Our First Home

Beth and I purchased our first home in May of 2003. It's a beautiful little 3 bedroom house about 3 miles from beach in Torrance, CA. The house is about 1100 square feet, sits on a 5000 square foot lot, and was built in the early 1950's. Although the house was built decades before we were born, it has been wonderfully maintained and we love it. This page was created to share some of the home improvement projects that we're working on with loved ones back home who help us out with advice. It's also fun to see progress on our little projects and share what we learn with others

Front Lawn Before shot (May 2003)	Front Window Planter Before (May 2003)	I planted Birds of Paradise and Split Leaf Philodendron in the planter.
All of the rain we had this winter made my grass look great (April 2005)	The plants in the front planter are looking great. (April 2005)	I added a Lilly of the Nile to my front planter. (April 2005)

Starting point	Planters are in and we're working on the sprinklers	The big plants are in
A little gazebo provides a nice place to enjoy outside meals and shades my orchids from direct sunlight	Gazebo from Banana Tree	Gazebo from Side Porch

So far I've made 1' tall raised planters from about 4500 lbs of retaining wall stones. I've filled it with 5.5 cu yards of dirt and I've installed sprinklers. I've planted Queen Palms and Giant Birds of Paradise so far. I plan to add some large flower pots with Sago Palms on either side of the gazebo. I also plan to add some smaller plants to fill in the bare spots and add some landscape lights.

... Back Yard looking East	Back Yard Looking West before adding new plants.	Picture showing how the plants are growing in
New Plants along the West wall	We got a beautiful orange (Santana) hibiscus to go between the banana tree and the bougainvillea	Close up of the flowers on the white hibiscus
We planted a Holiday Avacado tree and a Bearss Lime tree in half wiskey barrels. I can't wait to make some guacamole from the avacados and enjoy a fresh slice of home grown lime in my Corona!	This is our Purple Queen Bouganinvillea. I plan to let it grow on the trellis and along the top of the fence	I'm excited that my Calla Lilly seems to like its new home and had decided to bloom. I hope that this spot isn't too bright or hot for it when summer comes around.

Unfortunately, we didn't take many "before" shots of the interior before the remodel. The remodel involved scraping the acoustic ceiling material off, smoothing the plaster beneath, installing crown moulding and new door casings, and painting every room. We also installed new modern windows and had plantation shutters installed. We love it.

We'll use this as a "Before" photo	Dinner with Don & Simon	Beth & Don
Dining room and color scheme	Plantation Shutters	Eventually we want to remove this wall so the living room, dining room, and kitchen will all be one space
	I enjoy keeping a few blooming orchids and bromeliads on display.

Much of my free time revolves around SCUBA diving, building high voltage machines, motorcycles, electronics, and a host of other hobbies that benefit from a good work shop. My modest 2 car garage held a lot of promise as a shop but was not dry walled and was a hodge-podge of poorly constructed shelving and dangerously out-of-code electrical wiring. After considerable planning, I decided the most effective use of the space would require reworking the electrical, installing drywall, painting the floor, building custom cabinets, and building a nice workbench.

This is the starting point.	dry wall and electrical are done.	floor is done
getting ready for shelves	wall supports for shelves	floor slopes so this was challenging
Brian and I did all of this in 1 day	detail of hardwood edges and cleats	finished product - isn't it beautiful!
natural stain & 2 coats of heavy poly	the closet is really great	here's the other wall

Many thanks to Brian Basura for his help with the project!
Thanks to Arnell & Janice Overstreet for the design work on the cabinets!

Every man needs a good solid work bench. After discussing it with a few friends, I discovered that one of my buddies had some 1.5" thick maple butcher block material left over from a construction job. It'll make the worlds nicest work bench.

Here's the base and the 2 sections of butcher block	I used a doweling jig to create holes every 6" for 3/8 dowels.	I have 4 pipe clamps on it while the glue dries.
	It's a wonderful bench. My tools are close by and the dive gear fits on the bottom shelf.