Estate Sale

our new bowl

Bowl with Bauer Orange glaze

pottery imprint 

The estate sale for the property we are purchasing happened today. Despite his dislike of estate sales/garage sales/flea markets, Eric joined me so that we would find something from the original owners that we could carry over into our home. I had narrowed it down to a couple of items, mostly bowls and ceramics, and Eric made the final selection on the bowl we bought. It was orange, naturally. The lady selling it mentioned it was Bauer. I did some research and discovered it is from Bauer Pottery, handmade in Los Angeles, with the original store closing in 1962, but with a new store open that sells Bauer 2000 pottery. It looks like it's an original piece from 1962 or prior, but even if it's not, it's still pretty awesome! (side note: there are apparently FOUR books on collecting Bauer Pottery)

Some other items I picked up that will find a home back in the home they came from:

• 2 illustrations of mid-1920's cars (I will be spray painting the frames a different color)
• 1 White Horse whiskey tin from Scotland, that has cool typography and imagery on the sides
• 1 pin-and-sequins ornament that reminds me of the ornaments from my childhood. 

I'm excited to keep these few items as part of the house since we will start with asbestos abatement, tearing up carpets and possibly some other demolition in the coming months.

tin from Scotland

interior label on tin

With a repaint of the frames, these will be ready to hang

ornament for the christmas tree

Inspections

2.17.15

We had the final round of inspections today…and the general consensus of the tradesmen were that the house is old but well maintained. Unfortunately, the fact that it’s an old house means that there’s items in the house that don’t meet up with today’s health/building safety codes. Like asbestos. and probably lead. We know at least 2 things have asbestos: the airducts and the popcorn ceiling. Possibly more—we’ll get that tested. And we’ve been watching the Holmes Inspection Collection, so we want these fixed and fixed right. Every day it feels like we’re adding one more thing to the to-do/to-pay-for list. and they’re adding up. All the stuff I was originally going to do myself—nope. I guess that leaves me more time to work on art! :D

It sounds like a money pit, but i’m not entirely sure it is. Half of the homes on that show were new builds, done in what i’ll call “cheap and cheerful”—looks pretty on the outside but not solid on the inside. This house is solid on the inside, but old. old things break and need to be replaced. If we didn’t know we wanted to change things in the kitchen and the bathroom and make things look much better than they are right now, then we could probably leave most of the stuff on our to-do list alone and never be bothered by it. but I’d rather address what i can BEFORE i move in. With items I choose. This is not a money pit but an investment. It’s a better savings plan then renting will ever be. 

I know all about research, planning, sketching, sketching again, reworking some more, painting, repainting, tweaking until just so. That’s what this house is…a piece of art in progress.

Escrow

2.15.15 

(started this blog on Tumblr then decided we didn't like the interface, so I have to repost the first two posts)

we’re currently in escrow. The inspection says the house isn’t going to fall down around us, and it seemed to survive the Northridge quake mostly intact (possibly a broken chimney), but it’s old. It was built in 1956. The son of the original owner is selling it. She was 92, when she fell, went to the hospital, and passed away at the hospital. It looks like a grandma lives there, but we’ve already made grand plans on what we want the house to look like. then we’ve revised them. already. many times. The roof is “improperly installed” with multiple layers of shingles. That will have to be updated at some point. The AC is 22 years old; the water heater 16. We’ll have to start saving for all of those, so we’ve already changed our original plans of gut and rebuild to paint and wait-and-see. But we want to make this place ours much more than the condo was. We have some serious plans on what to do, and Eric and I are excited about going to find deals on cool old(ish) stuff to add

We swung by Ojai again and found a cool place called deKor & Co. It’s pretty awesome and seems affordable, but i’m sure they’ll have new stuff by the time we want to go again. I want the galoshes-boots from there too. :)