, from our atrium) and some odds and ends (about another 100 pounds).

Without any exaggeration that’s 2,900 pounds of STATUARY!!! Is that a word? Oh well, here the are!

Backyard fountain (on the first week we moved in, April):

The “Cherube” fountain out front:

Sexy Latex Lady!!

Grrrr, 250 pound lion:

Odds and Ends:

Replacing the Eichler Electrical Panel

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Andy

Here’s what a typical 100 Amp Zinsco panel looks like:

Our Zinsco electrical panel that was on our Eichler REALLY needed replacing. There were actual black char marks around the panel (which is evidence of arcing) and there was a significant leak directly above the panel. Most electricians will say that a 1953 Zinsco panel is faulty by design (link here). In my opinion I think there are two main problems:

1). The breakers are VERY old and old breakers tend to get stuck or locked in place (a locked breaker that does not trip can arc or cause a fire from excess heat).

2). The design has aluminum bars (where the breakers attach) that can oxidize over time.

Also, I do not think the box was water tight but I can’t be sure.

So, here’s what our electrician did:

1). First, he pulled a permit from the county (we do not live within city limits so we only needed one permit).

2). Next, he ordered the panel, grounding rods, and heavy gauge copper grounding wire. (the grounding rods are large 6 ft. copper rods).

3). With the permit displayed he setup a time for PG&E to shut off the power. Their availability wasn’t too great so we had to wait an extra 2 weeks.

4). With the power off he re-framed a small portion of the house where the old panel was. Oh, did I mention that a corner of the house was rotted from a leaky roof? Anyway, the new framing made the new box fit correctly.

5). He also “bonded” the gas line to the water line to the grounding rods. This guarantees that all the piping is grounded in the home. As an extra safety measure he put in two grounding rods (now a code requirement).

6). After sitting in the dark until almost 1am PG&E came out and turned the power on (bad PG&E!!)

-Andy

For reference, the panel is a “Square D” 200 Amp Outside Surface Mount Panel.

The Beginning…

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Andy

(Photo taken April, 2011)

So, we’re all moved in!! Well, at least our stuff is all moved in. My wife and I are moved into our Eichler and have just eclipsed 2 months. There are quiet a few “issues” in the home but nothing we can’t fix. I wanted to post an initial blog and then focus on the “issues” one by one.

In the last 2 months we have accomplished A LOT of work. We’ve removed about 3,000 pounds of statues, removed a 30 ft tree and 2 palm trees and moved a couple tons of dirt (literally). Probably the biggest (and most expensive) change is replacing the electrical panel. We now have a 200 amp service!!

Here’s to the Eichler Blog!!